After binge reading the rest of the web comic, I have to apologize. The illustrations aren’t terrible. Well, on first impression, some of them look like something my little nephew might have done if somebody gave him a crayon and he was all jacked up on Mountain Dew (Shake and Bake). But seriously, the illustrations get much better the more you read. I do have to point out the illustrations because there is such a jarring difference between the web comic and the manga. I will even say that if you are a purely One Punch Man manga reader, it’s possible you may see the illustrations and choose to stay away. Don’t do it! Be tough and stick it out because you will truly be rewarded in the end. The only real gripe I had with the illustrations were the action segments. When shit gets real (i mean really crazy like we all know One Punch Man fights can be), it’s sometimes hard to follow the action. And IT DEFINITELY GETS REAL.
I started reading the web comic somewhere around chapter 55, and I immediately noticed a difference. The pacing is totally different. In the manga, it seemed as if they treated Garou and the monster association as two separate arcs. In fact, the manga seemed to have abandoned Garou’s story line altogether (maybe because it is releasing some filler chapters. Wait, is the tournament considered filler? Well, point being, I feel like we haven’t seen Garou in the manga in awhile. After the encounter Garou had with Saitama in the manga, I thought that was the end of his story). But the web comic seems to treat Garou and the monster association as one thing. The same thing goes for the monster association. In the manga, the leader of the monster association has not been revealed, but it seems the web comic revealed the leader much earlier than the manga.
Psycos, the leader of the monster association, was a huge letdown. Some of her minions, like evil natural water for example, were much more entertaining (evil natural water was devoid of emotion or any human characteristics. It simply was a body of water that murdered people, and IT was more interesting than Psycos) and much more powerful than she was. There is one interesting aspect of her though and it seems like it may be key to the future of the One Punch Man universe. When she acquired her powers, she developed a third eye which allowed her to see into the future. Whatever she saw in the future caused her to completely reevaluate life and become a villain. What did she see? Maybe she saw something so powerful that she knew the only chance she had to stay alive would be to align herself with it/him/her. What if she saw an evil Saitama? What if she saw God and he/she/it was evil. Whatever she saw, I can’t wait to find out what it was. So, I guess she is useful for the time being.
Garou
Besides Saitama, King is the funniest character in the One Punch Man universe. How he has managed to keep up his facade for so long is beyond me. At the end of the web comic, when King is tasked with defeating Evil Natural Water, I almost choked from laughing so hard when he abandoned his comrades yet again. King’s character leads me to question the validity of the Hero Association. How could they possibly rank King an S class hero when he is clearly not worthy to be a hero at all. How can he be considered a top Hero if no one has ever seen him fight. Are the other S class heroes worthy of the rank? Or is the Hero Association a joke like King?
About the Author: Phil Purkett Jr.
Founder and Creator of Some Guy in Space. Second of his name. Real cool dude. Sexy.