The Stop Button
blogging by Andrew Wickliffe
Category: Godzilla
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I’m curious how writer-artist-colorist-letterer (hah to the letterer credit but more on it in a bit) pitched Godzilla in Hell to IDW. Or did they ask him to pitch? If so, did they ask him to pitch a comic with nothing but Godzilla walking around and fighting. If so, did they ask anyone else to…
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I wanted Godzilla: Cataclysm to be good. Not before I started reading it, but as I read the first few pages where writer Cullen Bunn sets it all up. It’s got an intriguing ground situation–after the monster war, humans have to make do in their wrecked world. So it’s post-apocalyptic but not futuristic. And there’s…
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Godzilla is a peculiar picture. It’s intensely serious, with director Honda never letting the viewer get a moment’s relief. This approach is all throughout the film, which opens with a documentary feel. Honda and co-screenwriter Murata Takeo set up their main characters quickly and without a lot of fanfare–Takarada Akira and Kôchi Momoko’s first scene…
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Godzilla is tolerably bad for about the first half, then it takes a turn for the far worse as the characters start having longer conversations. Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich’s dialogue would be hilariously bad if it were in small parts, but they string together these scenes. There’s no action, just a lot of bad…
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Adequate is probably the best word for this issue. Stokoe doesn’t actually do much with the idea of space monsters. It’s just a big monster fight issue–Godzilla, Mechagodzilla, Ghidorah and Gigan–with a little of the protagonist. He pilots Mechagodzilla, which should work but he’s too busy fighting monsters to narrate. And Stokoe doesn’t do much…
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Stokoe turns it all around. He brings in two of the silly elements–Mechagodzilla and Space Godzilla–but sells them through a combination of great art and great characterization of the protagonist. The protagonist is now bitter and middle aged–a “glorified weather man” who anticipates the monsters’ landfalls and tries to get people out. Stokoe does contrive…
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Stokoe plays up the human element too much here. He’s got a bunch of monsters–it turns out Godzilla was the only one until last issue–but they’re not getting the attention. Instead, the issue’s more a combination of exposition about what happened at the end of the last issue and off-panel after the first issue and…
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Wow. Stokoe does great work here. Except for the ominous soft cliffhanger, this issue of Half-Century War speedily surpasses what I thought was possible for a Godzilla comic. This issue is set in 1967, in Vietnam. Though Godzilla (and possibly other giant monsters) roam the planet, the U.S. is still trying to stop the spread…
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James Stokoe starts Half Century War with an adaptation of the original Godzilla. A tank commander keeps the monster busy while people evacuate. It’s an interesting approach and really does humanize the whole thing. Later, the tank commander gets the chance to fight giant monsters exclusively, hence the title. But the concept, while good, isn’t…
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Oh, I get it, the bad guy keeps calling Gabe “black man” because he’s a racist and it (hopefully) makes the reader take an immediate dislike to the character. But Moench did basically the same thing with Dum Dum in the last issue and the reader’s not supposed to want Godzilla to step on him.…
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Wow, Dum Dum’s not just an unlikable jerk, he’s also a racist. And a complete idiot who ends up helping the evil Dr. Demonicus. With good guys like these…. Tom Sutton guest pencils this issue; did Marvel decide to stop punishing their readers with Herb Trimpe? Sutton’s not very good on the monsters–there’s nothing interesting…
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Tony DeZuniga’s inks help a lot, but even he can’t make what should be an awesome page–Hercules toppling Godzilla–work. Not with that Trimpe perspective. This issue, Moench and Trimpe do let Godzilla destroy an American landmark–the Golden Gate Bridge. I guess someone at Marvel decided it could go, while the Space Needle in the last…
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Trimpe’s got a shot right between Godzilla’s legs (on the second or third page too!). It feels kind of dirty. Moench goes on to expand on the Marvel 616 version of Godzilla–turns out the ocean floor held a lot of other monsters (including giant flying birds). The nuclear blast opening the crevice for Godzilla opened…
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Given the goofiness of the seventies Godzilla movies, Herb Trimpe might be the perfect choice for this comic book. I mean, his name’s almost spelled tripe, which is a good description of his artwork. While there are a handful of iconic panels (small ones), Trimpe can’t even maintain perspective on a guy putting out his…
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Okay, so Wray did have something to do with “Ren & Stimpy.” Otherwise, it’d be a little too coincidental. He does the art on Big Blown Baby (Fleming scripts). Great art, very detailed, very fluid. Too bad Fleming’s script is just a mediocre absurdist comedy thing. It’s amazing how many of these poorly written, obscenity-laden…
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On a few levels–like the one with the giant monster–Godzilla fails. On some other ones, like the production values, the acting, and the approach, it succeeds. It’s a peculiar film and it should have been better. Apparently, the Japanese film industry had some trouble in the 1970s and the Godzilla series took a nine year…
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