Godzilla: Gangsters & Goliaths Review

When I heard IDW Publishing was picking up the Godzilla franchise for a new series of comics, I was ecstatic! I had read some of their Transformers: Revenge of The Fallen related comics and was thoroughly impressed by them.

Normally, I don’t read comics. They simply aren’t my cup of tea. Not to mention, Godzilla’s treatment in comics has been, what I would consider to be, so-so. Marvel’s treatment was absolutely ridiculous and Dark Horse brought the King of the Monsters into a more serious, and more interesting, set of stories. But IDW went much further; bringing in other classic Godzilla allies and villains.

Godzilla: Gangsters & Goliaths (will be referred to as GGG from this point forward) was a five issue mini-series that had no ties with the original storyline that was developed in IDW’s main Godzilla story, Godzilla: Kingdom of Monsters.

Synopsis: Makoto Sato is left for dead on Monster Island after he ends up stirring the hornet’s nest of Yakuza leader, Takahashi. Sato works for the police force in Tokyo hoping to bring down the crime lord’s influence in the city and smuggling of drugs and weapons. When Sato’s partner is murdered in front of him, Sato becomes more obsessed with taking Takahashi down. But on Monster Island, he steals the Mothra’s twin fairies in the hopes that the monsters will force Takahashi into giving himself up as Tokyo is destroyed by the daikaiju.

Instead, Takahashi gains possession of the fairies and watches, with glee, as Tokyo burns to the ground. Sato seeks the help of his two estranged sons to activate Mechagodzilla to stave off the kaiju assault and to locate Takahashi. After a few moments of struggle, Takahashi is ultimately vanquished by Godzilla stomping on him. The fairies are returned to the monsters and the monsters leave Tokyo to return to Monster Island.

Review

Story: GGG has a weird title, but it is very fitting considering the story. John Layman did a masterful job of creating a suspenseful story full of interesting characters. As a crime/gangster story, it is really top-notch! But when it comes to kaiju action, this comic mini-series falls flat. In many previous Godzilla comics, including the current Kingdom of Monsters series from IDW, the kaiju are at the heart of the story; they drive the story forward. While the kaiju play a role in the destruction of Tokyo, their appearance in the city is a result of Sato stealing the fairies and then Takahashi taking possession of them at a later point. Our characters are more concerned with ridding of Takahashi than they are of trying to minimize the damage brought on by Godzilla and his cohorts.

Another issue with the story is that there was a flashback scene involving Sato assisting in the evacuation of Tokyo when King Ghidorah attacked. In this scene, Sato is approached by his wife and two sons, then as children, about getting to shelter with them. While we find out that Sato, later, ends up having a rough relationship with his two sons, we never find out what really brought on this animosity his sons have for him. This is explored, albeit, extremely minimally. I was also wondering what happened to his wife, because she is never mentioned before or after the flashback. Did she die when Ghidorah attacked Tokyo? Did Takahashi murder her? Did she die of natural causes? What happened? With such interesting characters, a lot of backstory is missing that is introduced. Layman could have added another dimension to Sato’s already wonderful characterization further.

There are only two, but very brief, kaiju battles. One is where Mothra takes her wings and bats Godzilla away from Sato in the early part of the story when Sato arrives on Monster Island. The second is a brief, one page skirmish between Titanosaurus and Kumonga. This is my favorite panel in the whole mini-series. This page was used to give the reader a brief background of life on Monster Island.

Outside of those two cases, we don’t get anymore battles. We get a glimpse of a possible Mechagodzilla-Rodan battle later in the story, but nothing is really shown, or explored, in further detail.

Also, I have a serious problem with the kaiju simply leaving once they get possession of the fairies. I find it hard to believe that the kaiju would do this…especially Godzilla. The way the story ends is very abrupt and a “nice” way to quickly wrap the story up. But it doesn’t work here. I get a sense that Layman wanted to flesh-out the story more, but realized that he had done a lot already and was beginning to feel the constraints of making the series fit into five issues. Around the middle of issue 3, you can feel the story really start to pick up speed, and not in a good way. The story seems to become a bit too sloppy at some points and, as I wrote above, certain areas aren’t explored.

This story would have been served better if the mini-series was extended for a few more issues.

6.1/10

Art: The art presented in this mini-series is absolutely wonderful! Alberto Ponticelli’s drawings of the characters and kaiju, as well as surrounding environments, is highly detailed. The kaiju take on a Heisei-esque look (except for Anguirus who is more Showa looking) and are beautiful to look at.

10/10

Kaiju Action: While the kaiju look brilliant, the action shown in the series is a bit brief. There are some really nice destruction scenes and the panel depicting Titanosaurus battling it out against Kumonga is wonderful! But too much of the story is focused on the human characters and the kaiju, to a certain degree, suffer.

As stated above, there are only two, brief kaiju battles and no Mechagodzilla vs *Insert Kaiju Here* battle takes place. There was a lot of potential here, but a lot of it was squandered; probably due to issue number constraints.

4.8/10

Final Verdict: GGG is a wonderful Yakuza/gangster story! We get a great human villain and a hero who plays more of an anti-hero than an actual hero. The characterization is really good, for the most part, but some areas are introduced and never fully explored. This is disappointing, because we already have great characters. Diving into the animosity between Sato and his sons, as well as what happened to his wife, would have probably made Sato more of a sympathetic character and it would have, definitely, fleshed him out more.

Ponticelli’s art is great to look at and complements with what is happening in the story. The colors are vibrant and the kaiju representations are spot-on!

The kaiju battles are virtually non-existent and they play second-fiddle to the human drama within the story. This is probably the most disappointing aspect of this mini-series.

Overall, GGG is a nice story, but not a good kaiju story. While we see some of our beloved monsters in the mini-series, their appearances are fairly brief. We aren’t even treated to any true battles between the monsters and the lack of it really hurts GGG. The pacing gets off track by issue 3 and the ending is way too convenient and unsatisfying. Ponticelli’s art is, really, the only redeeming quality of this mini-series.

Final Rating: 7/10