Shogun Warriors #5 - Video Review by 80s Comics

Welcome back to 80s Comics for the review of Shogun Warriors issue number five from June of 1979. Before you had to worry about things like killer viruses and murder hornets, all you really had to worry about was sentient half‑robot half‑magic monsters terrorizing your city. And frankly, that doesn’t sound so bad. Into the Lair of Demons. Herb Trimpe does the artwork, does the pencils. Once again, one of the reasons Shogun Warriors is so good. His penciling is fantastic and it really captures the style and the action of Shogun Warriors.

In the previous issue, Combattra, piloted by Genji Odashu, breaks into five smaller vehicles, kind of like Voltron, but she’s having trouble controlling all of them at the same time. She’s still pretty inexperienced here. We’ve got Delta V1, and that’s its head, that’s where she’s located. Then there’s Skyskater 2, Earth Mover 3, Ground Rover 5, and Turbo Streaker 4. So what she does here is surrender control over to its automated sentry robot thing, whatever, Sentron 2.

That’s great. That’s a lot of fun. That’s so 70s. I love that. And Raydeen and Dangard Ace are flying to help, for Ada’s giant robot is crushing things. And check this out. Here come the Trons. But not Tron like you’re thinking of Tron. This is 79. These are Micronaut robot clowns that’ll make you laugh. They climb, they tumble, and they hop. From the world of the Micronauts.

The first four issues of Shogun Warriors are all really good, but they set the stage. They introduce the characters, the concept, the robots, and the bad guys. This issue, number five, is just wall‑to‑wall action as these young pilots are struggling to defeat this enormous magical mechanized monster monstrosity that was unleashed from beneath a volcano in the previous issue. Shogun Warriors. Great page here. Look at it.

Yet they can’t destroy this thing. It’s pretty tough. It’s smashing the city, it rips off the roof of a building and tries to drop it on people. And we get a sweet ad here from Marvelites. You can get yourself a Thor pocket protector. Protect your pockets with the power of Thor. I’m all about that. Also that Spider‑Man sock looks pretty cool. Ooh, I didn’t even notice the toothbrush. I need to get one of those. Normal toothbrushes are lame. A toothbrush with Spider‑Man is a little bit less lame, but not much.

And once I unload one of my Screamer Hawk missiles, it’ll give me time to make the Presto‑Changio conversion from supersonic Firehawk back to good old plane Raideen. Now he rips up this 5G tower and smashes the monster with it, but it just melts this thing. Isn’t this a lot of fun. If you don’t think this is fun, I don’t think you know how to have fun. Also, who doesn’t love the Presto‑Changio conversion. Years before Transformers, Shogun Warriors stole the more awesome way to say transforming, Presto‑Changio.

One thing leads to another and the combined might of all three Shogun Warriors actually drives the evil monster back to its volcanic lair. But Genji Odashu, who’s a bit of a know‑it‑all here, thinks she can actually destroy it, destroy it from its source, destroy it by discovering its source. Well, she’s wrong because she ends up getting captured. Edward said, haven’t you people learned anything. Giant mechanized monstrous murderous robots can’t do it without the power of human teamwork. Genji Odashu, you deserve to be captured.

Look, Maur-Kon may even let Maegar live, although Maegar is kind of a backstabbing jackass, but Maur-Kon doesn’t really seem all that smart to be honest. Into the Lair of Demons. This is a really fun issue. Lots of detail in the artwork. Dude smoking a pipe while watching all of the destruction on screen.

The panels are all really nice, very well drawn. I love Herb Trimpe’s artwork for this. Look at this thing. One of its little robot things can rip up boulders and launch them at the enemy. The Shogun Warriors dialogue never gets old either. Back off, creep. Parks are made for people. Shogun Warriors. It just makes me think of Soylent Green. Really, anything where you get to scream people just makes me laugh. Parks are people. Prove me wrong.

Shogun Warriors issue number five is a lot of fun. So far this is my favorite entry in the series and I think you’ll really dig this one. If you like the Transformers, if you like Voltron, if you like classic mecha, Japanese‑style mecha, you’re going to totally dig this. Shogun Warriors number five is highly recommended by 80s Comics.

Oh, I forgot to show you the back cover. I actually forget what it is. You want to see. This will be a surprise together. Here we go. One, two, three. That was awful. One, two, three. Can’t even flip a comic book. One, two, three. There we go. The Spalding ad. I’m sure these are famous people, but that guy just looks like Han Solo to me.

Okay, I’ve heard of Dr. J, but I have no idea who that guy is. As far as I’m concerned, it’s Han Solo. As it turns out, it is not Han Solo. It’s Rick Barry. Rick Barry. Would be better if it was Rick James. We all can agree on that.