Volume 21 of the Dragon Ball Super manga, VS. Dr. Hedo, collects Chapters 89 to 92 and is the first full volume of the Super Hero arc. With Goku and Vegeta training off-world, Earth belongs to the teenagers: Goten and Trunks moonlight as costumed heroes, a boy-genius android scientist walks out of prison into the arms of the revived Red Ribbon Army, and Piccolo — the only senior warrior paying attention — spots the old enemy’s colours flying again and starts investigating alone.
What this volume collects
Four chapters build the new status quo: school life, secret identities and a rebuilt army. Each chapter has its own guide in the complete chapter index:
- Chapter 89: A Rival Appears!
- Chapter 90: Vs. Dr. Hedo
- Chapter 91: The Red Ribbon Army’s Revival
- Chapter 92: New Androids
The story inside
The opening chapters are the lightest the manga has been in years, deliberately so. Trunks’s school life is complicated by a new transfer student who turns out to be one of Dr. Hedo’s discreet Beta androids, and by data stolen from Hedo’s abandoned lab that points to a far more dangerous creation in the army’s vaults. Hedo himself — grandson of Dr. Gero, obsessed with superheroes and utterly uninterested in world domination — finishes a prison sentence for grave-robbing his way to research materials, and walks straight into a recruitment pitch from Magenta, the Red Ribbon Army’s new commander, who offers him unlimited funding and a simple story: heroic androids to protect the world from aliens.
Hedo believes him, and that belief is the volume’s engine of doom. Given the army’s resources, he builds Gamma 1 and Gamma 2, android heroes stronger than anything Earth has produced in years. Meanwhile Piccolo, collecting Pan from school, crosses paths with a Red Ribbon soldier and realises what is being rebuilt under the city. Outnumbered, unable to reach Goku, and unwilling to wait, he does what the arc’s senior hero has to do: he puts on the enemy’s uniform and walks into their headquarters himself. The volume closes with the Gammas complete and Piccolo inside the base. Underneath the comedy, the stakes are carefully arranged: the strongest heroes are off-world, the other adults are distracted, and the only people watching the army rebuild are an ageing Namekian and two boys in homemade costumes.
Where it sits in the series
Volume 21 is part of the Super Hero arc, which began with the teenage-hero prologue in Volume 20. It continues into Volume 22, where Piccolo’s infiltration forces the army’s hand and Gohan is dragged back onto the battlefield. All collected editions can be browsed in the volume index.
Editions and reading options
The Japanese edition was released on 4 August 2023, the English edition on 14 May 2024, and Japan’s full-colour digital edition on 4 December 2023; both ISBNs and the remaining bibliographic details are in this page’s info panel. Our coloured edition guide explains how the colour editions work. These chapters can be read officially in English through VIZ’s Shonen Jump service.