Ultimon
Ultimon by Mike Becker
1340 - Rifts into an alien dimension open in the Ryukyu Trench, allowing giant monsters to break into our dimension and attack mainland Japan, destroying the Kamakura Shogunate. Eiji Tsuburaya, a samurai, is contacted by Ulti, the last survivor of an alien species wiped out in a similar Monster invasion, and is given the weapon their people used to destroy their own planet; the Ultraspark. By absorbing the energy from the monster dimension, Tsuburaya can use the Ultraspark power to temporarily transform into the first Ultimon & fight the monsters. He devotes himself to protecting Japan, training his apprentices to use the Ultraspark
1707 - The Ultimon defend Japan in the first Monster War, a surge in activity in the Monster Rifts leads to a huge increase in monster attacks.
37 years ago - Dai Yokohama is born in Miyoshi City
19 years ago - 18-year-old Dai finishes high school and begins university, studying chemistry & physics.
18 years ago - 19-year-old Dai explores a hidden grotto and discovers the secret headquarters of the Ultimon. Zotaro, the preserved digital memories of the last Ultimon, is awakened, and seeing the rising surge in Monster attacks he takes on Dai as his new apprentice.
15 years ago - 22-year-old Dai tries to assist in fighting the rising surge of Monster attacks after the destruction of the Monster energy reactor in Tokyo, still unable to fully unlock the Ultraspark. He earns his bachelors degree in physics & begins his graduate studies in biophysics.
14 years ago - 23-year-old Dai is left alone in the final battle of the Monster War when the computers containing Zotaro are destroyed. He is finally able to unlock the Ultraspark and become Ultimon but is overwhelmed by the final surge of monsters before he is joined by Hiro Kunikawa, Grr & Mai Kusanagi, saving Japan. They help to rebuild Neo-Tokyo & build the Halo, their headquarters on My Fuji, founding Big Science Action.
10 years ago - 27-year-old Dai earns his doctorate in Biophysics. He joins the Special Research Response Unit, an organization designed to gather data during monster attacks. He meets Yuriko Sakurai, the Unit's tech expert.
7 years ago - 30-year-old Dai is contacted by a signal from space received by the Ultraspark. He ventures to its source, traveling through space, finding an alien civilization that worships Ultimon that is at risk of having new Monster Rifts open. He ventures into the Monster dimension to close them at the source before they open.
All the members of Big Science Action are meant to evoke memories of certain heroic tropes from Japan, so much so that we should instantly recognize them even if we've never seen them before. Ultimon is meant to evoke classic tokusatsu characters; a style of children's sci-fi programming that heavily featured practical effects and characters wearing full body suits. The most famous of these, arguably, is the one we're drawing on the most here; Ultraman, but you can also see influences of shows like Kamen Rider, Super Sentai (which would later be reused to create the Power Rangers), and even the incredibly weird Tonkusatsu Spider-Man!
|
Ultimon's Comic HistoryLike the rest of Big Science Action, the only glimpse we see of the classic Ultimon in his prime is in the one panel of 2008s Final Crisis. His story is really only told in the Final Crisis Sketchbook where we see his original designs (which came in both blue and green), and he's giving easily the most comprehensive backstory of all the members of the team. He's clearly the core idea the rest of Big Science Action was built around, as they all come together as part of a great battle that is also part of Dai Yokohama's origin as the newest Ultimon. His story also describes three of the monsters he fights, and deliberately suggests that they all look like giant Kaiju Pokemon, which is a fun touch.
There are sort-of appearances of Ultimon in the pages of Final Crisis Aftermath: The Dance, a story about Super Young Team that depicts the modern days BSA. Ultimon isn't there, and we don't find out why, but the ghostly specter of Ultimon-Alpha keeps appearing to Most Excellent Superbat, encouraging him to take up his place as part of the legacy of heroes in Japan... a place Heino ultimately rejects, much to the ghost's chagrin. |
Our Ultimon StoryWe have a very solid framework of a backstory for our version of Ultimon; we know that he's part of a secret society of super-samurai monster killers, using advanced weapons. We know that Dai is the newest hero who loses his mentor in the final battle of a great Monster War, around whom the other heroes of Japan rally to become Big Science Action. That is, however... ALL we know. We don't know how the Ultimon got their weapons, and we don't know anything about Dai himself.
We did want to reference the backstory of Ultraman here, a character who is fully a superpowered alien who is sharing his life energy with a human member of the "Science Special Search Party". We also know we're going to create a Rift into a strange "monster dimension" so that Japan can regularly be plagued by monster attacks. This let us invent our version of Ultimon by connecting some classic samurai with their alien weapon, the "Ultraspark". I like to imagine that Ultimon is USUALLY the size of a normal person, but in an emergency, is able to temporarily grow to Kaiju-size. Then, we just made our hero, Dai. He's meant to be a young, earnest scientist with some deliberate Peter Parker energy, and even gave him a love interest in Yuriko Sakurai, his organizations tech specialist. If we did this right, this should feel like a character whose weekly adventures would feel right at home on Saturday morning. |
|
Related Characters
