Is that Gwen Frickin’ Stacy in the left corner? GET HER, GODZILLA!
Godzilla #1
Marvel Comics (August, 1977)
“The Coming!” WRITER: Doug Moench ARTISTS: Herb Trimpe & Jim Mooney COLORIST: Janice Choen (although I’m using a black & white reprint) LETTERER: Joe Rosen EDITOR: Archie Goodwin
In Alaska, Godzilla rises from an iceberg to attack the Alaskan pipeline. Even SHIELD is no match for the monster, but from Japan, home of many of Godzilla’s attacks, comes a scientist who may have the solution.
What they got right: I’m actually a bit neutral on putting Godzilla in the Marvel Universe but seeing how they deal with the Big G should be interesting. Godzilla looks fairly decent.
What they got wrong: Well, unless you look at him head-on. Then his eyes seems a bit big. Also, Moench went with a Godzilla closer to the first movie (the official name of the comic is Godzilla but note they’re using King Of The Monsters, the US name of the first movie. However, this came out well after Godzilla had become one of the GOOD monsters battling evil from space or undersea kingdoms. This may be the first example of going gaga over the first movie and ignoring the whole franchise that became popular enough to make this comic, but I’ve already written about that recently. Then you have the Hanna-Barbera cartoon that came out after this and resumed the trend of Godzilla as hero. He’s not even a misunderstood hero like many Marvel superheroes. What WAS the point in attacking the Alaskan Pipeline?
Recommendation: A decent start but I’m still sorry they went the route they did considering the state of the franchise at the time. Still it’s a decent introduction to the Marvel version of Godzilla.
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