Four years before the main events of the comic, Carly, Vicki, and Siggy attend a May Day dance at their Catholic High School. They are greeted by Father Blatty, who thanks Carly for designing modest dresses for the other students. Vicki frets over her schoolwork (and also being dateless), but Carly encourages her to have a good time and not worry if other students mock her for not having a date, noting that they’ll never see the others after graduation anyways. The trio are then interrupted by their classmate Sylvia Prestige, who compliments them all in condescending manners before walking away. Carly rants that Sylvia won’t be so smug after someone with one of her dresses wins the award for ‘best dressed,’ noting that she worked very hard to create dresses for everyone and thinks she deserves the win, but Sylvia — whose father Simon owns a chain of bait shops and who thus has a lot of family money — wins with a dress that she ordered from Paris. Carly gets angry, and when Siggy tries to calm her by noting how bad she’ll look if she lashes out, Carly says she feels like nobody notices or appreciates her.
In the present day, Carly and Misha (who defected to America in Black Hops and now goes by Kamen Comet when doing superhero work) fight a monster. The two fire their electricity and fire powers, respectively, at the same time to pull off a combo attack which destroys it and reduces it to mud. Nearby civilians, however, either ignore the battle or complain that the heroes got mud everywhere. Misha and a disgruntled Carly switch back to their civilian identities and watch a televised interview with Lansky, who says that the monster attacks no longer interest people because the heroes have no following, bad names, and terrible costumes. Fed up, Carly zaps the television and destroys it.
Elsewhere, Lansky sneaks into the base of the supervillain Vermillion Masquerade. He pays Vermillion and reveals that she is summoning the monsters so Lansky can merchandise them (and the heroes) before paying her a cut of the proceeds; however, since the heroes no longer work for him and people have begun to lose interest in the fights, they aren’t making as much money as they’d hoped. Vermillion reveals that she has a plan to fix this.
Vicki meets Carly and Misha with test results from samples of the monster mud. Carly has been working so hard on her fashion line that she hasn’t slept in days and has been ignoring chores ranging from discarding spoiled food to paying bills. Misha, her assistant, is exhausted and notes that they’re so far ahead they’re preparing clothes for next year’s lines, but Carly says she’s feeling inspired, she can work faster now that Misha can help her, and that while being a hero is fun, fashion is her true passion anyways. She also notes that she hopes she can get some respect in the fashion world since she can’t seem to get it as a superhero. Misha learns of a nearby monster attack and they run off, with Carly insisting they arrive unpowered and then show off the new transformation sequences they’ve been practicing (instead of them transforming at home and then just flying to the battle). As they leave, Vicki calls that the tests were inconclusive and she needs more samples.
Cary and Misha arrive and transform in front of the monster, but Vermillion bursts up from the ground and reveals that she’s been creating the monsters, which she calls ‘art.’ They fight the monster only to prove unable to destroy it; at that point, another hero calling herself ‘Kamen Ramen’ shows up and attacks it with water powers, but she also accomplishes little before it stomps on her and stuns her. Then Sylvia arrives in a suit of power armor. Sylvia slays the monster with a blade in her armor and waves to civilians as Lansky appears and calls her ‘Kamen UN.’ He talks her up, and Sylvia preemptively apologizes in case she wasn’t fast enough to prevent civilian injuries; between her apparent modesty, Lansky’s praise, and her cool armor, the civilians are overawed. Sylvia then says she chose her name because she wants to help everyone instead of just Americas, and then talks a bit about how borders are fictional and everyone is human no matter their race or nationality. This further impresses the crowd.
Carly protests about Lansky stealing her ‘Kamen’ theme, but Lanksy notes that ‘Kamen’ is a common word and can’t be trademarked, so she can’t stop him from using it. He then claims his fancy sunglasses are made of polyradex, which Carly knows is a lie since that’s a fabric and not suitable material for making lenses, but Lansky plays an old video of Carly embarrassing herself during her high school spring break, which further alienates her from the crowd. Carly sees Sylvia signing autographs and calls her petty, but Sylvia doesn’t even know who Carly is. This aggravates Carly, though Misha notes that soldiers usually go unappreciated anyways, and the duo leave with Kamen Ramen.
Siggy visits the hero trio and Vicki at Carly’s home. He’s introduced to Kamen Ramen, whose real name is Kimiko Kaneko. Vicki exposits that Carly saw Sylvia as a rival in high school while Sylvia never noticed Carly’s existence; she also throws the test results at Carly along with mail she left unopened after getting absorbed in her fashion work. Carly pockets the mail and admits that she forgot to get a new mud sample and promises to get one next time, which Vicki reluctantly accepts.
Kimiko then gives her introduction. Her parents own Kaneko Co., which produces a popular line of instant ramen, but despite her family’s money and her father’s encouragement, Kimiko kept failing her college entrance exams. On the eve of yet another attempt, she was hit by space debris, and when she woke up in the hospital, she realized she could control water. She spent some time as the company mascot Ramen Rider, moving water around and boiling it to cook ramen with just a wave of her hand, but even though she was making tons of money for the family, she was unhappy and her father could tell. He encouraged her to follow her dreams, and when she saw footage of Kamen America, she decided to come to America to try being a hero alongside her.
