Cyborg 009
Once an assistant to Osamu Tezuka, Shotaro Ishinomori went on to become one of Japan’s most influential manga artists. His Cyborg 009 is now considered a classic example of sci-fi storytelling. This iteration of the story begins with Joe awakening in a lab after having been turned into a cyborg with only a shred of his humanity left. Joe manages to escape the facility alongside the eight cyborgs created before him, and together the newly formed team must try to stop the Black Ghost, the organization that stole their lives and turned them into living weapons. This reimagining of the first few story arcs of the original manga is crowded with characters, shifting quickly between exposition and action. The gorgeous artwork is all Western, with only a smattering of the original shonen-style art showing up in the endpapers and afterword. Considering the story is 50 years old and helped shape the direction of superhero-team comics today, there are few surprises. But for teens without dozens of years of reading behind them, this is a solid introduction to a legendary character. Grades 9-12. --Eva Volin