By: Chris Mowry (story/script), Matt Frank (story/art), Priscilla Tramontano (colors)
The Story: Gigan trashes Vegas, only to find a frustrated Godzilla on the horizon, looking to play the slots. Silently, he curses his poor timing.
The Review: After an interesting stopover in China last month, RotE returns to the exploits of its titular character just in time for him to face off with one of his most popular foes among the ruins of Las Vegas. Even better, series artist, Matt Frank, is back after a one month absence. All of this points to an excellent issue of Kaiju craziness. Unfortunately, while many of the best elements of this series have returned t the spotlight, it seems that Mowry’s improved writing didn’t come with them.
As is becoming a trend in this book, Mowry opens with a page of melodramatic musings leading to a large panel of a Kaiju. From there we jump around chronologically as our still nameless aliens fight to reclaim some confiscated property.
Honestly, Godzilla films have often suffered from an unnatural separation between the human and kaiju plots, especially in cases where human-sized aliens are controlling the kaiju. This series has done a fine job of tightening the connection between the mastermind invaders and their main event pets. These sorts of ideas are sown throughout the issue and the series, quite ably at that, however, in this instance the book falls down in its execution of those ideas.
Mowry’s script lacks a clear distinction between beginning, middle, and end, leaving that, admittedly pretty, monster brawl that he’s gifted us a somewhat confusing mess. As if that weren’t enough, it’s hard to grasp the scale of the fighting because every hit is immediately answered with another, with little to no sense of consequence. I’ve complained about the lack of dramatic structure in this series’ fights before, but in those instances we’ve often had Matt Frank’s art to help rescue them. Today, I’m afraid that it’s just not so.
While Frank’s art is as gorgeous as ever, this issue lacks the storytelling skill that he’s provided its predecessors. Frank’s panels seem awfully close to the action this month, obscuring vital details and making the fight seem claustrophobic. It’s a shame, because some of the action is quite clever – Gigan dragging Godzilla with his new claws, for instance – but many pages are simply too busy for either party’s ideas to come through clearly.
The issue also seems to suffer under its own licensing. A while ago I noticed a post on Frank’s tumblr stating Toho insisted that the kaiju had resemble their screen counterparts as much as possible. While I hardly can claim any knowledge as to what Toho’s licensing terms are, they might explain some of the more conservative choices made in this issue.
I’m a Transformers fan. Transformers is currently a massive brand, but it came into existence for one reason: to sell toys. As such, I’ve seen plenty of issues and episodes designed to show off a particular character, but Transformers has proven that it’s not impossible to balance its corporate responsibilities with effective storytelling. That’s why it’s so strange to see the plot seemingly driven, often awkwardly, by the character’s powers. MOGUERA’s appearance seems designed to show off its combiner status and drill missiles and Orga’s appearance is effectively Godzilla: 2000 Abridged. Of course there’s nothing wrong with homage, but at this level it seems like the comic is missing opportunities to play with the toys it’s been given.
The Conclusion: I really want to see this series soar and, after the improvements of last month, I was terribly excited to see what Mowry would give us once reunited with Frank, however this issue falls way short of the mark. I’ve seen both contributors do great work on this series but neither one’s storytelling is up to par this month.
This issue had everything going for it, but unclear art, redundant plot elements, and melodramatic captions do nothing to help Mowry and Frank’s somewhat toothless battle royale.
Grade: D+
-Noah Sharma