Writer: David Pepose
Artist: Davide Tinto
Mad Cave Comics, 2025
In 1966, Japanese author Tatsu Yoshida created a manga series that revolves around a teenage race car driver named Go Mifune and his high-tech automobile, dubbed the Mach 5. The manga was given the title Mach GoGoGo, and was serialized in Shueshia’s magazine Shonen Book (which was the precursor to the popular Weekly Shonen Jump magazine.)
A year later, Mach GoGoGo was adapted into an anime series. This anime was rebranded as “Speed Racer” and released to the west, becoming one of the first few successful Japanese animation to make its way to the U.S. screen.
The dubbed version, while taking liberties with dialogue and editing, became a hit and earned a devoted young fanbase. These young fans, adults now, might be the target market for Mad Cave Studios’ comic book adaptation of the Speed Racer series.
Mad Cave is kicking off the launch of its new Speed Racer series just in time for Free Comic Book Day 2025 with the release of Speed Racer #0. Rather than serving as a traditional origin story, this issue plays more like a strategic setup, carefully positioning its characters and themes like chess pieces on a board. Each segment introduces key players and offers a glimpse into the world they inhabit, laying the groundwork for the larger story to come.
The story in Speed Racer #0 is penned by David Pepose. The writing is taut and wastes no time getting readers up to speed. The story drops readers straight into the action, as it follows Speed and his cohort (which include a young sidekick and a monkey, an all-too-common mascot in franchises like this) during an unsanctioned race, all while being pursued by law enforcement.
The illegality will be unfamiliar to fans of the original franchise. Races in the original series were fully sanctioned commercial events, in contrast to the illegal street races depicted here. This shift comes from Mr Pepose taking creative liberties to adapt the franchise to a more modern context—one centered on street racing and social media exposure, where racers double as influencers with massive online followings.
These changes are significant and definitely impact the tone of Speed Racer, making it feel more akin to the Need for Speed video game franchise than the original anime. However, this shift isn’t a drawback. It is likely necessary to make the story more accessible and engaging for a contempoary audience.
The artwork in Speed Racer #0 is brought to life by Davide Tinto, who delivers a standout performance in capturing the essence of high-speed racing within the constraints of a static medium. Mr Tinto skilfully conveys motion and velocity through dynamic panel layouts, expressive motion lines, and carefully choreographed action sequences that give readers the sensation of speed without overwhelming the page. His visual storytelling is crisp and energetic, maintaining clarity even during the most chaotic racing scenes.
One of the visual highlights is the striking contrast Mr Tinto creates between the glowing, neon-soaked cityscapes and the sleek, vibrantly colored race cars. This interplay of light and color injects the comic with a futuristic yet nostalgic atmosphere – think 1950s Machine Age revival. The iconic Mach 5 is front and center, faithfully rendered in its classic white-and-red color scheme and retaining its uniquely stylized, almost otherworldly design. Tinto manages to modernize its look just enough to fit the updated aesthetic without sacrificing the instantly recognizable silhouette that longtime fans will appreciate.
All in all, we can recommend Speed Racer #0 not as a reinvention of a much-loved series, but more of a recalibration. The title reintroduces familiar characters and concepts in a context that we think resonates with modern sensibilities. While the shift toward illegal street racing and influencer culture may not appeal to fans of the original source material, it is handled with enough care and energy to feel like a natural evolution rather than a forced overhaul. The creative team clearly respects the source material, even as they update it, and this debut issue sets the tone for a series that has the potential to carve out its own identity while still honoring the legacy of Mach GoGoGo. As a free comic book day release, it does exactly what it needs to do: it piques interest, introduces new stakes, and leaves just enough mystery to warrant a return for issue #1.