ECTYRON DOUBLE FEATURE: SHOWDOWN IN SOUTH DAKOTA and ATOM.I.K.E. AND THE STRUCTURE VS. THE Z-HEMOTHS OF OMAHA
CANDLE LIGHT PRESS/Warning Comics
STORY: Carter Allen
SCRIPT: John Ira Thomas (on “Showdown in South Dakota”)
ART: Carter Allen
COLORS: Carter Allen
LETTERS: John Ira Thomas
MISC. ART: Will Grant; Jeremy Smith
COVER: Carter Allen
32pp, Color, $10.00 U.S. at conventions (2026)
Comic book writer-artist and graphic novelist, Carter Allen, has been publishing a series of comic books and graphic novels featuring a “kaiju” character known as “Ectyron! The Radioactive Chicken!” Candle Light Press and Allen's Warning Comics have previously published several Ectyron comic books, including 2025's Ectyron v Rojo Gallo.
Ectyron is back on the attack in the recently released comic book, Ectyron Double Feature: Showdown in South Dakota and Atom.I.K.E. and the Structure vs. the Z-Hemoths of Omaha. It is written by Allen (story) and John Ira Thomas (script on “Showdown in South Dakota”); drawn and colored by Allen; and lettered by Thomas. Ectyron comics employ particular elements of various Japanese science fiction sub-genres, in particular “Kaiju.” This is a term used to describe the giant monsters and the fiction in which they appear. Godzilla is an example of a kaiju, and Ectyron, a giant-sized chicken, is also a kaiju.
Ectyron Double Feature opens with Showdown in South Dakota. The story is set in the “Badlands” of South Dakota some time in the past. In this sprawling countryside roams a mysterious monster known as “Creature 3.” When people start disappearing in the wake of this monster, it's up to two special agents from “Sustenatione Stabilitas” to find out what is happening.
Aleksandria “Lek” Stal and her partner, Shotaro “Sam” Mifune, arrive in the “Athena 5 Rover.” However, this heavily fortified vehicle cannot protect Lek and Sam from the horrific psychic attack powers of Creature 3. They'll need help from Ectyron, but is the “Marvelous Monster of the Midwest” really a match for Creature 3? Guest-starring Madam Madamn of Sustenatione Stabilitas.
The second feature is Atom.I.K.E. and the Structure vs. the Z-Hemoths of Omaha. It opens with the arrival of aliens from the “Yohahte Empire,” which are bent on plundering the Earth's resources. To that end, they mutate three ordinary animals, creating the “Z-Hemoths” Soon, the monsters descend on Omaha, Nebraska.
Can Atom.I.K.E. (Herb Mantlo), Atom.A.X. (Jake Johnston), and Atom.A.Y (Iowa Harris), also known as “The Structure,” stop them? Or will it take something... super?
THE LOWDOWN: I have been receiving review copies of Carter Allen's comic books and graphic novels for almost two decades. Carter and I are also collaborators, and that includes collaborating on the 2024 original graphic novel, The Wrath of Karapace: A Big Spirits Epic.
I have previously reviewed the following Ectyron comics: Ectyron Against Lagaxtu (2017), Ectyron: Rise of Nemehiss (2018), and Ectyron: The Invasion from the Red Star Nebula (2019), and Ectyron vs. Des Moines (2023). I also reviewed the Ectyron Omnibus Vol. 1 (2022), which includes a preview story that I co-wrote with Allen.
Ectyron Double Feature: Showdown in South Dakota and Atom.I.K.E. and the Structure vs. the Z-Hemoths of Omaha is not only an old-fashioned double feature comic book, but is also a two-times-the-fun comic book. It is inventive and imaginative and a carnival of Where-the-Monsters-Dwell unusual strangeness. It is a fun, uncanny comic book in the tradition of oddities like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Hellboy, which are fun because they offer the weird, the wild, and the wonderful.
I don't know how the heck writer-artist, Carter Allen, has managed to create a hugely entertaining comic book about a giant chicken, but he has done it several times. If this were a standalone Ectyron comic book, it would still be a winner. The addition of “the Structure” and “the Z-Hemoths” is a cascade of cherries on top of the Ectyron's heavenly dish of comics ice cream.
For as long as I've been reading Allen's comic books, I have seen a lot of unprecedented and foreignness in characters that yield enjoyable comics. Still, Atom.I.K.E. and the Structure vs. the Z-Hemoths of Omaha seems like a brand new day, in which monsters, aliens, and tokusatsu move and act like old-fashioned superhero comics. I look at this and think Avengers vs Kree or Skrulls, and I'm a happy reader.
Ectyron Double Feature: Showdown in South Dakota and Atom.I.K.E. and the Structure vs. the Z-Hemoths of Omaha is a treasury comic book of endless delights. Dear readers, I think you will want to read it again and again. Find the Candle Light Press gang at a comics or pop culture convention and snag a copy.
I READS YOU RECOMMENDS: Fans of double feature/flip comics, of kaiju, and of Carter Allen's kaiju comic books will want Ectyron Double Feature: Showdown in South Dakota and Atom.I.K.E. and the Structure vs. the Z-Hemoths of Omaha.
A+
Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux a.k.a. "I Reads You"
Ectyron Double Feature YouTube trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8IVYsmQXMo&t=6s.
From YouTube comes “A brief history of Ectyron”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zevMoxXmHc
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