It’s honestly been a great time to be a Godzilla fan lately. The last decade and some change of American and Japaneses films are very different, yet they both are making movies that fans have mostly loved. Over in the comics, ol’Goji has been everywhere, fighting both DC and Marvel heroes. Meanwhile, IDW has been putting out their own books starring everyone’s favorite kaiju and going to new places with the monster. One of the more interesting books they’ve been putting out is the Godzilla Monsterpiece Theatre comics, which take classic stories and add the monster who hates Tokyo the most. Godzilla and weird crossovers go hand in hand, and these books have used the monster in wonderful ways.
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Frank Tieri, Ilias Kyriazis, and Tom Sciolo take readers to ancient Greece and medieval England for the latest installment, an adaptation of The Odyssey. This installment is my favorite so far, taking the story we know and love and putting a fresh coat of Godzilla-colored paint on it. While the back-up story kind of takes away from the overall quality, this still an awesome comic.
Rating: 4 out of 5
| Pros | Cons |
| Tieri does a fantastic job of melding Godzilla with Greek myth | The back-up Robin Hood story looks great, but the story itself is mid at best |
| Kyriazis’s art has the perfect look for this story, his style bringing the story to life beautifully | |
| The issue is excellently paced |
Tieri Gives Readers Two Great Tastes That Taste Great Together
Greek mythology and Godzilla on their own are both pretty great, and they fit together better than you’d expect. After all, Greek myth is full of massive monsters and capricious gods, which are pretty familiar to Goji’s fans. The story opens up with a Trojan Godzilla, which I wasn’t at all expecting but put a massive smile on my face, and goes on from there. Instead of trying to fit the entire epic in the book, Tieri goes in a different direction, with the gods telling the story of Odysseus’s journey, hitting all the big spots and capturing the feel of the ancient tale wonderfully.
Godzilla is the “Hammer of Zeus” in this story, showing up at various points in the story to help Odysseus and crew. It gives the monster the kind of force of nature feel that works so well in his stories. Godzilla fights the best kaiju in film history, and many of them show up here, like Rodan, Ghidora, Gigan, Biollante, and more, perfectly folded into the classic story. The book’s pacing is amazing; it spends the perfect amount of time with each scene, never leaving you disappointed or wanting more. I love the way Tieri wrote the gods, a giant bickering family of all-powerful beings. It’s a great story, which is why the back-up is sort of disappointing. Scioli’s story isn’t bad, but it’s not as the good as the main story, especially the ending.
Kyriazis and Sciolo’s Art Takes Readers On a Gorgeous Journey
One of my favorite things about Godzilla Monsterpiece Theatre has been the art. Each book has used a different art style and each of them is different from the others (except Scioli, who has been a part of all of them). Kyriazis was exactly the right choice for this book. The way he draws the gods is awesome; we’ve seen a lot of Greek gods in comics over the decades and while his aren’t exactly my favorite, he does a great job capturing the essence of each of them. His kaiju also look fantastic, which obviously is extremely important.
His linework is gorgeous and the coloring really makes the whole thing pop. He’s able to take readers to a world of myth and his style fits it beautifully. The detail is outstanding throughout and the way he executes the scenes gives the script exactly the imagery it needs to impress. There’s a certain cartoony quality to his art that really works for this tale. Scioli’s art in the back-up is the best part of that story; his art has an old school newspaper strip style that makes these kind of stories look fantastic.
Godzilla Monsterpiece Theatre: The Odyssey #1 is just about everything you could want from a book like this. It combines two different kinds of myths seamlessly, creating an all-new version of one of the greatest epics in Greek history. While the back-up story brings it down a bit, this book is worth every penny.
Godzilla Monsterpiece Theatre: The Odyssey #1 is on sale now.
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