The ultimate East meets West collaboration is finally coming to our shores in the form of Ultimo. This is the product of Stan Lee, creator of Spider-Man and the X-Men, and Hiroyuki Takei, the creator of Shaman King.

So what’s this Ultimo story about anyway? From the Viz website:

“High above Farmless City, citizens are stunned by the sudden appearance of two floating figures. Are they human boys, monolithic robots, or something much more strange? As the battle ensues between them, destruction and devastation falls on the hapless city. One figure is Vice, and seems to be as evil as his name implies. The other is Ultimo, intent on trying to stop Vice from wreaking more havoc. “

While Viz is eager to play this up as some historic collaboration never seen or heard of in the world of comics we should remember than Marvel has already reimagined some of their properties in a manga format and Witchblade has been a manga for over a year now.

The real crossover to look for will be the Vampire Hunter D title that Top Cow will be doing.

I intend to give this a glance but I’m not a superhero fan, and no matter how you dress this up, it’s still a costume toting superhero story which just happens to be in the manga format.

If you want to get your hands on this just pick up the latest issue of Shonen Jump and pray your friends don’t see you buying it because they’ll probably laugh at you. I would.