The first volume of Duane Swierczynski's Godzilla series features the first four issues in the comic run, with art by Simon Gane. It covers the adventures of Boxer's mercenary task force, comprising of himself, Urv (explosion expert), Harrison (a mute racing driver) and Claire Plangman (gun touting military scientist and Boxer's ex) as they battle kaiju around the world. The concept is okay, with three of the issues being fairly good although the volume ends on a weak note with the last issue.

In total, the volume collects Godzilla #1, Godzilla #2, Godzilla #3 and Godzilla #4 and features a variety of kaiju from the series, with Godzilla and Rodan getting the ongoing spotlight across the four. While the premise is a little different from what people are used to in the films, it starts to lose steam by the half way point, giving Boxer and his crew relatively easy victories, considering what they are going up against, and trivializing things a little too much. The last issue covers a battle between Titanosaurus and Rodan and in particular falls short, giving neither a satisfying conflict between the two monsters or a satisfying resolution for the first trade volume for the series.

In terms of the art, Simon Gane, artist on Godzilla Legends #2, is on task for all four issues. His style isn't consistent, sometimes being far too simplistic with hardly any lines on the human characters... to being incredibly detailed and fantastic on the monsters, in particular a great splash page spread with Godzilla in Godzilla #1. While Gane was later replaced in the series and while I also don't find him to be a personal favorite artist, he does have a unique style and pretty much solidified a good look for the human cast and in particular Boxer. So uneven or not, and ignoring the lacking art in Godzilla #4, Gane's style gets a hesitant thumbs up.

Bottom line, I don't want to dive too much into the individual issues in the series, as there are separate reviews for each, but as an overall picture this is a decent start to a series that is starting to shape up well in what will be the "second" volume. While I had pretty high hopes for Duane Swierczynski's take of the character, this was perhaps a little unfair given that for every Birds of Prey there is a Cable (volume 2) in his resume of other comics. In the end, Swierczynski feels like he tries a little too hard to make these different from the films without finding the right mix to make the plot really connect with the reader, but does give us a cast to care about that ultimately makes the first volume worth checking out to see if it's your cup of tea.