WARNING: The following contains major spoilers for Ultraman: The Trials of Ultraman #2 by Kyle Higgins, Mat Groom, Francesco Manna, Espen Grundetjern, and VC's Ariana Maher, on sale now.
Marvel's Ultraman saga has been a thrilling ride from the very start, and things are heating up even further in The Trials of Ultraman. The story of Shin Hayata has seen him meet and merge with an alien Ultra, face off against interdimensional Kaiju as the titular hero, and even rescue his best friend from the depths of a nightmarish limbo where the monsters can never die. With everything that has happened so far, it would sound silly to say that Ultraman is woefully unprepared for anything that might come his way, but Shin Hayata has just run into his very first mechanical menace, and it doesn't look like he has a clue what to do about it.
Shin has been hard at work with his teammates in the USP to track down the location of Dan Moroboshi, the USP agent who disappeared decades ago and recently returned following the opening of the Kaiju Vault. Not only that, but he has become the prime target of the Joint Armed Disclosure Front, a loosely organized militant group that believes the USP is responsible for engineering the Kaiju threat. After locating where the JADF is holding Dan, Shin and Kiki go in undercover, holding back on using Shin's Ultraman form in case a larger threat emerges during the rescue mission. As it turns out, this was probably the best decision they could have made. The two aren't particularly stealthy, forcing Shin to transform when bullets start flying. Gunfire isn't the only thing that Ultraman is going to have to tackle head on, though, as a massive Kaiju soon comes crashing through the wall.
Oddly enough, the Captain tells Kiki from outside the field that there are no Kaiju present anywhere according to their scanner. Unbeknownst to the heroes, it was one of the JADF fighters who called for this beast to be unleashed, revealing that the organization has been creating their own mechanical Kaiju. This is a brand new turn for Marvel's entry into the franchise, but a type of nemesis that Ultraman himself has a long history of facing off against.
In the 1967 Ultraseven series, Dan Moroboshi himself frequently fought against robotic monsters as the titular hero, and even employed his own when unable to transform. Even modern entries into the franchise have seen Ultraman battle similarly massive mechs, and the hero has proven himself quite capable of dealing with them over the years. Unfortunately, this Ultraman is still in the infancy of his superhero career, and the only battles he's fought so far were against far more natural opponents.
As shocking as the reveal of this world's first mech is, the fact that it has been weaponized if not created entirely by the JADF is even more so. For an organization that is dedicated to unearthing the "truth" behind the USP and the Kaiju to be working on one of their own calls into question just what it is that the JADF is really fighting for.
This new revelation also highlights just how far the JADF is willing to go to achieve whatever their end goal might be while casting a dark shadow over the only hero Earth has left.