It is time for The Ultraman Episode 44: The Twin Craft of Ultria and the Monster “Spader”!
That’s a mouthful of a title. But accurate!
The episode opens with strange spacecraft heading towards Earth. They crash land, destroying a ton in the process and release their cargo of monsters, which sort of look like “We have Golza at Home”. The Science Defense Squad and armies of the world jump into action and destroy them. But it raises the question of who sent them and if they are going to send more.
After scanning the galaxy, it is found the craft are coming from Point X in space. Captain Gondo decides to take Ultria out and destroy whatever is sending them. The team loads up onto the Ultria to find that someone is already on board. It’s Dr. Nishiki, the bearded menace! He comes along for the ride and he, Hikari and Pig are stationed in the never-before-mentioned Control Room B, which is as it sounds, a secondary control room.
In space, the doctor sees some buttons that he doesn’t know the function of. So like any good scientist, he pushes one. Alarms go off as the ships separates into two parts they call Ultria A and Ultria B. This newfound ability is put to use when more monster pods are seen heading towards Earth. Ultria A destroys most of them but one slips through so the Ultria B goes in pursuit.
The monster hatches and starts destroying the city. Hikari can’t use missiles or he will hurt people so he ducks out and turns into Ultraman and defeats the foe. Then, rejoining the Doctor and Pig, they use the warp drive on Ultria B to try and catch up to their friends at Point X.
Meanwhile, Ultria A and the others have found the source of the monster pods, which is a giant space ship made of meteors by Heller’s forces. Basically a giant rock ship. FIghters are scrambled to intercept the battleship but the Ultria A stands its ground with lasers and missiles. Ultria B arrives to help fight them off just as a giant monster named Spader appears. No, not James Spader, but a weird maggot/owl/bat thing. It latches onto the Ultria A and the Ultria B can’t get a clear shot at it.
Enter Ultraman to save the day. He gives the monster the boot and then reflects its own attack against it with a move called the Space Mirror and destroys it. After that, he goes to town on the base, breaking into it and kneeling down in giant form to blast his diminutive foes. A spaceship tries to flee but the weapons of Ultria A, Ultria B and Joneus destroy it.
Then the professor pushes the last button and the ships rejoin as he offers this wisdom. “If you don’t understand something, touch it.”
Not a ton of story in this episode, but it makes up for it with action. Monsters are deployed, monsters are destroyed. Ultraman shows up twice and a whole lot of things get blasted. We get to learn a bit more about the Ultria, too, which makes sense as it is a giant alien warship that was gifted to them and didn’t exactly come with an instruction manual. We continue the Heller storyline but don’t get much exposure to them this time outside of Roigar yelling at some aliens.
It’s a tale of two monster designs this ep. The expendable monsters aren’t tough but have a good design to them, even if it is Golza with the serial numbers filed off. Spader is also a pushover but doesn’t look great. It feels like he only exists to be put out of his misery. And he does, with flair. We never get told what is making the other monsters. Is Spader birthing them? Who knows?
Not a great ep but it was a fun ride.
That’s all for this time. See you next time for the next installment, Ultra Fans!
