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Tuesday, May 28, 2019

Godzilla Reads Before Godzilla: King of the Monsters

Before Godzilla: King of the Monsters stomps its way into theaters we thought we would get some fans to check some of Godzilla's exploits in comics. Two of our favorites are the fairly recent Godzilla: The Half Century War and Godzilla In Hell. The two series take on Godzilla in some fun ways, first going through his whole history and then into Hell.

Godzilla: The Half Century War
James Stokoe's utterly fun, filled with fan knowledge, kaiju bashing badassery is found in the pages of Godzilla: The Half Century War. Stokoe's book follows Godzilla through the eyes of Lieutenant Ota Murakami, who fights the giant green devil over five decades. Each issue/chapter is another era in which Godzilla is fought by the growing older Ota. Stokoe, whose clearly a fan of Godzilla and wrote and drew every issue, showcases a number of Godzilla's old foes, fights and history. His art is as killer as the kaiju king he draws. All the while you have you're own little Raymond Burr (American actor inserted in Godzilla for  theAmerican audience) to tell you what Big G is up too.

 Godzilla In Hell
Godzilla in Hell seemingly takes place after on of the times Godzilla has "died." The series starts off strong with an issue done again by artist James Stokoe, that has Godzilla just sort of falling into Hell. From where? Who knows? 

It's just kind of funny to see Big G just wandering through Hell. This is a giant radioactive dinosaur who can't talk, so it's really only going on the art. We get a nice fight with a demonic version of Godzilla that perfectly matches the style of Tokyo gore you might find in one of the Godzilla movies from the Millennium series.

The rest of the issues are kind of boring. Each issue is done by a different artist and frankly, until issue five it's just other artists doing their version of Godzilla going through Hell, none of which that really stick. If you can, just get issues #1 and #5 of the series.

Issue #5 from Dave Watcher ends with a slow build of Godzilla pacing through some different environments of Hell, freezing to blistering heat. Then features our King of the Monsters getting eaten by small demons all the way to his bones, then coming back together in some sort of weird, yet cool, demon collective form. And once again no words except for a demonic sound of skree-oink! A crazy issue that might, in a supernatural sense, explain how Godzilla comes back.