What’s better than giant monster movies? You’ve got it — giant monster comics. While Image has been taking away the creator-owned reins from the older company, Dark Horse Comics has been having just as much of a problem with IDW Publishing, who has been giving Dark Horse a run for their money when it comes to licensed comics. Nothing would add insult to Dark Horse’s injury if IDW was able to publish a great comic based on a property that Dark Horse used to publish, now would it? Ball is in your court, Swierczynski and Gane.
Written by Duane Swierczynski
Illustrated by Simon GaneEx-special forces tough-guy Boxer is a man with a grudge and vows to end the terror of Godzilla, no matter what. He assembles a top notch team to take down monster-sized threats… at $7 billion a bounty. What starts as a vendetta could become a lucrative business for Boxer… if he can live past day one!
Sometimes all that is needed to sell a comic is the combination of an excellent cover with really great first page. The scenario plays like this: a customer with a few bucks to spare notices a particularly appealing cover on the stands, and picks it up. Curious, the customer opens it up, skipping past credits and advertisements, if any, to the first story page. If that first does not get the customer interested in reading the slightest bit more, then that comics is almost certainly going back on the rack; if that first page is good enough, the customer might buy it without reading even slightly further. The first issue of IDW’s new “Godzilla” series has that perfect combination that makes it more likely to fall into the latter column than almost any other licensed comics on the stands. The cover by Godzilla comics veteran Art Adams manages to grab the attention of passerby without using any kind of gaudy color palette, relying instead on Adams’s awesome talent for portraying massive-scale destruction. That’s the first step; after reveling in the cover, the reader flips through the credit pages, amusingly styled akin to the opening credits of the classic Godzilla films, and finds themselves reading one of the best opening pages for a series in perhaps the past year. It is ridiculous, it is clever, and it is hilarious, but, even more importantly, it grabs the reader by the arm and accelerates them away at supersonic speeds.
While it seems borderline shallow to say so, the first page of this comic truly is the best part, but that does not mean that the rest is lackluster in the slightest. Duane Swierczynski is grabbing the kaiju beast by the scales and embracing the ridiculous nature inherent in Godzilla these days, after countless sequels and spinoffs have morphed the franchise from one purely interested in unstoppable destruction to an entirely different monster;\. Godzilla the franchise is no longer solely about Godzilla the monster, and has not been for some time; instead, Godzilla films and stories have become interested in the creatures rivalries with other monsters and his, if the term can be used in this situation, “social life.” At the same time, though, a writer or director cannot abandon the action that happens on the bottom floors — after all, what Godzilla movie worth its salt lacks the iconic shot of the overgrown lizard’s giant foot stomping down on a car that happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time? If this issue is indication, it looks like Swierczynski is trying his damndest to reconcile these two, seemingly opposed ideologies; we see the carnage at a human level, but, through cues such as Swierczynski’s entertaining and chuckle-worthy dialogue, it soon becomes clear that this is a world that is used to these kind of things — of course in a world where Godzilla and King Ghidorah frequently raze entire cities in their scuffles, one would be interested in purchasing a “giant-monster-proof” residence. The action scenes are intense and wonderfully constructed, from a writing perspective, and the ending suggests that Swierczynski will be bringing the two extremes of the Godzilla franchise even closer together. One man versus a world of monsters? Bring it on.
Continued belowThe only part where Swierczynski’s writing falls flat is the one moment that the comic attempts to be serious. It isn’t that a fun, ridiculous comic like this can’t be serious — anyone who says that or something similar, whether in terms of comics, books, or film, is flat-out wrong — but the one serious scene does not carry the same weight that is clearly intended. The reader, however, only sees that intent; it is clear through the way the pages are done that this is supposed to be a somber moment, and while we do feel slightly bad for Boxer, it is more in the way that you feel when a minor acquaintance mentions that their sister has cancer. Certainly, you feel sorry for their situation, but you hardly know this person on a personal level, and don’t know their sister at all. Likewise with Boxer; as readers, we understand his loss, but it is hard to sympathize with him when we still barely know him at all.
Simon Gane’s art is a perfect fit for this kind of book. His giant monsters are a treat to look at, and boy does he know how to draw chaos and destruction. Any time a wall or ceiling crumbles in the comic, you can almost feel the comic shaking in your hands, and have to suppress the urge to duck and avoid any falling debris. This could be a result of his use of lines; when a structure is whole, Gane typically draws as few lines as possible, so that once they begin to crumble the sense of dread and desolation can be furthered by adding more and more cracking lines. His art works on a smaller scale, too — Boxer and Murakami’s terrible tower escape would not be near as exciting without his fluid sense of action and motion. With each daring dodge, it seems like the reader, too, has narrowly avoided taking an awful tumble, and while this is certainly partially attributed to Swierczynski’s tight script, it would be impossible without an artist like Gane. Gane’s only fault is his handling of faces, which can sometimes look either rushed, strange, or just silly. It seems, though, that this is just a problem that he needs to reconcile with his stylistic tendencies, not any result of laziness or sloppiness. Indeed, I would rather he keep up the great, action-packed work than sacrifice that to get something as minor as silly-looking faces tidied up a bit.
The new “Godzilla” may just be dumb fun, but it is some of the best dumb fun I have had in quite a while. Wednesday is a couple days past now, but I am sure some of you will be in your comic shop over the weekend; if, while you are in there, the eye-catching Art Adams cover does its job, you will probably find your eye settling on this. I guarantee that it is worth opening that cover to see what lies inside. Just don’t blame me when you find yourself walking out of your store a few dollars short.
Final Verdict: 8.2 – King of the Monster Comics
