First Contact is the first chapter of the 8Man vs. Cyborg 009 manga.
Plot[]
The story opens in media res with 009 confronting a humanoid machine in a burning warehouse that he just witnessed accelerating, demanding to know what and who he is with his Super Gun drawn out to potentially shoot the stranger. The figure introduces himself as 8Man.…
The story then goes back a bit with a montage of the past 50 years. A voice says that the world hoped after the Soviets fell and the Cold War ended that war would be over and the nuclear arms race would be a thing of the past, but those events gave way to terrorism and regional conflicts including wars in the Middle Eastern region and the 9/11 attacks.
As the masked arms dealer named Cheriev continues speaking, he says that contrary to the hopes of foolish speakers of peace, war has never been more profitable and world order is maintained through powerful force. He welcomes his clients to his illegal auction and trade fair, offering them anything they could ask for: guns, tanks, even jet fighters.
009 is undercover and sees a familiar sight of an old Black Ghost tank that was used in the Vietnam War, the dealer sees his interest and asks if he would like a test drive but asks for his invitation first. 009 claims he is the notorious Jimmy Kato, an arms smuggler from Hong Kong, but the dealer alerts security as he was informed from the real Mr. Kato that his invitation was stolen by someone and the guards knock 009 out and take him into a building to be tied up for questioning later. Once inside, 009 telepathically contacts the other 00 Cyborgs that he is in position.
006 radios that he is gathering intel on the auction, seeing lots of advanced weaponry but has not seen Cheriev. 004 reports that most of the weapons are stolen from collapsed regimes of countries around the world by terrorist organizations and armed militias.
007 struggles to resist stepping in when a Middle Eastern man sexually harasses a female saleswoman, saying he is glad sexual harassment is dying out in the modern age. He overheard someone saying that what they are looking for is definitely at the auction and in the building where 009 is being held. They are looking for Mark 9 nuclear warheads stolen from the US Military and it is the big ticket item for the show with multiple interested parties wanting to buy the deadly weapon. 009 breaks free from his bonds and orders the team to commence the operation to find and destroy the warheads to prevent anyone from getting it. He takes out the guards with his Acceleration ability and interrogates one demanding to know where the warheads are, with the guard saying that it is one floor above where they are located.
Upon finding the room where the warheads are, 004 figures out why 009 was so concerned about this weapons auction, he believes that Cheriev is possibly connected to Black Ghost. 009 confirms that is what worries him, having a flashback to his final battle against Skull and the Generalissimo of Black Ghost and how they stated that they are just one cell of the organization. 009 said that even if that was true, he will never stop hunting them down until all of Black Ghost is destroyed. He remembers the Generalissimo saying that humans have hate, desire and evil in their hearts and that created Black Ghost, so 009 has not truly won. The body of the Generalissimo exploded and 002 rescues 009, ending the flashback. “Cheriev” is Russian for “Skull” and 009 is worried that Skull somehow survived despite witnessing his demise, but he soon discovers that the warhead is a dummy and 004 urges him to get out of there because its a trap. The building explodes but 009 escaped safely with his Accelerator, with Cheriev having blasted it with his tank.
The 00 Cyborgs charge at the tank, with 004 firing a missile in the hopes of quickly destroying it, but the turret jettisons from the soon destroyed main body of the tank and flies away to avoid being destroyed. 009 forgot about the tank’s ability to fly and that it is the same model that they fought in Vietnam years ago. The Cyborgs are then hit by a hidden microwave emitter weapon that threatens to cook their bodies and wreaks havoc on their electronic circuits.
009 manages to jump out of the path of the microwave beam and quickly fires his Super Gun to damage the cockpit and get inside the tank. One of the shots pierced Cheriev’s chest as 009 orders him to surrender and unmasks him, revealing himself to be a Cyborgman, #22. 009 says that 22 has no reason to do any of this because Black Ghost is gone, but 22 says in that case he has no reason to live anymore as he is not human anymore and he got the nukes simply to draw the Cyborgs out in revenge as he is breaking down without Black Ghost to do maintenance on his body. 22 has rigged a remote detonator for the warhead that will be triggered to detonate once his heart stops, committing suicide by shooting himself in the head as the tank explodes.
009 escapes and panics as he only has 5 seconds left before the nuke goes off, trying to go to maximum Acceleration to reach the warhead in time to disarm it but the microwave emitter disrupted the control unit for his Acceleration so he can’t go any faster. He is then suddenly overtaken by a shadowy figure with an “8” on his chest who can Accelerate much faster than him. The figure arrives first at the warhead and uses wrist mounted beam weapons to damage the detonation device and safely destroy the warhead with just one second left. The story returns to where it started with 009 demanding answers from 8Man.
Meanwhile, high above Earth out in space, the Generalissimo has somehow been rebuilt and observes the two heroes with a voice saying that Subjects “N” and “E” have made contact with each other and to commence the next phase of their plan…
Characters[]
- Cyborg 009
- Cyborg 007
- Cyborg 006
- Cyborg 004
- 8Man
Villains[]
- Cheriev/Cyborgman #22
- Skull
- Generalissimo
Trivia[]
- This chapter references both the Yomi and Vietnam arcs of the original Manga and is a timeline where 009 and 002 survived their fall from re-entering Earth’s atmosphere.