Luke Owen reviews issue 12 of IDW’s Godzilla…
It all comes down to this… Godzilla vs. his mightiest enemy yet! The fate of the world hangs in the balance! What role will Boxer play? Will he be Godzilla’s salvation or destruction? It’s all been building to this, don’t miss it!
As many of you will know, I have been very harsh on this on-going Godzilla series – but for good reason. The pacing has been unbelievably slow and I feel like I’ve read more issues where nothing has happened and not enough issues where something has happened. To put this into perspective, we’ve been reading this comic for around a year now. A whole year. And in that time, Duane Swierczynski has shown us that Godzilla can destroy things and some monsters have come down to attack from space. That’s really about it. Compare that to James Stokoe’s Godzilla: The Half Century War which covered 50 years of Godzilla’s destruction in great detail in just five issues – less than half the time it’s taken for Swierczynski to get to this point.
But, regardless of my problems with the horrendous pacing, I do have to say that Godzilla #12 is a pretty damn good read. You could always put forward the argument that the slow pacing has only heightened the tension for this issue’s reveal – even if we have been expecting it since the character’s arrival. Anyone who has seen 2004’s Godzilla: Final Wars will feel a slight sense of familiarity with the reveal and even those who read Godzilla: The Half Century War might even feel a sense of déjà vu with characters involved.
While I’ve never really liked Simon Gane’s overly cartoonish artwork on this series, I do have to say that his fight scenes are excellent spectacles to look at. I still don’t think they’re on a par with Stokoe, but Gane matches Swierczynski’s tone perfectly. The fight between Rodan and Gigan, although brief, is just awesome and you really get a feel for every single blow. Likewise the fight between Godzilla and (spoilers) King Ghidorah is just fantastic. It may be a little too much like their fight from Godzilla: Final Wars, but that’s not a bad thing. The action in Godzilla #12 is top notch.
On top of that, the human interactions are also really good. We get a nice reveal for Boxer (whose emotions shine through Gane’s work) and a pretty exciting moment with them trapped in Mechagodzilla’s hull. Swierczynski really nails every aspect of this comic to a perfect degree which just makes the last few months even more frustrating. If he’d have been more focused, this could have been a really great Godzilla series.
As it happens, Godzilla #12 is just a really good issue in another wise below average run. This is without a shadow of a doubt the best comic of the series so far and it even though it delivers a lot; it looks like it has saved some to spill into next issue. I just wish the whole series had been like this.
Originally published May 29, 2013. Updated November 7, 2019.
