Monarch: Legacy of Monsters Co-Creators Talk Comic Book Origins

Showrunners Matt Fraction and Chris Black have experience in the world of comics and talk about how the medium influenced Monarch.

By Evan Valentine

Monarch: Legacy of Monsters has become a hit for Apple TV+ and Legendary's MonsterVerse which is nearly as big as the kaiju it features. Recently, we here at ComicBook.com had the opportunity to chat with co-creators Matt Fraction and Chris Black about the series and how its story was told. With both creators having a background in comics, and/or comic book adaptations, the pair were more than happy to share the influence that the medium had when it came to working on this world of kaiju.

For those who might not know, Matt Fraction has written quite a few comic books in the past. For Marvel Comics, Fraction wrote stories for series including, but not limited to, Uncanny X-Men, Fantastic Four, Punisher: War Journal, The Mighty Thor, and Hawkeye. Aside from writing for Marvel, Matt has also written several fan-favorite series including Casanova and Sex Criminals. Black worked in the world of comics when it came to acting as a producer on the live-action adaptation of Outcast, a series created by The Walking Dead's Robert Kirkman and artist Paul Azaceta. With the two co-creating this fresh story in the kaiju universe, they were more than happy to talk about the influence comic books had on the king of the monsters and its world.

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(Photo: Apple TV+)

Godzilla: King of The Comics

Black started things by discussing his past with Outcast, "I don't know if there was a specific experience from Outcast that came to Monarch, but working with Robert on the series was a fantastic experience. It was one of the best experiences of my career. There's something about the way that comics are structured that makes them feel like episodic television. They're self-incapsulated, there's an episodic mythology that is comforting in a way." 

Fraction added his thoughts when it came to working on a live-action television series versus creating a comic book, "It starts and ends with character. The genre and the medium are all engines to tell stories about people you care about. Whether it's Tony Stark or Clint Barton with comics or Cate Randa, we want to create a story that makes people want to spend more time with them."

Monarch: A Family Affair

Buck continued, discussing how Monarch: Legacy of Monsters can stand out from the projects of the MonsterVerse so far, "It's more intimate and character-focused than the movies. It's still a big-budget production, but we didn't want to do ten mini-movies. We were able to focus on the drama and trauma of these characters and this family. We wanted to be able to explore that." 

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Fraction then took the opportunity to diagnose the original pitch and how this needed to be a story that felt human, "Our pitch to Legendary was always about that it has to be about these people who we care about. Cate Randa is a woman who discovers the worst possible secret during the worst period of her life. Even removing the giant monsters, it's an interesting drama. We're following these people who are discovering how to live in this new world. We are with these characters looking up at the scope. It was about keeping the logic of where Cate and Kentaro are, and everything else came around that." 

Do you think Monarch: Legacy of Monsters stands toe-to-toe with the other projects of the MonsterVerse? Feel free to let us know in the comments or hit me up directly @EVComedy to talk all things comics, anime, and the world of kaiju. 

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