Catch more of The Red Ranger Becomes An Adventurer In Another World (I wish I could) on Crunchyroll
It wasn’t that long ago that fans of the Kamen Rider franchise outside of Japan felt left behind as Tsuburaya really pushed into acknowledging their international fans, hopefully without losing what make the Ultraman franchise one of Japan’s big superhero staples in Japan and around the world. Sadly I’ve fallen behind in my Ultraman watching and they’re already two shows into the one after the last series I was able to watch. I need to fix that…and a lot of other things…at some point. However, that’s not the Japanese superhero we’re here to discuss. Kamen Rider got two American reworks, Saban’s Masked Rider (a good concept ruined by network meddling) and Kamen Rider Dragon Knight (which frankly I feel is underrated because it’s quite good), and a bunch of subtitles slowly coming together from Shout Factory and their various channels and services. Even Toei’s official YouTube channel only has two episodes per show for some odd reason. Modern Kamen Rider usually takes two episodes to properly set things up, but from there if it isn’t on Shout Factory’s Tokushoutsu section, we lose out in America.
Then came word that Kamen Rider Zeztz would follow recent Ultraman shows in having an international simulcast. As of this writing, this article at the Kamen Rider Fandom wiki has a list for those of you in and outside of Japan and the US who want to enjoy it. For Shout Factory, their “Shout Studios” and “TokuSHOUTsu” YouTube channels, as I write this, are streaming the first episode over and over and over and over…you get the idea. It’s an odd way to do it. Premiere the episode, leave it up there and start posting it to your streaming service and the sites you coordinate with, and that should be fine. It works for Ultraman. I shouldn’t be afraid of being spoiled while trying to find the start of the episode. Word is that live is the only way to see it, with repeats at various parts of the day, in addition to how this episode is currently streaming. Hopefully it changes after the show is done, but that’s their call, I guess, but that’s enough intro. The first episode aired over the weekend, and while I’m hoping the first two episodes will be up on YouTube for a Saturday Night Showcase posting in the future, I can at least discuss my thoughts on episode one. WARNING: Spoilers aplenty, so you might want to watch the episode first!
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I didn’t think they could make the helmet look worse. I underestimated their ability to screw it up.
The Peacemaker #4
Charlton Comics (November, 1967)
WRITER: Joe Gill
“The Fire World”
ARTIST: Pat Boyette
EDITOR: Dick Giordano
The Fighting Five: “The Card Carrier”
ARTIST: Monte & Bache
This might not matter in the archives, or hopefully even as it goes live, but at the time of writing this Sunday night, Comic Book Plus was having server issues where they store their images, including ads. The Digital Comic Museum doesn’t have the comic at all. So for the review I had to go to the same legally questionable site I get my Ultraverse comic scans to review. Hopefully by the time you read this the link goes to a page with actual scanned comics. At first I thought DC might have tried to pull them despite being in public domain like the other Charltons since they have done this with some of Billy Batson’s “Captain Marvel” adventures. That does not appear to be the case, but I thought I should warn you in the name of full disclosure. If they don’t fix it before I’m ready to go over the final issue, which the questionable site doesn’t have, we may have a hole in the reviews for awhile.
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Chapter by Chapter features me reading one chapter (or possibly multiple chapters for this one) of the selected book at the time and reviewing it as if I were reviewing an episode of a TV show or an issue of a comic. There will be spoilers if you haven’t read to the point I have, and if you’ve read further I ask that you don’t spoil anything further into the book. Think of it as read-along book club.
In our last two chapter review our heroes caught their train while Russian Op-Center may lose the commie nickname I’ve been given it. We’ll have to see what happens there because there’s only one chapter this week and it’s back with the train.
As I noted last week, things are finally getting interesting, but that was also the problem with the last book. With all the unnecessary trivia and backstory the novel’s been padded out so much with unless stuff that it’s taken way to long for the story to get good. I’m not against flavor text (to use a card game term), backstory, or any history that benefits the story. Even the occasional trivia bit fleshes out the world. The problem with this franchise two novels in is that there’s too much of it, taking time away from telling the story, making it feel like a slog to finally get to the action.
Now that we are in the action part of the novel, with fourteen chapters left and a few of them short chapters, let’s see what’s happening back with the great train heist…which apparently includes the whole train.
Chapter 64: Tuesday, 11:10 PM, Khabarovsk
Hey, I spelled it right this time. Even typing out of the book, I had spellcheck for that location name telling me I spelled that location wrong.
Continue reading
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When I said I wanted to get back to reading Prime, this wasn’t what I had in mind.
Ultraverse Premiere #3
Malibu Comics/Ultraverse (May, 1994)
Okay, explain this to me. The flipside of this comic was Prime #12 and yet there’s another Prime story here. Ripfire just ended on a cliffhanger with our protagonist potentially being dead. What’s worse, Elven’s story continues in an issue of Prime that this stupid reading order won’t let me read for a while and we’re two issues away from catching up, and THIS Prime story concludes next issue of Ultraverse Premiere, which the reading order isn’t listing until after a bunch of other comics (screw that, we’re doing the next issue, which the reading order claims is in an arbitrary spot, but the conclusion of this story is in it so I’m moving up, list can go fish)…look, does anybody know of a proper release date list, because that would be preferable to this mess.
Ah well, on with the comic.
BW Media Spotlight 
BW’s Daily Video> The Internet’s Cult Of Positivity
Catch more from Snarky Jay on YouTube
I want to emphasize one thing she said. My dislike of something doesn’t stop you from liking it. If you like something I don’t, that’s fine. I probably like something you don’t and that’s not going to stop me from liking it. I go over why I don’t like something, why I don’t think it’s a good idea, and try to keep that in mind with my stories. You’re basically telling someone they aren’t allowed to share their opinion because they disagree with you, or assuming putting it out there is just being a troll for clicks or something along that line, and that bugs me. People are allowed to disagree with you. You in turn are allowed to disagree with them and state your reasons why as they did about what they like or don’t like.
And yes, I have seen people I know do positive reviews get called out for allegedly only talking about what they hate. Not only will they put videos or article out going over what they like, they may highlight something they thought did it better in the very post about the thing they don’t like. We get upset because we’re fans of that thing and we’ll defend the stuff they don’t like. I defend stuff the internet looks down upon, like Scrappy-Doo, classic Battlestar Galactica (including Muffet the daggit), and Godzooki. We’re all biased, we all have a reason why we like or don’t like somebody, and telling someone they’re wrong to share their opinion isn’t right. Should someone do both positive and negative reviews? Maybe, and I certainly try to. That’s my choice, and they’re entitled to theirs as you’re entitled to yours. So stop acting like a negative review makes someone a monster and state things that aren’t in the review (except maybe as a joke in some cases to tweak their haters). Opinions are like backsides: we all have one.
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Posted by ShadowWing Tronix on September 9, 2025 in Internet Spotlight and tagged commentary.
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