Kamen America
is a superhero comic series and the flagship property of Iconic Comics. It is written by Mark Pellegrini and illustrated by Tim Lim, together known as NINJAINK.
Carly Vanders is an all-American girl who loves fashion design and wants to help her nation. During a USO performance for American troops, she's hit by irradiated space debris and given incredible powers. From there she becomes the superheroine known as Kamen America and vows to protect innocent people from all that might threaten them, including a series of villains who also gained powers from the space debris... and some monsters who happen to be much closer to home.
Eight issues of Kamen America have been released as of September 2023, as well as a couple of crossover issues with some of Iconic Comics' other properties. There are also two webcomic spinoffs of the series, Kamen America: The Web Series and Kamen Academy, and some Japanese doujinshi.
Kamen America contains the following tropes:
- A Dog Named "Cat": Carly's pet, named Badger, is actually a capybara.
- Addiction-Powered: Downplayed, but Kimiko reveals that her water-based powers can work on the water in alcohol too. Thus, if there's no water around, she can make do in a pinch by drinking alcohol and going from there.
- All-American Face: Carly started out as an ambitious American girl who loves her country, and her superhero outfit incorporates the American flag. Kamen America's innocent looking blond hair and blue eyes also invoke the Phenotype Stereotype of how Americans are percieved to look like in Japan, enriching the Animesque and Sentai influences the Comic incorporates.
- Alpha Bitch: Carly originally saw Sylvia as this, since Sylvia was wealthy, popular, and somewhat insensitive towards Carly herself. This was compounded after Sylvia was given a suit of Powered Armor which let her become a 'rival' hero to Carly. The two got over it and were eventually able to team up.
- Animesque: While the main comic is not a Japanese Manga, its artstyle invokes Manga and Anime designs as per the page's cover image just as much as it does from western superhero comics. Kamen America also markets itself heavily to Japanese audiences as well thanks to its familiar style, official Japanese translations, and its title of "Kamen America" that shows it draws from Sentai series as well. Both fan and official art produced by the comic's Japanese audiences as well as additional promotional media made by Japan therefore looks indistinguishable from how the main comic is drawn.
- Big Bad Friend: Vicki, Carly's best friend since childhood, is revealed to be the villainous Vermillion Masquerade, the arc villain for the first four issues.
- Elemental Powers: Several of the Kamen Corps have them, including Misha (who has fire powers) and Kimiko (who has water ones).
- Engineered Heroics: Carly's arch nemesis Vermillion Masquerade turns out to be her best friend Vicki... who secretly worked with Lansky to create monsters that Carly could fight and defeat. This benefitted Lansky, who merchandised both the monsters and the heroes, and it also helped Carly by giving her a chance to showcase her heroics. Of course, when Carly found out about this, she was extremely unhappy.
- Expy: Carly Vanders is an expy of both DC's Supergirl and Marvel's Captain Marvel, who respectively have the similar names of Kara Danvers and Carol Danvers and are already expies of each other. Similar names aside, Kamen America's outfits draw from both Supergirl's All-American Face and Captain Marvel's original Ms. Fanservice Leotard of Power, and not there's also all 3 parties sharing blond hair. They also possess similar powers.
- Evil Matriarch: Sylvia's mother Cynthia is one of the arc villains of issues 5-8.
- Good Shepherd: Carly's priest, Father Blatty, is depicted as being compassionate and caring towards his congregation. He's also revealed to be part of the Vatican's combat exorcist program, though he may have retired from that.
- High School AU: The second web series, Kamen Academy, functions as this: it sets all the main characters as students in the same high school.
- Legacy Character: Deconstructed. Sylvia turns down the opportunity to usurp Carly's superhero identity, stating that the identity of 'Kamen America' isn't defined by a uniform or set of powers. Instead, she declares that the hero's identity is instead uniquely Carly's on account of all the good deeds and heroic work Carly had done while using that name.
- Making a Splash: Kimiko's powers let her control and use water as a weapon.
- Ms. Fanservice: Carly herself is this; she is conventionally attractive and often fights in a Leotard of Power. Moreover, her outfits in general accentuate this for her team, which causes some problems when monsters attack during a fashion show and Sylvia has to run back to the hotel while wearing one of Carly's skimpy outfits so she can get her power armor and deal with the threat.
- Occidental Otaku: Bandit Okami is a Hispanic guy who is absolutely obsessed with anime and manga.
- Phenotype Stereotype: Though it's a western superhero comic, Kamen America is heavily Manga Influenced too (as per the name of the comic), and therefore Carly's All-American Face, blond hair, blue eyes, tall height and general proportions poke at how Japanese audiences stereotypically view Americans.
- Private Military Contractors: Carly has to fight these on a somewhat regular basis. Misha started as an employee of one before she defected and joined the Kamen Corps, and Hare Trigger ran one.
- Privileged Rival: Sylvia starts off as one of these, thanks to her family's immense wealth.
- Radiation-Induced Superpowers: Carly, Misha, Kimiko, and Vicki Kaminski all develop these as a result of being struck by debris from a space probe that had been contaminated by Venus radiation. Sylvia also develops these after spending long periods of time wearing a suit of powered armor that had radioactive particles in it.
- Redemption Demotion: Vicki loses most of her powers after she finally surrenders to the Kamen Corps and begins her process of redemption.
- Sadist Teacher: Downplayed. While Wormwood isn't truly sadistic, she's certainly disrespectful and cruel to Carly and Vicki, belittling their interests and insisting they develop different ones. Near the end of her life, she realizes she was wrong and apologizes.
- Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism: This series is close to the 'idealism' side of the scale. The heroes are generally able to stop and even redeem the villains without having to make moral compromises.
- Smooth-Talking Talent Agent: Lansky, the depraved talent agent whom Carly ultimately fires, is one of these.
- Stop Being Stereotypical: Wormwood is adamant that Carly and Vicki are 'wrong' for liking stereotypically feminine interests such as fashion and art, and she tries to push them to have more 'masculine' interests like sports. By the end of her life, though, it's indicated that she mellowed out.
- Toku: The henchmen in the second arc, the Zenerengers, are modeled off of these.
- Villain with Good Publicity: Cynthia presents herself as a righteous activist who is using her resources to protect people, and she's widely beloved for it, but she's actually a villainous monster.
