Godzilla Rivals: Round One

Godzilla Rivals: Round One

Originally released in 2021

Written by Paul Allor et al.

Art by E.J. Su et al.



I watched a lot of Godzilla movies for the first time over the past year or so, including the original Godzilla, Shin Godzilla, and the Millennium series of movies. (Where at least four of the six serve as separate reboots that ignore every Godzilla movie but the first one - and here I thought Halloween had a complicated continuity) While I wasn't familiar with all of the monsters covered in this book, I thought I'd see what it was like.



This is a series of one-shots where the plot of each issue involves Godzilla battling a different monster - Hedorah (a sludge creature that absorbs radiation), Mothra (who seems to be the closest there is to a heroic Kaiju), King Ghidorah (Godzilla's arch-nemesis), and Battra (who, as the name would suggest, is a giant bat).  However, the focus is on the humans who are trying to survive the Kaiju battles or, in one case, get Godzilla's help.



The series isn't deep, but it feels like if someone made an animated Godzilla TV series.  The stories are disconnected beyond the presence of Godzilla, making each issue easy to jump into even if (like me) you aren't familiar with the monsters in question.



The human protagonists have a good range of occupations and skill levels, allowing for each issue to feel different despite them having similar premises. Their names didn't stick with me after reading the issues, but these comics have some solid and memorable visuals, like Godzilla's clear eagerness to beat up King Ghidorah again.



Reading these issues in the PDF format does have a flaw in that double page spreads are inserted as two separate pages; there's usually at least one double page spread in these issues where Godzilla is attacking or facing off with his enemy, and the lack of them causes some of the scale to be lost.



These comics were all right; they felt short, and quick to get to the point as a result. I probably should watch more Godzilla movies, as I haven't seen many of the pre-Millennium era ones.





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