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Without a doubt, the darkest of the US Godzilla comics.
There's no mention of Godzilla's past at all here, except
for the fact that he is millions of years old and is
full of displeasure of the world he once knew being
changed into a bustling metropolis. The only mention
of radioactivity pertains to a mysterious stone slab
which attracts not only Godzilla to wake up every 3000-4000
years, but two other monsters (and one Anguirus rip-off,
not named) called Soran the thunderbird and Inagos the
locus king. Godzilla is the "Fire Monster". Basically
the monsters show up after the slab is discovered and
proceed to make their way to Tokyo where it is. Godzilla
lands in the city first and begins his path of destruction.
The scientist who discovered the secret behind the slab,
along with a friend of his, load the slab onto a helicopter
in an attempt to get it out of the city and out into
the ocean. The scientist takes one helicopter to buy
time for his friend to get away and ultimately ends
up ramming his helicopter into Godzilla's head as a
distraction in order to keep his wife and daughter out
of Godzilla's path. The other helicopter pilot takes
the slab out to sea and drops it into the ocean. Godzilla
and the other monsters follow the slab into the watery
depths, never to be seen again.
To put it bluntly, this is one dark comic from the
artwork to the storyline. Godzilla really doesn't belong
in this story, as his part could have been played by
ANY monster. The story seemed very thrown together and
the other monsters in the story were just knock offs
of other Toho monsters (Kamacuras and Rodan). The cover
artwork is especially ugly. Godzilla's slug-like appearance
with the evil grin is a far cry from what, in my opinion,
the true king of the monsters should look like. The
supplemental artwork, found at the end of the comic,
ranges from artistic to disturbing, you can finally
see what happens when Godzilla steps on someone. When
I got this comic as a kid, I had never seen Godzilla
in this light before. I had seen the original film and
knew that Godzilla was a force of destruction, but with
this comic, it was as if all involved in it just wanted
to make him into something he wasn't.
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