SPOILER ALERT: Godzilla Kingdom Of Monsters Issue One Review

THIS IS A SPOLER INCLUSIVE REVIEW OF GODZILLA KINGDOM OF MONSTERS ISSUE #1

Ooh, check out the tail on that one! I do my best to give a fair review of the first issue of IDW Pulbishing;s Godzilla Kingdom Of Monsters.

 

If you have not read this issue, or do not want to find out what happens in this issue, do not read any further! (You have been warned…)

Synopsis: As two children are playing on the beach of a small island located off the coast of Japan, Godzilla rises from his slumber under the sand. The giant behemoth moves into the interior of the island, trashing the city in the process, causing massive destruction and hundreds of casualties. The Japanese Self Defense Force scrambles a squadron of fighter jets in a futile attempt to stop the beast. Of course, all this does is make the monster angry. Japan escalates its tactics and attempts to destroy Godzilla with a nuclear missile. As the smoke clears, the monster appears not only undamaged, but is now able to unleash a fiery blast from its mouth. Meanwhile, across the globe, the president of the United States is weary from his battle with his public image as an aide informs him of the unbelievable horror that is transpiring in Japan.

If you have heard the last episode of the show, you’ll know that I received my review copy of Godzilla Kingdom Of Monsters upon my return from Emerald City Comicon. The excitement of seeing the IDW address on the return label was a little intoxicating. All I had seen from the first issue had been small previews of bigger pages and a couple of inked pages (sans dialogue). It actually made getting through my work day pretty difficult, knowing that the comic was ready to engage my eyeballs as soon as I “clocked out” and made it home.

I’ve been talking about this launch of this comic for some time and now that it is here, I wish that I could say I enjoyed it more. I don’t believe that this is a case of my overhyping the book, though. If you read the synopsis above, I didn’t leave much out from what actually happens in the first outing. It’s a very quick read because a lot of the pages have little to no dialogue. That’s not really a problem if all you want is a book showcasing the classic destruction that Godzilla fans seem to demand and expect from a giant monster outing. But while I appreciate the approach, I’m not sold on the end result. Don’t get me wrong, this book deserves your hard-earned cash – with the exception of The Walking Dead, Eric Powell’s The Goon is just about the only thing I’ll touch these days that is remotely Zombie-related (and I mean remotely) and Phil Hester’s artwork exceeds my expectations for a kaiju-related series. Powell and Marsh’s first excursion into this Godzilla landscape just left me wanting more, and not the excited “I can’t wait for the next issue!” kind of definition. It was more along the lines of, “Wait… that’s the end?”

Unlike many of the Godzilla films, the creative team behind the book bring the titular monster into view very quickly (in the first several pages) and he basically explodes onto the page, immediately and promptly trouncing the Japanese town on this island. I’m sure you can imagine; that kind of call isn’t easy to make. Do we spend our first issue building a playground for Godzilla to smash and introduce the monster in the final pages? Or do we just have the monster show up right off the bat? I’m sure this was something that the writers wrestled with. I’m a big fan ofGodzilla vs Monster Zero, so I have no problem waiting forty minutes for the first monster to appear (so long as the remaining minutes fulfill that city-smashing quota). Additionally, while there are no “on screen/page/panel” deaths, Godzilla is definitely killing people. According to one government official, the death toll is in the hundreds. The scenes of panicking people fleeing from Godzilla are very well portrayed, as is all of the artwork in this title. I do hope that Phil Hester’s keen eye for detail and clever panel progressions take this book quite far. As he said in February, he was mostly retired from pencilling (and has been brought on board as the new Wonder Woman writer) but chose this IDW project because he loves Godzilla and it really shows how talented of an artist he is. Just check out the image below of the people about to get squashed. Sure it may be a simple image, but the angle of the shot, the shadow of the foot and the fleeing citizen in the far right just works. This panel and the others surrounding it, play to the chaos of Godzilla’s attack.

Other aspects of Powell’s tale are a little hit and miss. I did enjoy the homage that Powell threw into the first pages, invoking memories of the 1970s Shogun Warriors Godzilla commercial – clearly what they were going for. I also really enjoyed the sheer panic of the Japanese people. I should note that this seems to be the first appearance of Godzilla in this comic’s continuity (which may change as the run continues) and I rather liked the result of the nuclear blast being what gives Godzilla his atomic ray. But the running “You’ve got to be #$@#ing kidding me” gag unfortunately reminds me of when I hear Star Wars’ “I’ve got a bad feeling about this” thread (that won’t die – even in the Clone Wars). I really hope that doesn’t continue into the second or future issues. Despite that minor complaint, the entirety of the story in the first issue definitely feels like a Godzilla movie and I think that Team Powell/Marsh will deliver some spectacular story arcs in future issues.

Godzilla’s “suit” design is pretty much how I would hope and expect him to appear – his spines are sort of a mix between the Heisei and the Millenium series, his build reminds me of the his muscular-like design in the heisei series, his skin is that classic charcaol grey maybe with a hint of olive green in the mix and he just looks like Godzilla. Thank goodness the team recognized the iconic look that defines Godzilla for the fans. Another note about the design: while he does have pupils, his eyes are kept white for a majority of the panels, which is similar to one of my favorite designs, the suit fromGodzilla – Mothra – King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All Out Attack. I heartily approve of this design, both in look and attitude. One particularly chilling shot is of Godzilla as a looming silhoutte over the town prior to his attack. That panel gave me goosebumps and made me wonder why we hadn’t seen that shot in the movies.

Something that caught me a little off-guard was the scant use of sound effects. As a reader of the Dark Horse’s Godzilla comics, I was surprised by how little those words showed up in this book.  When Godzilla stomps his foot down there should be a giant “THOOM!” or an air-crackling “FSSSSHHHH” should be used when  he unleashes his atomic ray. These visual sound cues really do add to the way a comic plays out in my head. Imagine if Wolverine’s claws were missing their trademark “snikt“. While the issue is not devoid of these, I just felt that certain key scenes should have included a sound effect as punctuation (like when Godzilla sort of explodes out of the sand which is quite mute). Luckily, this is something that can be addressed in future issues.

Now, the conclusion of my little review here. I will definitely admit that for most of the titles I read, I wait until the trade paperbacks come out for a few reasons: I can spend more time reading the title in one concentrated sitting, you aren’t interrupted by ads and in the end, they make my bookshelf look more awesome. However, these are very general reasons and for the most part, those titles don’t really need my help to succeed. This book needs your support. If you wait for the trades, you are actually hurting the chances that this book will continue which then hurts the chance for those trades to be released. The comics industry is a business, and you show the industry what to make and what to cancel by voting with your dollar. When asking IDW if there was an idea of how many issues they would be publishing, they couldn’t give out any numbers but they want to keep this series going. They want to make the fans happy and they want to put out a quality book. Obviously, I do have high hopes for this series and of course will continue to buy the issues (probably every variant issue, too) but I hope that as Godzilla fans, you all will help me support the title.

I’m going to end this review with this mental note I made when I opened the comic. It was so cool to see the official Toho icons for Godzilla, Angilas, Battra, Destoroyah, Gigan, Hedorah, King Ghidorah, Kumonga, Mechagodzilla, Mothra, Rodan, Spacegodzilla and Titanosaurus on the inside of the front cover. As a fan, that was just a great way to literally start the series for me. And with that, you probably know what I’m going to say “Support this book!” but I will add… “do it for Godzilla.”