I love superhero comics and stories, but lately I have felt like Marvel and DC have been letting me down. I know that a lot of comic book fans out there wish they could read a story where it wouldn’t be rebooted every 2 years (or sooner, if you’re unlucky), that would let the characters grow and progress, while giving you some good old fashioned superhero action.
Well, the Big Two of American comics aren’t delivering, but Japan is more than happy to jump in.
If you’re interested in manga and anime, you probably already know about the main My Hero Academia series. However, more people I talk to haven’t tried out the Vigilantes spinoff manga, and that’s a crying shame.
Vigilantes is about unlicensed heroes trying to fight crime in their community. The characters are those who, for whatever reason, aren’t able to become official superheroes. The main focus is on The Crawler, aka the Cruller, aka Nice Guy, a young man who can skid along surfaces with energy projections from his hands and feet, being taken under the wing of Knuckleduster, a driven man with no superpowers on the trail of a drug ring. I’m eight volumes in, and Nice Guy’s growth into a real hero is a joy to read.
Now, saying that, it is an ensemble piece. Don’t expect Nice Guy to always be the focus, or to always be the one to save the day. Thankfully, the supporting characters are engaging and they grow on you over time. Knuckleduster is an amazing badass who you almost refuse to believe doesn’t have powers, with the nonsense he pulls. Pop, a guerilla street idol, is more multifaceted than I had thought at first. The cast is full of weird and quirky (pardon the pun) characters, and it manages to carve out its own little piece of the larger My Hero universe.
If the main My Hero series is an analogue for Marvel’s X-Men, Vigilantes is a smaller story, like reading a good run of Spider-Man. Characters from the main series show up, but I think you would be able to figure out who they are and what’s going on if you haven’t read those stories. Plus, you get to see a different side of them.
This is a strong recommend, whether or not you enjoyed the main series. The characters are mostly adults and live adult lives, which may appeal to people who don’t like the boarding school setting of My Hero. If this sounds up your alley, check it out here at this affiliate link: https://amzn.to/3sXETBJ