Godzilla #3 – A Tale of Two Saviors (October 1977)
Writer – Doug Moench
Artists – Herb Trimpe
Editor – Archie Goodwin

Godzilla vs. the Champions! Godzilla continues his West Coast Domination Tour with a visit to the Bay Area, but at usual things don’t go smoothly.

Godzilla shows up in San Francisco Bay and people just start shooting him, so Godzilla gets angry. How annoying it must be to constantly being shot at by annoying tiny things.

Meanwhile in LA, The Champions are hanging at their headquarters. You remember The Champions, right? As a reminder, they are Hercules, Black Widow, Ice Man, Angel, Ghost Rider, and Dark Star. Even weirder, Ghost Rider and Dark Star are out goofing off or something, and don’t even show up in this issue! The 66.67% of The Champions that are in this issue of Godzilla notice the commotion on the news and decide that since they’re it for the West Coast, they got to go help! Hercules even says “By the cloven hooves of Pan!” when he sees Godzilla.

They get to work trying to fight Big G. At one point Hercules flips Godzilla!

Godzilla gets mad…

Tony Stark shows up finally (after being yakked about for the past two issues) as he meet the Japanese crew (and Woo) in Detroit at his weapons plant. They begin making their secret weapon.

The Champions and Dum Dum get into a turf war as the super heroes are in the way of SHIELD and their efforts to try to capture Godzilla.

The chaos from the two sides bumping heads allows Godzilla to trash the Golden Gate Bridge after electric nets dropped on him miss. Hercules tosses a chunk of the bridge at Godzilla, but hits the SHIELD Helicarrier by mistake. It crashes into the bay!

At this point Godzilla is just standing around gawking at the idiots causing trouble. Then Godzilla wanders off, while the two sides go home to sulk, the Champions realizing they need to work better as a team, and SHIELD trying to figure out how to fix their flying vessel.

It’s refreshing to see a super hero team up where not only do the two sides not like each other, their antagonism actually makes things much worse.

This issue was the first issue of Godzilla I read, picking it up cheap in a longbox as a kid. It stayed in my collection for a few years before I got some more issues. Speaking of more issues, we will have more issues of the Godzilla Marvel comic as March of Godzilla 2013 continues!

Godzilla #2 – Thunder in the Darkness! (September 1977)
Writer – Doug Moench
Artists – Herb Trimpe
Editor – Archie Goodwin

Seattle under siege! Godzilla has popped out of the ocean near Seattle, still angry with pain from the big laser he was blasted with in issue #1. A wounded animal is especially dangerous, and a wounded Godzilla is like armageddon had a wounded baby. Or something. But the point is, Godzilla is mad and now Seattle is going to pay the price!

Gabriel Jones makes his first appearance as a member of the newly formed Godzilla Squad. That’s the official designation for the team lead by Dum Dum that will be tasked to stop Big G from trashing the entire country. Nick Fury is busy. Doing things. One eye things. Don’t ask about Nick Fury.

We get more back story of Godzilla’s origin, showing Godzilla battling a red four-armed tyrannosaurus with eye stalks and a blue giant bird/roc with a spiked club for a tail. I want to see these battles! Both monsters are postulated as mutants that were awakened by the nuclear explosion like Godzilla. This is a cool potential origin for more monsters, but only one future monster uses this origin, and it comes from a different nuclear explosion.

Tamara Hasioka says Godzilla is like a natural force – not good or evil. This I believe is the first time Godzilla is explicitly mentioned this way, though some of the later 1970s Godzilla films sort of imply this. Robert declares that Godzilla is good because he’s saved Earth from worse monsters. Robert is like the Kenny of the Godzilla Marvel series.

Godzilla Squad dresses up using new spanflex armor, while Tony Stark is name-dropped constantly (he is building all the fantastic weapons that will continually appear throughout the series.) Besides this issue, I don’t think the term “spanflex” is mentioned again.

Godzilla attacks the Space Needle, because, why not? What else is Godzilla going to attack in Seattle? The Kingdome had just been built at this point so that’s a landmark no one will know, nor remember as it has since been blown up. Godzilla Squad decides to turn off the power to Seattle to minimize damage from a power plant. But after witnessing Godzilla continuing to attack the Space Needle because it is in flames, the light the only thing that shows up in the dark, Godzilla Squad gets the idea to lure Godzilla out to sea with a trail of bright light beacons. When Godzilla gets to the ocean, SHIELD pushes him in via some sort of collapsible block weapon (which is never seen again!)

Where will Godzilla pop up next issue? Will Godzilla’s attention to the West Coast prompt a rival East Coast monster to diss Godzilla in a rap song? Find out soon!