Joseph Luster
November 27, 2012 
Joey Jones is a good kid. He goes to school, holds a job, and is a loyal friend. That doesn’t change the fact that he still feels powerless. He wants to be a hero—he wants to help people where he can—but he lacks the power. Heck, he can’t even be close to his cheerleader friend Lina without her big bro stomping in to violently separate them. There is hope, however. The latest gadget that’s all the rage, a toy robot called The Heybo, could be just the thing Joey needs… if only he could afford it. When a broken Heybo finally does end up in his hands, though, something amazing happens that turns Joey into the hero he always wanted to be.
Created as a collaboration between Marvel’s inimitable Stan Lee and anime studio Bones (Soul Eater, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood), Tamon Ohta’s manga version of Heroman similarly wastes no time in setting up its heroics and getting right into the action. Once Joey’s Heybo turns into the mighty Heroman, it’s up to the two of them to save the planet from a sudden alien threat.
Heroman is as simple a story as its premise might lead one to believe. It’s very much in the monster of the week format, at least at this point, and there’s little sense of suspense or danger in the opening chapters. It really does seem to hinge on the style of your average Saturday morning cartoon, right down to the big jock bully routinely threatening to wallop our hero for getting anywhere near his sister. It isn’t until one of the later chapters that it appears Heroman could possibly lose a fight, but the real conflict lies elsewhere.
The true battle in volume one is within Joey. He wrestles some against the way things have quickly been changing since Heroman entered his life; against who the hero really is. Stuff like this is more interesting than any of the actual alien battles, which typically end with the promise that, “I’ll get you next time, Gadget Heroman!”
Heroman might not engage your average manga reader, but it does fill a niche publisher Vertical Inc. has otherwise left open with a few exceptions: It’s great material for kids. Younger, budding manga fans should have a grand time with Heroman, so consider saving this one for an empty slot on that holiday gift-grabbing list you’ve been putting off until the last minute.
Publisher: Vertical Inc.
Story & Art: Tamon Ohta
© 2010 Tamon Ohta / SQUARE ENIX Co., Ltd.
