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Big Hero 6: Brave New Heroes
The astonishing return of Big Hero Six, Japan's top heroes! Featuring Hiro, Baymax, Honey Lemon and Gogo Tomago! Who are the Six's two new members...and what secrets do they hold?
176 pages, Paperback
First published May 6, 2009
16 people are currently reading
128 people want to read
About the author
Chris Claremont
3,272 books891 followersChris Claremont is a writer of American comic books, best known for his 16-year (1975-1991) stint on Uncanny X-Men, during which the series became one of the comic book industry's most successful properties.
Claremont has written many stories for other publishers including the Star Trek Debt of Honor graphic novel, his creator-owned Sovereign Seven for DC Comics and Aliens vs Predator for Dark Horse Comics. He also wrote a few issues of the series WildC.A.T.s (volume 1, issues #10-13) at Image Comics, which introduced his creator-owned character, Huntsman.
Outside of comics, Claremont co-wrote the Chronicles of the Shadow War trilogy, Shadow Moon (1995), Shadow Dawn (1996), and Shadow Star (1999), with George Lucas. This trilogy continues the story of Elora Danan from the movie Willow. In the 1980s, he also wrote a science fiction trilogy about female starship pilot Nicole Shea, consisting of First Flight (1987), Grounded! (1991), and Sundowner (1994). Claremont was also a contributor to the Wild Cards anthology series.
Claremont has written many stories for other publishers including the Star Trek Debt of Honor graphic novel, his creator-owned Sovereign Seven for DC Comics and Aliens vs Predator for Dark Horse Comics. He also wrote a few issues of the series WildC.A.T.s (volume 1, issues #10-13) at Image Comics, which introduced his creator-owned character, Huntsman.
Outside of comics, Claremont co-wrote the Chronicles of the Shadow War trilogy, Shadow Moon (1995), Shadow Dawn (1996), and Shadow Star (1999), with George Lucas. This trilogy continues the story of Elora Danan from the movie Willow. In the 1980s, he also wrote a science fiction trilogy about female starship pilot Nicole Shea, consisting of First Flight (1987), Grounded! (1991), and Sundowner (1994). Claremont was also a contributor to the Wild Cards anthology series.
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Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews
December 11, 2016
Expectations:
WOW!!! The Marvel comic that inspired the awesome Disney movie! And the author is Chris Claremont! This is going to be a blast of a read!!!
Reality:
WTF???
The story is a mess, characters are lame (or just eye-candy) and author writes on auto-pilot recycling old ideas from his long run on X-Men and New Mutants.
Example: Honey Lemon turning evil after being possessed reminded me a lot of Malice taking control of Dazzler, Polaris and Rogue...
The manga style art was nice but I really hate it in Marvel titles. Sorry.
And characters have just the names in common with the ones in the movie, which is far better than the book that inspired (not much)it. Strange but true.
I'm sure smiling Stan Lee agrees with me.
WOW!!! The Marvel comic that inspired the awesome Disney movie! And the author is Chris Claremont! This is going to be a blast of a read!!!
Reality:
WTF???
The story is a mess, characters are lame (or just eye-candy) and author writes on auto-pilot recycling old ideas from his long run on X-Men and New Mutants.
Example: Honey Lemon turning evil after being possessed reminded me a lot of Malice taking control of Dazzler, Polaris and Rogue...
The manga style art was nice but I really hate it in Marvel titles. Sorry.
And characters have just the names in common with the ones in the movie, which is far better than the book that inspired (not much)it. Strange but true.
I'm sure smiling Stan Lee agrees with me.
February 2, 2019
This comic now is mostly interesting just to compare it to the eventual Disney animated version, and it doesn't compare well even to someone like me who isn't much of a fan of the Disney version. Here we have a group of Japanese heroes (apparently they are taking the place of nuclear weapons in Japan's strategy for self defense since the nation refuses to use nuclear weaponry) including super-nerd Hiro, sushi chef Wasabi no Ginger (groaaaan), mean girl duo Honey Lemon (what?) and Go-Go Tomago (barf, the names!), Hiro's battle robot Baymax, and their leader Furi Wamu. Furi Wamu? There is also Fred, who has a dragon spirit or something.
Now I like the artwork. It's influenced by manga stylings, and sometimes those influences come across poorly--like a bad imitation, really. The book is also guilty of the usual super-babe formula where all the women wear skimpy clothing and all of them are hot, but it didn't bother me as much as it does in Witchblade where the point of the comic seems to start titillation and storytelling comes much later.
