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!

Godzilla #1 – The Coming! (August 1977)
Writer – Doug Moench
Artists – Herb Trimpe & Jim Mooney
Editor – Archie Goodwin

The Godzilla series sets off right as Big G takes his first steps onto American soil, and sets up many of the story themes that will echo throughout the run: environmentalism, Godzilla not as an evil monster, Godzilla misunderstood by humans, characters who grow attached to Godzilla, and humans all but helpless in the face of so awesome a monster. Godzilla’s actions are described by the narrator in place of thought balloons, and the narrator is often sympathetic to the monster (and is backed up by Godzilla’s actions.) For a rundown on the cast, be sure to stop by the Godzilla Marvel Comics Splash Page!

Godzilla awakens in an iceberg off the coast of Alaska. He immediately trashes a lighthouse (Holy Foghorn reference, Batman!) then goes to attack the Alaskan Pipeline. At this point the US is in the middle of the oil embargo, and oil is considered a precious commodity even more than today’s ridiculous gas prices. So Godzilla’s attack is more devestating than it looks. The narration constantly refers to the US oil addiction and how much the US relies on the oil (and it is a continual theme in the Godzilla comic series as wel shall see.) Godzilla’s attacks are not characterized as the work of a mindless evil monster.

Dum Dum Dugan and Agent Jimmy Woo are sent to deal with this mess in a helicarrier. Godzilla shrugs off their various flying weaponry without a scratch.

Nick Fury arrives with guests: Dr. Yuriko Takiguchi, Tamara Hasioka, and Robert Takiguchi. Dr. Takiguchi claims to have secret plans to stop Godzilla. A bit of Godzilla’s origin after an underseas nuclear test and Dr. Takiguchi’s involvement as lone dissenter and lone survivor are detailed as well.

Godzilla manages to destroy part of the Alaskan Pipeline, and then is blasted with SHIELD’s really big laser. Godzilla is injured, but then immediately destroys the weapon.

SHIELD is left at a loss for options, unable to stop something so powerful as Godzilla. Will they find something by next issue???

Godzilla vs. Marvel!

The 1970s saw a change in the comic book market (and ushered in what became known as the Bronze Age of Comics). The super-hero filled 1960s had come to a close, and some of the lesser-selling spandex titles were soon history. In their place began a long procession of experimentation and increased social relevance. And also a bunch of weirdo stuff. From drug addiction to villains headlining comics to werewolves and vampires, the Comic Code was becoming less restrictive, stories were becoming more daring and creative, and comics changed. Marvel began producing more licensed properties (Conan the Barbarian, Thongor of Lemuria, Star Wars, 2001: A Space Odyssey) and some horror titles (Ghost Rider, The Tomb of Dracula, Werewolf by Night) and reprints of older horror tales. All of these things helped shaped what becomes the subject of our series, the Godzilla comics.

Godzilla utilized a mix of existing Marvel characters and newly created ones to both integrate Godzilla into the Marvel universe, but also give it the feel of Godzilla movies. Not content to simply be a tale of a mindless beast destroying the land, Godzilla became something more. Godzilla was treated with respect, considered a force of nature with some degree of intelligence. At this time the Godzilla film series was on hiatus, but when it returned in 1984 with the Heisei films, this was essentially how Godzilla was treated. The trailblazing take still had references to the old. Godzilla did destroy things, people were injured and died in his chaos. Godzilla fought other monsters, many of which had more sinister desires than his own. Godzilla had human allies who understood him, but was also constantly being assaulted by random people who would shoot first and regret later (even super heroes fell into this trap!) By the end of the series, the goal became to contain Godzilla, not to stop him at all costs.

Through it all, we never get thought bubbles from Big G, but the narration does take a sympathetic tack when describing Godzilla’s actions, often giving him humanized emotions and responses (though occasionally making note that no one can know for certain!) Godzilla was a unique protagonist at the time, giving the comic a styling that would still be considered unusual.

Archie Goodwin shepherded the Godzilla series as the editor, with Doug Moench writing the entire series. Herb Trimpe was the main artist, though was assisted or on vacation for a few issues. The stable team helps keep Godzilla feeling like an actual ongoing story instead of some random collection of tales, and making Godzilla feel like a real character while having no dialogue except for monster growls. They also would have steered the comic in its more social conscious direction. Several of the earlier issues feature oil being a threatened resource, and mention the US’s addiction to oil (as they came out during the height of the oil embargo!) while other issues have environmental messages. Another shoutout to Trimpe’s art for not making the many minority cast members look like stereotypes. And on that note, 5 of the six main characters in Godzilla are non-White, which may be the highest percentage on an ensemble series I know of at that time.

The stories ranged the gauntlet from Godzilla battling invading space monsters to Godzilla wandering across a dude ranch to Godzilla being shrunk and then unshrunk. The variety of tales kept things from getting stale, and when there was monster action, it was often multiple monster action! Godzilla tore a path through the whole canon of creatures sent to combat him, with only one surviving the series (IIRC).

Godzilla survived the end of his series (which I think was more of a licensing thing than sales, though I am not certain) and continued to appear “unofficially”, though we’ll cover that in another post. The other lasting legacy from the Godzilla comic series was the robot creation Red Ronin, built to fight Godzilla and accidentally connected via brain control to a 12 year old boy, Robert Takiguchi, Godzilla sympathizer. Though Red Ronin would be damaged and taken out of action, it would appear in various Marvel series long after the Godzilla run had ended.

Godzilla is a pretty cool comic read, and I suggest you check it out sometime. Now let’s get dangerous and list everyone and everything that showed up in Marvel’s Godzilla!