This is not my week for technology. If you thought this article was late, wait until tonight’s. Literally.
The monster is the most likeable character on this cover.
Godzilla: Kingdom of Monsters# 5
IDW Publishing (July, 2011)
WRITER: Eric Powell & Tracy Marsh ARTIST: Victor Santos COLORIST: Ronda Pattison LETTERER/CREATIVE CONSULTANT: Chris Mowry EDITORS: Carlos Guzman & Chris Ryall
As the monster’s rampage continue both the American and German militarizes attempt to use poison gas, only to have it backfire. The body count rises, leaving one little girl in the “care” of Sgt. Wood. (You know, the guy who left the Not-Jerzy-Shore folks to die.) Not-Lady-Gaga appears to also be dead. Meanwhile, the French girls go to show off their new Queenly wardrobe to Batra, who is now in a cocoon.
What they got right: …could be counted on one hand. The monster stuff is the only interesting thing in this comic, although seeing the military and the scenes in the White House actually work is a nice surprise.
What they got wrong: The very first page starts with some guy sure that he found out where the monsters come from…only to have a building fall on him courtesy of Rodan. This senseless moment passes for the “lighthearted” portion of the story. The letter’s page still continues to insist these are lighthearted moments to break up the bleak monster story, but they’re not funny. They’ve passed satire into insulting a long time ago. There is one–ONE–amusing joke. The rest continues to ignore what we have actually done during natural and unnatural disasters at least since 9/11. The stuff I do in Jake & Leon is less insulting “satire” than they have here, and I had a Black Lantern Johnny DC!
Recommendation: If you really need this because your a Godzilla fan, wait for the trade. You’ll still only have half a good comic (all the monster stuff), but you’ll hopefully feel less ripped off than I do.
The only light moment that is actually good. Do more stuff like this! Or watch the later Godzilla movies and see how they do it!
Tomorrow’s Comic > Richie Rich #3
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I have to disagree here. I think Kingdom of Monsters is a good, dark comedy! It accepts that the monsters are the real stars and makes humanity their foils. I liked how various armies puffed up their chests only to make incredibly blunders. And though I agree the parodies of actual entertainment people were heavy-handed, there isn’t much of that this time around.
Plus, Santos replaces Hester and I think I like his cartooning on this better! So count me as satisfied. Now if only Ghidorah wasn’t just on the cover…
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The problem is that the humans are so unlikeable you’re pretty much rooting for the monsters. The satire fails in light of what we’ve seen in in actual disasters (Kanye West aside) and there isn’t one human character I want to see survive. I’ve never said that about any Godzilla movie or series ever and as a human this bothers me.
It is heavy handed, to the point where it takes me out of the story when I’d rather see what the evil twins are up to and how the humans fight back against the monsters. I like that we see how the citizenry reacts to the monsters, which we haven’t seen since the original–even 1985 and the “Millennium” stories failed to go there, but then there isn’t one decent human in the bunch since that grieved father who went suicide bomber on Godzilla? I still say there’s a split personality with this comic, and the wrong one is winning.
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“I’ve never said that about any Godzilla movie or series ever and as a human this bothers me.”
Really? Not even the one with the little kid (All Monsters Attack)? 😉
As for me, I was going to root for the monsters regardless.
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Actually, no. I just wanted him to have a better actor (or at least a better VO). 🙂 The kid was the lightest offense of that movie (AKA Godzilla’s Revenge for the uninitiated readers).
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Don’t I know it!
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