Comic Book Review: Godzilla: Kingdom of Monsters #2

THE STORY SO FAR: Godzilla has emerged from the ocean off the coast of Niijima Island in Japan. He makes his way towards Tokyo and military countermeasures seem powerless against the gargantuan beast. As the Japanese government scrambles to make sense of this monster, the Prime Minister agrees to drastic action: a nuclear weapon is launched in order to stop Godzilla. Instead, Godzilla gains atomic breath and continues unabated to the heart of Japan, as the world looks on in dread?

In the words of my seven year old boy ?Terrifying.?

After sharing Godzilla #1 with my son, I knew I?d found something special. When I picked up this book from my local store, my boy immediately grabbed this issue and read through it on the car ride home. I asked his opinion and he simply said, ?It?s good.? He opened the comic and showed me a picture of Anguirus trashing the city and muttered ?Terrifying.?

So this issue opens with a Godzilla destroying Japan. A fisherman is frantically looking for his children as the rest of the island evacuates. Then we have a school trip to a museum in Moscow. Suddenly an earthquake hits and a Russian boy uses the distraction to steal a meteor. Mexico, herds of cattle are simply dropping dead on the spot with no explanation. How are these events connected? What does it all mean?

Read on, gentle reader??

IDW has taken things to the next level with Godzilla: Kingdom of Monsters #2. Where issue #1 was a good setup issue with not a lot of meat, Eric Powell, Tracey Marsh and Phil Hester have brought out the big guns here. Looking at the cover it won?t be a spoiler to say both Rodan and Anguirus show up in this issue?and shenanigans ensue.

I?m perplexed as to where this book is going. We don?t seem to have met a human character that is significant in any way (apart from Barak Obama, who appears in this issue too). The monsters don?t appear heroic or villainous (as their motivations?often are in the movies and cartoons)?but forces of nature that do what comes naturally for them. So I?m very interested to see what happens when these three monsters (and the other ten monsters that I?m expecting, given the cover teases) clash.

And without giving away spoilers, the final four pages of this issue?are hilarious. Powell (I?m not sure how a collaborative writing project like this works, so I can?t say how much input Marsh has, but being a seasoned Powell reader it smacks of his humor) is a comic genius and only he could pull off this bittersweet gag. Want to know what I?m talking about? Go buy the issue. It?s truly worth it.

Godzilla: Kingdom of Monsters #2 gets five baby Hellboys out of five. I?m not only loving this book, but love sharing it with my boy. It?s rare that any comic book bridges the generation gap, but this one does.

Source: http://gfbrobot.com/2011/05/17/comic-book-review-godzilla-kingdom-of-monsters-2/

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