Has this ever happened to you, Ultraman Connection readers?
You’re walking down the street, and you see someone you think is your friend acting strange, or even mean. It’s only when you get closer, trying to find out what’s going on, that you realize — that isn’t your friend at all! It’s someone completely different!
Now, imagine that situation, except your “friend” is 50 meters tall, and this person not only knows who your friend is, they’re trying to impersonate them to ruin their good name!
Not only has that happened to Ultraman before, but it seems to happen all the time. One of the sad realities of being a hero in the way the Ultras are is that when you rely on relationships with humanity, those relationships can be used against you. Imposters are constantly attacking this relationship between the giant of light and humanity in order to destabilize it and turn Earth against their protector — thus leaving them undefended when the real invasion begins.
The first villain to try and attack Ultraman’s good name is still one of the most famous — that being Alien Zarab, the shapeshifting villain who came to Earth to try and turn the nations of Earth against one another.
By first kidnapping Shin Hayata, host of Ultraman, and then sabotaging and attacking important infrastructure as the “Imit(Imitation)-Ultraman”, Zarab would have certainly destroyed the trust that humanity held in the giant of light if not for the timely save of Hayata by young SSSP member Hoshino. And when Ultraman returned, well… Zarab wasn’t nearly so good at imitating Ultraman’s combat skills, and quickly fell to his Spacium Beam.
Other alien forces decided that a simple disguise would not be enough to shake humanity’s belief in the Ultras — a physical doppelganger would be necessary. This was the mindset of the Alien Salome when they attempted to create a robotic Ultraseven. Capturing Dan Moroboshi and taking away the Ultra Eye he uses to transform, the Salome decided to use their “Imit-Ultraseven” to attack the Ultra Guard directly!
Thankfully, Dan managed to escape, though without his Ultra Eye, he was forced to rely on his Capsule Monster, Agira! Agira was able to last long enough for Dan to recover the Ultra Eye and transform, creating a Seven vs. Seven smackdown! In the end, the two Sevens spun out into the sea, but the real Seven emerged from the surf, taking out the Salome invaders!
These are only two of the incredible imposters that have imitated the Ultras. We could go on and on about masters of disguise, like Alien Babarue, and mechanical duplicates, like the Ace Robot — but it’s more fun for you to watch it all yourself, either on the Ultraman Official Youtube Channel or through one of the many Mill Creek box-sets. And to find out more fun secrets about the Ultraman universe, stick close to Ultraman Connection!
