ULTRAMAN TIGA VOLUME 2: Past Sins, Future Dangers

Since its origin as a live-action Japanese TV show in the 1960s, the Ultraman franchise has proved extremely durable but become exceedingly complex. This new addition to the series attempts to help matters by giving superpowerful Ultraman Tiga a new human alter ego/host: young Daigo, a member of the G.U.T.S. (Global Unlimited Task Squad) corps, which protects Earth from invaders. Daigo is just beginning to understand his new abilities and limitations. He can, for example, transform himself into a 100-foot-tall armored warrior, but when a warning light flashes, he has only three minutes of power left to finish the battle. In this collection, Daigo must overcome huge alien hypnotists, power-hungry military officers controlled by a shape-changing monster with a sardonic sense of humor, and a long-buried foe who fleshes out some of the saga's background as he describes the ultramen arriving on this planet 30 million years before. Wong's script moves briskly from one fight scene to the next, and Lung's art effectively uses line work and color. The duo is capable of winking knowingly at readers while still taking the story seriously enough to be compelling. Ultraman is essentially comfort food, the equivalent of tomato soup and a grilled cheese sandwich; as long as consumers don't expect anything more elaborate, they'll come away satisfied. (Dec.)