Luke Owen on the latest issue of Godzilla…
While IDW’s other Godzilla series – The Half Century War – continues to amass praise from fans and critics alike, the regular on-going series is still going strong even if it can be fairly hit and miss.
Issue #5 was one of those miss entries. While the main story of Boxer and his crew moved along at a good pace, the battle between Godzilla and Mechagodzilla was incredibly anti-climactic. However Issue #6 promised big things as Godzilla was to throw down with one of his most famous advisories – Mothra. So, does Issue #6 fall into the hit or miss category?
It’s kind of hard to say. Again the story of Boxer and his crew (especially the relationships between his son Harrison and Claire) progressed nicely but we didn’t actually get the showdown between Godzilla and Mothra. The opening few pages are quite intense and the set-up is very beautifully drawn, but the two part ways. Why? Because one scientist theorises that they are in love.
At least that’s what I took from this. If I am wrong I’d love someone to tell me and put my mind at ease because I can’t believe Duane Swierczynski would take the character down this route. Miss Asuka does state that the characters aren’t really in “love”, but then goes on to say that they could be:
“Well no, not actual love of course. Who knows if the giant monsters have emotions at all?.. They, like us, are chemically attracted to members of their own species”.
This could be read as them being attracted to each other in the physical sense, which is why they always want to fight each other, but surely they want to fight each other because that’s what they do? Why give Godzilla motive to fight Mothra other than they are two giant monsters who want to beat the snot out of each other?
As I said, I really hope I’m wrong and I would love someone to tell me that I misread what Swierczynski wrote. The on-going Godzilla series does often show signs of brilliance and the tease of future battles between Hedorah, Spacegodzilla and Gigan mean we could see some really cool battles in upcoming issues. There is also a nice tease in the final panel that has certainly drawn in my interest from a basic story telling point – I just hope the Miss Asuka storyline doesn’t bog things down. We are already getting silly with Mothra’s electricity giving Claire “visions” – we don’t need monsters in love complicating things further.
Luke Owen is a freelance copywriter working for Europe’s biggest golf holiday provider as their web content executive.
Originally published November 3, 2012. Updated April 10, 2018.