But storytelling comes much later in Big Hero 6 as well. If anything, it is even worse than most of the Witchblade comics I have been reading. Hiro as a narrator is grating at times, and he just goes on and on, repeating himself. There is a ludicrous side plot for example in which several of the Big Hero 6 team join a high school football team without any familiarity with the sport, and without using their super powers, and they are automatically, first game, the best players on the team--including a female character acting as quarterback. And when these heroes help the team to win against their superior rivals, Hiro just goes on and on about how the school was inspired by the hard work of their team moreso than by the shameless assist from a superhero team--and there go my eyes, rolling at top speed.
There are some cute moments, of course. And I was amused that the Japanese characters are often named after famous Japanese, such as Miyazaki, and one character presumably is named after the savior scientist from the original Godzilla (1954) film (his name is Serizawa). But overall this was a pretty big disappointment.
Now I like the artwork. It's influenced by manga stylings, and sometimes those influences come across poorly--like a bad imitation, really. The book is also guilty of the usual super-babe formula where all the women wear skimpy clothing and all of them are hot, but it didn't bother me as much as it does in Witchblade where the point of the comic seems to start titillation and storytelling comes much later.
But storytelling comes much later in Big Hero 6 as well. If anything, it is even worse than most of the Witchblade comics I have been reading. Hiro as a narrator is grating at times, and he just goes on and on, repeating himself. There is a ludicrous side plot for example in which several of the Big Hero 6 team join a high school football team without any familiarity with the sport, and without using their super powers, and they are automatically, first game, the best players on the team--including a female character acting as quarterback. And when these heroes help the team to win against their superior rivals, Hiro just goes on and on about how the school was inspired by the hard work of their team moreso than by the shameless assist from a superhero team--and there go my eyes, rolling at top speed.
There are some cute moments, of course. And I was amused that the Japanese characters are often named after famous Japanese, such as Miyazaki, and one character presumably is named after the savior scientist from the original Godzilla (1954) film (his name is Serizawa). But overall this was a pretty big disappointment.
November 20, 2021
I think that I should have truly considered what I was expecting to get out of this book before I started. Only having the Disney movie as my introduction and basis of familiarity to the Big Hero 6 team, after reading the first couple pages, I quickly realized that this is a completely different story. So, approaching this with a clean slate, I found myself increasingly frustrated and angry at this story for a multitude of reasons.
Off the bat, it's clear that the only connection this team (as written) has to Japan and Japanese history/culture is that the team's forming came out of a reaction to the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Other than that, having a sushi chef named "Wasabi No-Ginger" and woman with a power purse named "Honey Lemon"... All the red flags of a story not of a Japanese superhero team, but of an American team dressed up as Japanese-face minstrels. Now, I know Chris Claremont has written extensively on X-Men which is usually held up as commentary on race relations in America. But this story or iteration of Big Hero 6 is no X-Men story. Frustrating.
Furthermore, the story and the team's motivations are so convoluted. Were there more issues expected later to flesh more of these ideas out or to go into more character development? I'm not an artist, but the art was kinda inconsistent and some of the body and face designs made it kinda hard to follow who was actually in the scene. I bought this as a one-shot that compiled the 5 issue story arc. But, was I not the only one that had enough after those 5?
I really wanted a stronger story with further depth or stakes, but every time things got kinda bad, they seemed to reference the Avengers or other A-List superheroes. Huh? For me, this is a missed opportunity to not just add diversity, but add voices to a superhero universe.
No, I won't recommend it. But I'm also not passing it up in the 50 cent bin at the comic book store.
Off the bat, it's clear that the only connection this team (as written) has to Japan and Japanese history/culture is that the team's forming came out of a reaction to the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Other than that, having a sushi chef named "Wasabi No-Ginger" and woman with a power purse named "Honey Lemon"... All the red flags of a story not of a Japanese superhero team, but of an American team dressed up as Japanese-face minstrels. Now, I know Chris Claremont has written extensively on X-Men which is usually held up as commentary on race relations in America. But this story or iteration of Big Hero 6 is no X-Men story. Frustrating.
Furthermore, the story and the team's motivations are so convoluted. Were there more issues expected later to flesh more of these ideas out or to go into more character development? I'm not an artist, but the art was kinda inconsistent and some of the body and face designs made it kinda hard to follow who was actually in the scene. I bought this as a one-shot that compiled the 5 issue story arc. But, was I not the only one that had enough after those 5?
I really wanted a stronger story with further depth or stakes, but every time things got kinda bad, they seemed to reference the Avengers or other A-List superheroes. Huh? For me, this is a missed opportunity to not just add diversity, but add voices to a superhero universe.
No, I won't recommend it. But I'm also not passing it up in the 50 cent bin at the comic book store.
