Spider-Verse: Supaidaman

Spider-Verse is a currently running event in the Spider-Man comics that will involve every* Spider-Man we've ever met, including several Spider-Women and Spider-Girls (not to mention Scarlet Spiders and Spider-Hams and whatnot), and several brand-new versions. The premise is simple: there's a group of people trying to wipe out every Spider character across the multiverse, so all the Spider characters will team up to stop them. This is, of course, a massive event - multimedia even, since it will also feature in the Spider-Man Unlimited video game and the animated series Ultimate Spider-Man - and given the premise, it's only natural that it will add a few entries to this catalog.

*I say "every" because Marvel says "every", but there are a few that won't be showing up, such as Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield.

Today's entry is Supaidāman (スパイダーマン).

Supaidaman is a 1978 live-action tv series produced by Toei. The show is about a motorcycle racer named Takuya Yamashiro, who finds a crashed warship called the Marveller and its dying pilot, Garia, the last survivor of the planet Spider. Garia injects some of his blood into Yamashiro, which gives him spider-like powers, and he also gives him a bracelet that can shoot webs, make his costume appear, and control the ship Marveller, which can transform in the robot Leopardon. With these powers and weapons, Yamashiro fights Professor Monster and the Iron Cross Army.

Yes, it's basically Spider-Man meets Green Lantern meets Power Rangers, and funny you should mention that, because without this show there wouldn't be a Power Rangers. The popularity of this show led to Toei wanting to make a Captain America counterpart called Captain Japan, but this evolved into a show called Battle Fever J, about a team of five country-themed heroes. Toei considered this series to be the third Super Sentai program (just Sentai prior to this season) and was the first to include giant transforming robots, a holdover from Supaidaman. This season made Super Sentai a success and giant robots a staple of the series, which meant both were still around a decade later, allowing Kyuryu Sentai Zyuranger to be adapted into Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers. Thanks, Spider-Man!

Anyway, Yamashiro first appeared in a cameo in Amazing Spider-Man #9 (October 2014)...

...though his first full appearance was in Amazing Spider-Man #12 (January 2015), as you can see here:

He speaks Japanese, he has his transformation bangle, and he's piloting Leopardon. I'm sure the "emissary from Hell" line is from the show too. As far as I know, this page is pretty much the bulk of his appearance. He shows up, fights the bad guy with Leopardon for a bit, and then presumably loses. Still, I've been looking forward to this appearance for months and I was starting to think he was going to be one of the ones that can't show up.