Written by Matt Frank & Jeff Prezenkowski
Illustrated by Matt FrankAnguirus, the armadillo-esque perpetual underdog, goes toe-to-toe with one of the most devastating monsters of all time–Destroyah! It’s a classic tale of David vs. Goliath… monster style!
The new five issue mini-series Godzilla Legends hit comic shops this week and continues to expand IDW’s line of comics about the King of Monsters and his ilk. But unlike the licensed property giant’s other Godzilla titles, this premiere issue shifts the focus away from the Big G himself, and instead, features an untold tale starring the Toho-verse’s most unrelenting, if rarely triumphant Kaiju, Anguirus.
See what we thought of it after the jump!
In my own personal hierarchy of geekery, my affinity for Godzilla and all of his Kaiju acquaintances falls just behind Marvel Comics, and somewhere in between GI Joe and Star Trek, depending on what day you ask me. That being the case, I was enormously excited when I heard IDW had landed, not only the license to do new Godzilla comics, but that Toho was giving them nearly complete access to their catalogue of giant monsters. Godzilla’s no stranger to comics, having starred in 24 issues of his own Marvel mag in the 70s, and an ongoing, a mini-series, and the occasional one-shot from Dark Horse in the 90s. But none of those previous outings were allowed to play in the Toho sandbox, so finally getting the opportunity to see Godzilla go toe-to-toe with other famous Kaiju, like Rodan, King Ghidorah, and Anguirus was, no pun intended, a big deal to me and a lot of other G-Fans.
The Godzilla, Kingdom of Monsters ongoing written by Eric Powell and Tracy Marsh didn’t waste any time bringing in the other monsters, and while I’ve enjoyed the story they’re telling, at times it’s almost weighed down by too much story. That sounds backwards, and seems like a brainless complaint to have in this day and age, but what I’m getting at, I guess, is that at the end of the day, a Godzilla comic has to be a monster comic first, and not a framing sequence for commentary on our misguided obsession with the cast of Jersey Shore, or the state of American politics.
I don’t begrudge Powell and Co. for trying something different, but in a lot of ways, Godzilla Legends is a much better giant monster comic.
Oh sure, die hard fans of the genre enjoy a good story when they can get it, but what they really want to see are their favorite Kaiju tearing each other and the surrounding landscapes to shreds. Part of the excitement about IDW having the license was being able to get this kind of thing, and while there’s been no shortage of monsters in the other Godzilla titles, they’ve felt more like framing tools than the actual focus.
Godzilla Legends is a step in the right direction, but even here, I personally could have used a little more monster wrestling. Kaiju stories tend to rely on the ever present human element to make sure we have a set of eyes into this world where Kiaju appearances and consequent devastation is just a way of life. Co-writers Matt Frank and Jeff Prezenkowski do a good job of making the human characters interesting enough to carry the issue, and there are some nice efforts made to ensure the two leads aren’t just stand-ins to explain what’s going on. But we know we’re not really going to see these guys again after this issue, so who’re they fooling here… they’re just there to keep things moving, and they do that pretty well, but I guess I could have done without the pretense of them being “real characters”.
Co-writer Matt Frank is a multi-tasking machine. He draws this issue, did one of the variants, does the non-Powell covers for the ongoing, and I imagine he’s still reeling from the mammoth task of drawing hundreds of retailer incentive covers offered by IDW for the first issue. Frank delivers some solid work here, and that’s saying something considering a third of his pages were preceded by an Art Adams cover. His Destroyah —- one of my favorite designs — looks perfectly terrifying as he plows through the city, blasting away at any and everything in the way. And I may or may not have combined an out loud “YES!” with a fist pump when Anguirus rises out of the water to meet Destroyah head on. Frank’s monsters look great, and while I’m not crazy about the way he handles people sometimes, it’s less to do with his skill as a artist and more to do with personal taste on my part.
Would I recommend Godzilla Legends to everybody? Probably not, but I’d definitely say pick it up if you’re enjoying the regular series, with the caveat that the two books are very different. Kingdom of Monsters is a more traditional long form piece telling the story of a world terrorized by giant monsters for the very first time, while Godzilla Legends strips away all of the superfluous details and jumps right in and sets two monsters at each others’ throats without much regard for who or what is in the middle. This book is the Godzilla equivalent of Batman:Legends of the Dark Knight, and as a longtime fan, I look forward to a series of out of continuity, done-in-one stories, and genuinely hope it does well enough to garner more mini-series like it down the road.
Final Verdict: 7.0 — Definitely worth a look
