Warning: the following contains spoilers for The Rise of Ultraman #1 by Kyle Higgins, Mat Groom, Ed McGuinness, Gurihiru, Francesco Manna, Michael Cho, Espen Grundetjern, and VC's Ariana Maher, on sale now.

The Rise of Ultraman is a surprising new series from Marvel, adapting the popular size-changing Japanese superhero. Though the character has never been a huge hit in the West, the new Marvel miniseries aims to update the franchise's mythos for the modern era.

While the adventures of Shin Hayata are brought into the present day, one of the franchise's earliest elements is kept in the past. The result is Ultraman's supporting cast and history being rewritten to heavily resemble The X-Files. In mirroring The X-Files, Ultraman is now inspired by a show that was itself inspired by Ultraman's progenitor.

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Ultra Q

The organization behind the scenes in The Rise of Ultraman is the USP, or the United Science Patrol. Their goal is to protect the Earth from interdimensional and alien threats, namely those of giant monsters. Their actions, along with most of the Ultraman mythos, are updated to take place in the present day, but some are still set in the black and white era of the early 1950s. The USP's original incarnation is revealed to have been called Ultra Q, with the colors and style switching to a retro, black and white look. This is an homage to the 1966 television series Ultra Q. Meant as a Japanese answer to American shows like The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits, Ultra Q featured a team of investigators who looked into all sorts of paranormal phenomenon.

Initially, these weird events and creatures were rather typical concepts like ghosts, aliens, and other oddities that go bump in the night. Eventually, however, the focus was changed to giant monsters, called kaiju in Japan. This was in response to the growing popularity of film franchises like Godzilla and Gamera in Japan, particularly with children. After 28 episodes, the series ended, only to be quickly followed by the original Ultraman show. This series continued the Ultra franchise while diving further into the kaiju focus while also pioneering the tokusatsu genre. The superheroics of Ultraman would easily become the face of the franchise. In 1990, the movie Ultra Q The Movie: Legend of the Stars was released. It was followed in 2004 by the series Ultra Q: Dark Fantasy, while 2013 saw Neo Ultra Q's release.

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The Q-Files

The themes of Ultra Q would later inspire The X-Files. These themes are present in the issue's backup storyline, which details an Ultra Q mission in France in 1954 to investigate paranormal activity. The fact that the modern USP is even more organized makes the similarities to an X-Files unit ever greater. The X-Files was likely inspired by Ultra Q, as well as the general interest in aliens and government conspiracies during the era. Another big influence on The X-Files was The Twilight Zone, which again inspired Ultra Q.

Thus, The Rise of Ultraman takes possibly the best route in making the material accessible and familiar to Western audiences. It slightly alters the source material to more closely resemble two franchises ubiquitous within American cultures -- two franchises which also both inspired and were inspired by a part of the Ultraman legacy. In doing so, it redeems and validates Ultra Q's place in the franchise, as the more down to Earth investigative series is sometimes overlooked by its various superhero successors.

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