Kimiko also reveals that her other passion is being a radiologist, and she hopes to balance her hero work with her struggle to reach that goal. Carly thinks that’s silly since Kimiko would be giving up a lot of fame, love, and popularity by quitting being a mascot so she could be an obscure doctor somewhere, but Kimiko says there are more important things than getting attention. Carly again gripes that she wants respect, and Siggy tells her that she has to learn to be content with herself. Misha, for her part, warns Kimiko that Carly isn’t the expert on being a superhero that Kimiko seems to think she is, but she does invite Kimiko to help them gather mud samples the next day.
Late that night, while Misha and Kimiko sleep, Carly watches a series of news programs which criticize her on everything from having an immodest outfit to being a ripoff of Kamen UN. The criticism which seems to hurt her the most is when she’s called out for not having stopped the monster attacks after almost a year. As the television audience laughs, Carly just keeps watching.
Lansky returns to Vermillion Masquerade and says that Sylvia is great for marketing, but he’s worried Carly will keep showing up at the fights and will start stealing publicity away from her. Vermillion says she doesn’t kill, but Lansky says he just meant that Vermillion should break Carly’s legs. He also notes that Vermillion was the one who wanted to work with him.
Carly calls her father Charles in Florida and thanks him for sending oranges, some of which she fed to her capybara (named Badger), then enters her church. She finds the mail in her pocket and is approached by Father Blatty, who compliments her for doing so much good. She complains that few people seem to recognize this, and when Blatty says that her friends have noticed, Carly says that she wants recognition from people who aren’t already her friends. Blatty notes that Carly received discouragement at an early age from her teacher Miss Wormwood but overcame that and produced a successful fashion brand, and he argues that Carly should be able to overcome her current ennui and unhappiness at being widely criticized in the present. He preaches to her that virtue is its own reward and no additional recognition should be needed.
After Blatty leaves, Carly goes through her mail and finds a letter from the coroner stating that Wormwood died of exposure recently. A letter to the Warhen fan club was found in Wormwood’s pocket; with the Warhen fan club no longer existing, the coroner decided to send Wormwood’s letter to Carly directly. Carly next reads Wormwood’s letter, which reveals Wormwood to be the beggar that Carly had previously given her scarf to. In the letter, Wormwood thanks Carly for her kindness in giving her the scarf. Wormwood notes that ‘Carly’ (the superhero) reminds her of Carly (her former student) , and she muses about how she was unkind and cruel to Carly (the student) for not being like her. Wormwood acknowledges that, though she had thought of herself as wise and independent, she was just angry all the time and treated people poorly because of this. As a result, when her circumstances declined, nobody wanted to help her and she found herself on the street. She ends her letter by again thanking Carly (the hero) for her kindness and expressing the hope that they could meet again someday.
Carly checks the date and realizes that Wormwood’s cremation was months ago, but Carly had been too consumed in her zeal to win recognition for her fashion work to notice. She cries as she realizes her mistake, but then she sees that she has messages on her phone; Misha has called to report a powerful monster which neither she, Kimiko, or Sylvia can defeat. Carly runs off and arrives at the battle.
—Carly Vanders
The Kamen Corps battle the monster, but it has a very thick shell which resists their attacks, and it surges forwards to bite Kimiko in half. Sylvia jumps in at the last moment and lets it bite her instead; as it struggles to get through her armor, she tells the others to run. Then the monster begins to absorb the energy in Sylvia’s armor to get even stronger. Fortunately, Carly works out a way to do a combo attack with Kimiko and hit the monster with electrified water while Misha uses fire to distract it; they get their attack right down the creature’s mouth and it finally dissolves. Carly approaches Sylvia, who finally recognizes her and calls her by her name.
The press surges around Sylvia and film her as she’s taken away in an ambulance. Kimiko notes that Carly is indeed ignored, but Carly is at peace with that and suggests they just go get takeout. Later, the press films in Sylvia’s hospital room as Sylvia signs autographs for children and Lansky claims Sylvia beat the monster on her own. Carly meets with the others at her home, brings Vicki a fresh bucket of monster mud and apologizes for not getting her the sample earlier, and finally she reassures Siggy that she now understands that virtue is its own reward.
In an epilogue, Lansky chews Sylvia out for taking a hit that she shouldn’t have taken and damaging her expensive power armor. He says he won’t cover any of Sylvia’s medical bills, which she agrees to but is clearly unhappy about. He then returns to his office and finds the supervillain Apex Moth there along with the mercenary leader Hare Trigger. Apex demands to speak with Vermillion Masquerade, and Lansky, at gunpoint, agrees to help.
This comic contains examples of the following tropes:
- An Aesop: Don't worry about what the crowd thinks of you; just do the work you need to do.
- Complaining About Rescues They Don't Like: The crowd is angry after the Kamen Corps defeats a mud monster and the mud gets onto their cars.
- A Dog Named "Cat": Carly's capybara is named Badger.
- Dude, Where's My Respect?: Carly is initially upset that nobody seems to respect her achievements as a superhero. This leads her to focusing almost entirely on her fashion line, which she thinks still has a chance to make her famous and get her the respect she craves. By the end, she realizes that it's wrong to neglect her other responsibilities just for a shot at public recognition, and she accepts that the public may not care about what she's doing but it's still important that she does it.
- Engineered Heroics: Lansky and Vermillion are revealed to be doing this, with Vermillion making monsters so that Lansky can merchandise the resulting fights.
- Instant Humiliation: Just Add YouTube!: Lansky embarrasses Carly by playing a video of her trying and failing to ride a mechanical bull while singing a Sailor Moon-type theme song.
- Loved by All: Everyone loves Sylvia, due in large part to Lansky's manipulation of the press.
- Powered Armor: Sylvia has a suit of this which she uses to fight.
