Despite losing the Wasps and Chameleons, Rasputin still has the upper hand against the Skull Man. He has captured both Detective Hioka and Maria, and taken them to his undersea command base. There Rasputin tries to use his own psychic powers to mutate Hioka into one of his warrior-slaves, and to force Maria to reveal the Skull Man's secrets. Things go awry when Hioka proves to be so morally resolute that he can withstand Rasputin's dominance, and Maria's new psychic link to the Skull Man enables her to transform into Skull Maria to fight back against Rasputin. But this advantage suddenly becomes a deadly weakness when the Skull Man, in Toyko, is attacked by yet another of the organization's freakish killers, the Vulture Man.

The Skull Man
Tatsuo was created by his parents, both of whom were scientists developing mutants. But when others learned of his unnatural origins, they tried to kill him and succeeded in killing his parents, setting him on his quest for vengeance.

Garo
Garo is an ally of The Skull Man, but, as Tatsuo will learn over time, the shape shifting mutant has mysteries and motives of his own.

Shotaro Ishinomori and Kazuhiko Shimamoto

Manga legend Shotaro Ishinomori's Skull Man first appeared in Shonen Magazine in 1970 and immediately caused a sensation, selling over 1.5 million copies. The hero, orphaned when his parents were murdered, grows up to use his peculiar powers to take his revenge. The original Skull Man was one of manga's first anti-heroes, someone who would sacrifice the lives of innocents in his quest for vengeance. This darkness is what made the Skull Man so magnetic and successful.

Skip ahead 27 years. Kazuhiko Shimamoto, a young, well-known manga artist is contacted by a dying Shotaro Ishinomori and asked to revive The Skull Man. Ishinomori - Shimamoto's boyhood idol - faxed the younger man copies of the proposed story and plot notes. Shimamoto couldn't believe that he was being given the opportunity to illustrate this tale and present it to the world.

Shimamoto had already been involved in updating one of Ishinomori's other earlier works (Kamen Rider, a precursor to Skull Man) but little did he dream that, as only one of many Ishonomori disciples, he would be chosen for the death-bed collaboration and resurrection of Skull Man.