Godzilla has been around long enough, and seen plenty of action to dip his big, clawed toes into a variety of genres. Such a big guy needs a big tent to fit in, and now we’ve got a heist story about criminals plotting and scheming to take the possessions of others. I’ve been a fan of the King of the Monsters long enough that a lot of these stories seem like more of the same, but the novelty of a “Godzilla’s Eleven” tickled my fancy, and I was immediately intrigued. Can IDW’s Godzilla: Heist steal this longtime Godzilla fan’s heart?
The story of this 5-part series centers around Jaion Julkarni, a young man with a big plan to snatch up a whole lot of money with the help of Godzilla. The story wastes no time, dropping us right into a quick robbery. Jaion gets away with the money, but is quickly captured by a mysterious crew not questionable characters, including such archetypes as a sociopathic second in command, a giant strong man (or strong woman in the case of Heist’s character “Kappa”), and a fast-talking tech guy. They give Jaion an offer he can’t refuse, and he finds himself recruited to work on the biggest heist in the history of the game.
There’s plenty of backstabbing and twists and turns to stay true to the genre, and while none of the characters are especially original they’re defined well enough to keep the whole thing engaging enough. The action gets surprisingly gruesome, so don’t go into this expecting a light-hearted Showa-style shootout. We’re firmly in R-rated territory here.
The art in this series is solid, with lots of great line art for the environments. The shading has a nice semi-scribbled look to it that gives Heist its own visual identity, and all the men have a lot of stubble and arm hair to flesh out the art on the pages. Godzilla is nicely detailed, though the design they gave him has huge gaps between each tooth, which I’m not too pleased with. He’s still a terrifying force to be reckoned with here though, so I’ll let it slide.
I read the collected volume of all 5 issues of the series, which has a beautiful cover by the unmistakable Bob Eggleton depicting the 2002 Godzilla as the central figure in a collage of destruction with Big Ben toppling in the background. At the back of the book, you’ve got six more covers in a gallery, mostly fun Godzilla-fied versions of movie posters such as “The Fast and the Furious,” “Mission: Impossible,” and “Inception.” These parody covers were all done by artist Pablo Tunica. Some of these would be nice to see blown up to be a full-scale poster. The one cover not that doesn’t fit into this movie poster style is by artist Lenny Romero, which depicts an absolutely gorgeous rendering of the 1989 Godzilla blasting Big Ben at point blank range with his atomic ray.
Godzilla: Heist does exactly what it sets out to accomplish. You get your Godzilla, you get your heist, and it looks good doing both. A part of me wishes there was a little more originality with the characters, but perhaps jumping into a new genre without any guard rails would be a bit too risky? Or miss the point entirely? Jaion isn’t the most exciting or likable lead, but at the end of the day I still made my getaway from Godzilla: Heist with a sense of satisfaction. If you’re looking for some variety in your Godzilla stories, you’ll want to plan a heist to get one of these into your collection. But, you know, legally, with money. |
![Comic: Godzilla: Heist [Trade Paperback]](../images/comics/idw_godzilla_heist_trade26_tn.jpg)
