My Hero Academia: Vigilantes #1-4

My Hero Academia: Vigilantes #1-4

Originally released in 2016

Written by Hideyuki Furuhashi

Art by Betten Court

I'm looking into a My Hero Academia spin-off today; while I've read the full original series, I don't know much if anything about the expanded universe material or spin-offs.  This is a prequel, seemingly taking place a few years before the start of MHA, which focuses on unlicensed heroes. (Hence the Vigilantes subtitle)

The main character, Koichi Haimawari, wants to be a professional hero, but his power (to move slightly faster when three parts of his body are touching a surface) is virtually useless. If he lived in the world of One Punch Man, this wouldn't be a problem (one of its superheroes, Mumen Rider, is an official hero despite his only skills being "owning a bicycle" and "ridiculous determination"), but the world of My Hero Academia tends to prioritize flashier or more practical abilities.

While trying to save a wanna-be pop star known as Pop Step from a group of thugs, he gets dragged into a hulking vigilante's war on the drug trade.  The vigilante in question is known as Knuckleduster, who has no powers whatsoever but tries to do good regardless.

Knuckleduster is trying to stop the spread of Trigger, a Quirk-enhancing drug that turns the tongues of its users black and decreases their intelligence (with that last point presumably explaining why it isn't used by villains in the present day manga story). Knuckleduster doesn't seem to have a strategy for stopping the spread of this drug beyond "go out into the public and make people show him their tongues", which gets him in trouble with professional heroes.

The artist of the series, Betten Court, does a good job with emulating the art style of Kohei Horikoshi, the author/artist of the original, to the point where I was curious if Horikoshi had done the artwork on this spin-off when a character from the main series, teacher Shota Aizawa, showed up.

Knuckleduster acts as an unorthodox mentor to Koichi, while Pop Step is quickly established to have a crush on Koichi that she's too nervous to admit and he's unaware of. Pop Step has gotten the least focus out of this main trio, which is a common and unfortunate trend in shonen manga; she's mainly used for fanservice in these early chapters, and has more common sense than the other two but isn't much of a fighter.

Knuckleduster reminds me of a less intelligent Batman - he has a good understanding of how to fight superpowered people in a world where he's one of the rare non-powered heroes.  He even has a secret identity that Koichi fails to see through, even though there's not really any reason that Koichi couldn't figure it out given the rather prominent scar on his face.

At least with Pop Step's secret identity, it's more justifiable since she looks quite different compared to her hero disguise.

Koichi reminds me of Spider-Man in some ways - his posing while proclaiming his superhero name of "the Crawler" (it doesn't stick; he's consistently known as "Nice Guy" instead), his status as a social outcast at his college, and him using his abilities to climb walls all bring J. Jonah Jameson's favourite threat and/or menace to mind.

This series is off to an all right start; it focuses on a side of the My Hero Academia world that we don't really see, and the slightly older age of the main protagonist compared to MHA lends it a slightly more cynical or world-weary tone. (emphasis on "slightly")  Knuckleduster's a fun character, and it'll be interesting to see how Koichi works within the limits of his powers.