July 12, 2021
I knew that Disney had taken certain liberties when they adapted Big Hero 6, but I had not realized how different things were until I read this book. And seriously, Chris Claremont?
This is a relatively light title in terms of the narrative. The fighting is serious but the tone felt more like a lighter-hearted manga/anime story, which I guess was the intention. We have our titular heroes dealing with an unusual series of threats that are significant but not overwhelmingly slow. And over time a greater plot is revealed, especially in terms of the "enemies" that keep getting thrown at the team.
It kind of blows my mind that these characters are technically part of the Marvel Universe and digging into Wikipedia reveals certain rosters of the team included more notable characters like Silver Samurai and Sunspot. I was fine with the roster in this book consisting of all original characters with interesting abilities, but the cutesy tone to things can get a little tiring over time. Good thing it's only a 5-issue mini-series.
This is a relatively light title in terms of the narrative. The fighting is serious but the tone felt more like a lighter-hearted manga/anime story, which I guess was the intention. We have our titular heroes dealing with an unusual series of threats that are significant but not overwhelmingly slow. And over time a greater plot is revealed, especially in terms of the "enemies" that keep getting thrown at the team.
It kind of blows my mind that these characters are technically part of the Marvel Universe and digging into Wikipedia reveals certain rosters of the team included more notable characters like Silver Samurai and Sunspot. I was fine with the roster in this book consisting of all original characters with interesting abilities, but the cutesy tone to things can get a little tiring over time. Good thing it's only a 5-issue mini-series.
February 4, 2019
I believe I read the original Big Hero 6 book a long time ago, and wasn't particularly wowed. I have also seen the movie, which was a far cry from that or this, but I wasn't expecting this to be in any way like the movie, apart from characters sharing a few names. I liked this book a lot more than the first one, since it made a lot more sense, gave the characters a bit more consistent personality, and emphasized that the characters were Japanese through some conventions of manga and anime, as well as some things that happened in the background. The story, itself, was fun, but I would have liked if it had stayed in Japan instead of coming to New York. New York is heavily fleshed out in the Marvel universe, but Japan is rather less so. It might have been more interesting to see more of that, or at least to have tied the characters in with other things, since they were there. Despite that, this was still a fun book, and though it started out a little slow, and was a good read.
November 7, 2019
There's no way to know for sure, but I'm pretty sure this would've been boring even if I hadn't seen the Disney movie first. I actually can't believe that they managed to make such an incredibly entertaining, funny, heartfelt movie based on these dull characters.
April 17, 2018
Nope.
January 14, 2019
Very interesting to learn the origins behind the Disney movie. Well realized art style and characters.
October 16, 2019
My son and I watched the Disney update of these characters and that got me curious about their history. While this collection didn't blow me away, it was enjoyable enough.
He discuss this further in an episode of the All the Books Show: https://soundcloud.com/allthebooks/ep...
He discuss this further in an episode of the All the Books Show: https://soundcloud.com/allthebooks/ep...
July 19, 2021
would love for marvel to do a new run for big hero 6 because this is just whatever
February 22, 2015
I read this, as it was the only Big Hero 6 series available on Marvel Unlimited (there was a 3 issue series with Sunfire before, too). Compared to the movie, there are quite a few differences, although it is the first appearance of the team as used in the movie.
Baymax is looking more intimidating and serious and not nearly as cute.
Fred is not the nerdy outcast, but a serious Godzilla-dude.
Honey Lemon is not a dorky nerd-girl, but a "sexy" young woman, as is Go Go Tomago. Both work great together.
Wasabi & Hiro are not that different when compared to their movie versions.
The book itself is… different. It needs a while to get going, but is quite entertaining in the end. The art by David Nakayama, Terry Pallot & Emily Warren reminds of japanese Manga and rather different than other Marvel books.
Baymax is looking more intimidating and serious and not nearly as cute.
Fred is not the nerdy outcast, but a serious Godzilla-dude.
Honey Lemon is not a dorky nerd-girl, but a "sexy" young woman, as is Go Go Tomago. Both work great together.
Wasabi & Hiro are not that different when compared to their movie versions.
The book itself is… different. It needs a while to get going, but is quite entertaining in the end. The art by David Nakayama, Terry Pallot & Emily Warren reminds of japanese Manga and rather different than other Marvel books.
October 8, 2012
This is Big Hero 6's second time around with a mini-series, and while fun it does show that the characters and concept as developed to date really is only good for a short run series. Big Hero 6 is the Japanese government's super hero team, and Hiro Takachiho is the brains of the group, but struggling with being a teenager and a member of a super team.
