Review – Godzilla: Rulers of Earth #16 (IDW Publishing)

September 23, 2014

2–3 minutes

Publisher: IDW Publishing
Writer: Chris Mowry
Artists: Jeff Zornow and Matt Frank
Release Date: 24th September 2014

Another month in and another chance to experience the finest old-school kaiju action in comic form.

Issue #16 of Godzilla: Rulers of Earth finally sees Godzilla (with some help from an unlikely ally) do battle with the main forces supporting the machinations of the arc’s villains. These villains, who are finally given some in-comic backstory, are looking to defeat Godzilla in an outright brawl with their mechs and mechanised kaiju, as he is presumably the only kaiju powerful enough to defend mankind from what they have planned. And what a brawl it is, with Mechagodzillas and a resurgent Mecha King-Ghidorah, taking on the King of All Monsters, and giving him a brutally hard time of it.

The art throughout this fight is well-detailed, with a sense of weight, scale and movement that it shares with sister publication Godzilla Cataclysm (previously reviewed here and also here), despite having a much lighter, and comic booky visual style than that post-apocalyptic story. At times the fight becomes hard to follow, due to more panels on page than the series is usually used to. It feels like the original plan for this fight would have pushed the page limit, and had to be squeezed in. This gives a lot of fight to enjoy, but does make it slightly harder to follow naturally than past issues. Overall, the lighter style and the amazing fights make this series a true successor to the Toho spirit; amplifying it, and pulling off far greater spectacle than those films ever could.

The story is not yet over by the end of issue #16, as only the Earth-based forces of this secret invasion have been dealt with. With hints that a certain crystal-based Godzilla antithesis is due an appearance the series may be taking us on quite the journey over the next few issues. Until the trajectory of that story-arc is complete I will withhold judgement on the human elements to this story. I’ve so far just felt that the humans were there to give exposition for the fights, but many of the characters hint at team dynamics and personal issues that have so far fallen by the way side for the kaiju fights. I’m of course absolutely fine with this, as they are the bread and butter of Godzilla stories, but maybe this series can make me warm up to its human characters in time. I guess we’ll find out when we get back from space…