“Yesterday’s” Comic> Gamera #1

When Gamera has a BBQ, his guests have the grilled chicken, he eats the flames.

Gamera #1

Dark Horse (August, 1996)

This comic came out just after the Gamera: Guardian Of The Universe movie was released on home video in the states (unless my memory is off, because I hadn’t heard of the rest of the Gamera reboot movies until many years later). A year has passed and Asagi travels with her friend Mayumi to Mexico when the scientists is called to check out a species of bird thought extinct. Instead it turns out to be a trap for Mayumi by a scientist who wants to resume the Gyaos experiments of ancient Atlantis. Since Asagi wasn’t allowed to go on the trip and unaware of her friend’s situation, she takes a plane tour run by Lutz just as a Gyaos escapes and Gamera arrives to attack it. Seeing two giant monsters battle and seeing Asagi take every wound Gamera does freaks him out and he chases her out of the plane when it lands, and she gets trampled by the crowd.

What they got right: I haven’t watched my copy of Gamera: Guardian Of The Universe in years but it matches what I remember. The story fills in enough gaps to follow along with the story, and there’s a section at the end of the comic explaining what the comic can’t organically cover in the story. The art is also quite good.

What they got wrong: I’m waiting for confirmation from our pal Matt Burkett, who is a huge fan of this movie, but from my recollection Mayumi wasn’t called in to destroy Gyaos but actively tried to save it from Gamera. (My guess being that being an ornithologist, a studier of birds, made her a bit biased.) But she claims here that she was called in to destroy the monster bird thing. Glad to see her root for Gamera this time.

Update from the next day:

https://twitter.com/ApolloZHack/status/576081028097310720

So then I have no complaints.

Recommendation: I’m not as into Gamera as I am Godzilla but this miniseries is starting off well and I hope it continues through the next few issues. It’s worth a look, since it’s the only Gamera comic I’ve ever heard of, at least in the US.