The villains are ill defined, as is the story's Maltese Falcon. But is hard not to smile while reading a story when a trained sushi chef named Wasabi No Ginger is a team member, as is Fred who seems able to transform into a Godzilla like creature.
The villains are ill defined, as is the story's Maltese Falcon. But is hard not to smile while reading a story when a trained sushi chef named Wasabi No Ginger is a team member, as is Fred who seems able to transform into a Godzilla like creature.
November 2, 2014
I read this because I wanted to be a little familiar with the source material before the movie came out (even though the movie would obviously be very different). So I read this together on the Marvel Comics app (powered by Comixology) being that this is the only comic that was available anywhere that isn't eBay.
That being said, I really enjoyed this comic. It was written by legendary comic book writer, Chris Claremont. Who brought us several memorable and iconic X-Men stories such as The Dark Phoenix Saga, Days of Future Past, Wolverine, and Kitty Pryde & Wolverine. He is able to develop a large set of characters well, making each of them memorable.
That being said, I really enjoyed this comic. It was written by legendary comic book writer, Chris Claremont. Who brought us several memorable and iconic X-Men stories such as The Dark Phoenix Saga, Days of Future Past, Wolverine, and Kitty Pryde & Wolverine. He is able to develop a large set of characters well, making each of them memorable.
August 14, 2015
2.5 stars. Pretty run-of-the-mill Marvel stuff: combat fluff, random sensational plot twists, flat characters. A vast majority of the story takes place in the area surrounding NYC, which means the opportunity to explore a new setting (Tokyo and other famous Japanese landmarks) and attract the otaku crowd to Marvel comics, however briefly, was well squandered. The Disney adaptation of this short series is an adaptation in the loosest sense of the word, fortunately; nearly everything excellent about the film is new content, unrelated to the comics. Could be cool if it took itself more seriously and lasted longer than five issues.
did-not-finish
July 15, 2015I decided to read some comics since my exercise bike is broken and that's where I do most of my reading at home...this one was first on the list, and it's not what I expected. I saw from the first issue that it wasn't going to be cute fluffy Baymax but after the first issue I didn't expect drama and stereotypes...stereotypes everywhere. From instalove to turning the friends of the hero into bad guys, bouncy comic boobs and slutty outfits...and football! And a girl playing football! Maybe this would appeal to teenage boys more than me.
June 9, 2013
I read this since I heard that Disney was making a CG version for 2014 (http://herocomplex.latimes.com/movies...). I like the concept and the fact that Chris Claremont was involved, but the end result was not as good as I expected. However, it does have some great artwork and it could be made into much more. I hope Disney does a good job with it.
June 25, 2016
Desde que me vi Grandes Héroes sentí un interés muy grande en leer algo acerca de este grupo de héroes y demás! sin saber absolutamente nada conseguí este así que lo leí y pos BIG SURPRISE! es una historia en un "universo alternativo" sobre grandes héroes, donde Baymax es un poco escalofriante y Go go and Honey Lemon son una especie de bullys que fastidian a Hiro... etc etc etc.
Fue bastante extraño así que por ello la puntuación!
Fue bastante extraño así que por ello la puntuación!
May 20, 2016
Em sembla que és la primera vegada que no em puc acabar un còmic.
La història no té cap gràcia ni ganxo, els personatges no tenen personalitat, no m'agrada l'art...
Ja té mèrit el que va fer la Disney: agafar quatre conceptes d'això (no gaires), canviar la resta i fer-ne una peli adorable.
La història no té cap gràcia ni ganxo, els personatges no tenen personalitat, no m'agrada l'art...
Ja té mèrit el que va fer la Disney: agafar quatre conceptes d'això (no gaires), canviar la resta i fer-ne una peli adorable.
February 25, 2016
Pass.
I'm sure these stories are great to some, but I just couldn't get into it. It was fun at first, but it doesn't take long before the annoyance kick in.
I'm sure these stories are great to some, but I just couldn't get into it. It was fun at first, but it doesn't take long before the annoyance kick in.
January 25, 2015
3,5, infinitamente mejor la pelicula
December 27, 2014
great artwork
April 10, 2016
Wow. That was... weird.
Baymax is kind of scary in this! Everyone is a little off. It's Big Hero 6 - but so not Big Hero 6.
Baymax is kind of scary in this! Everyone is a little off. It's Big Hero 6 - but so not Big Hero 6.
April 18, 2016
Gotta say it, the film version, changed as it is from the original, is far more charming and likeable than this.
December 13, 2014
I owned all issues except my friend lost issues 2-6.
Displaying 1 - 24 of 24 reviews