Face front, True Believers! It is time for this week’s riveting Marvel Rundown! After last week’s surprisingly violent Predator Vs Spider-Man, we have a clash between the verdant King of Monsters and the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man with Godzilla vs Spider-Man #1. Can Spider-Man save New York from the titanic kaiju all while wrestling with relationship woes? In the Rapid Rundown, we check with Marvel’s First Family as they race to get Ben Grimm his powers back in Fantastic Four #31 and then we go back to the past with a Wolverine Double Feature with Hellhunters #5 and Wolverine and Kitty Pryde #1
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Godzilla vs Spider-Man #1
Writer: Joe Kelly
Artist: Nick Bradshaw
Color Artist: Rachelle Rosenberg
Letterer: VC’s Joe Caramagna
Cover Artist: Nick Bradshaw & Rachelle Rosenberg
Marvel’s Godzilla event continues to march on through the ages this week with Godzilla vs Spider-Man #1. Much like the previous one-shots, this story takes place in a particular era of Marvel comics with this issue being set firmly in the 1980’s and specifically following the events of Secret Wars, as Peter has the alien costume and is still learning how it works. Given that Spider-Man is outclassed by Godzilla, it makes sense that the story doesn’t really focus on the Godzilla fight but on Peter Parker. This is where I have my qualms.
Look, I am firmly on record here at the Beat about how a good Godzilla comic focuses on the human story first and foremost. Godzilla often serves more as the setting and as an external conflict to the human story, not unlike a natural disaster or war. This only works when the human story is compelling or at least interesting. Joe Kelly is a more than capable Spider-Man writer. He knows how to write high emotion moments but also funny ones. The problem is that Kelly decides to joke it up on this comic FAR too often. While there’s nothing wrong with sillier Godzilla or Spider-Man stories, this just doesn’t work because its presented as a more serious Godzilla story clashed up with a goofy Peter Parker story.
Kelly writes 80’s Peter mostly fine, but the conflict that Peter has to deal with is between Black Cat and Mary Jane Watson fighting over him. It is offensive how poorly written Black Cat and MJ are here. They are characterized as mean girls throwing insults at each other over their looks and just pining over Peter Parker. They don’t act like actual characters but just props for Peter to deal with. I am not familiar with 80’s Spider-Man comics in general, but I don’t believe they are written in such a one-dimensional way that just detracts from the comic. Every single time Black Cat and MJ are on panel, I would roll my eyes as they would just squabble over the dumbest thing.
Kelly really leans into this comic being a 1980’s Jim Shooter era comic with a LOT of recaps of what happened in Secret Wars. These are fine to help set the tone of the era and for that I applaud it, but he went too cute with the editorial captions. This comic read more like a Joe Kelly Deadpool comic for how many of these “Nick Lowe” captions we receive. For the record, if you aren’t aware, most of editorial captions are written by the writer of the story and signed as the editor. These things aren’t Nick Lowe making dumb jokes. These are Kelly trying to be cute. It was funny at first but by the 5th one, I was over it.
The Godzilla parts of the story (albeit too brief) are interesting as the symbiote combines with Godzilla to create Godvenom situation. The narration presents Godzilla’s struggle against the Symbiote and how Godzilla’s mission is to remove the cancers of the earth with the Symbiote being a cancer. The stuff with Knull is more anachronistic of the time but I am cool with it.
Nick Bradshaw draws the hell out of this comic. For all of my issues with Kelly’s writing, the art makes me almost forgive it. The action and line work are clean and illustrated in a 1980’s style but with modern sensibilities. There is an Art Adams influence with the detailed work and rendering that I appreciate. Bradshaw’s design of the Symbiote Godzilla and later God-Venom are too cool for just one appearance.
For me, Godzilla vs Spider-Man #1 has been the weakest of the Godzilla VS series. The writing tries to be too funny and in turn creates just offensive characterizations of two of the most prominent women in the Spider-Man line. I just could not enjoy this a Spider-Man or Godzilla fan. It is unsuccessful in what it attempts to do and just leaves me feeling insulted for reading it.
Verdict: PASS
Rapid Rundown
- Fantastic Four #31
- Writer Ryan North poses a question that pops up every now and then, are the FF fantastic because of their powers or because of their character? Doom is still the Head-Villian-In-Charge, the FF have been stumped by him, and everyone’s favorite Blue-eyed Thing has been depowered and sidelined by Doom. I never knew that the First Family’s powers were cosmically tied together, and with the Thing depowered, the rest of the team is on a countdown to losing their powers. The solution is a cosmic romp through the multiverse to get the Thing’s powers back by exposing him to the same cosmic rays that gave him his powers. Penciler Cory Smith and inker Oren Junior have some fun with this trip fantastic, giving us varied looks at the alternate FF, some of them even heartbreaking. This issue is an interesting concept of what lines people will cross to achieve their goals. Ultimately, this issue of the First Family is a unique snapshot moment that, in this moment, is okay. – GC3
- Hellhunters #5
- No one can say that Hellhunters from writer Phillip Kennedy Johnson and Adam Gorham did not live up to its premise. And featuring a number of Marvel’s World War II heroes, including Nick Fury, Bucky, Agent Carter, and Wolverine along with a new Ghost Rider, hunting down demon Nazis and saving the world that’s a pretty great premise. The series concludes with some terrific brutal action by Gorham. Johnson’s military experience adds some verisimilitude to the character interactions and keeps the work from getting too celebratory of the violence. Marvel doesn’t do a lot of these kind of standalone stories historically so this is a nice change of pace. Frank Martin’s color makes the issue really pop with the fiery heroes bringing warmth to the frigid cold of the encroaching demonic horde on the European front. Travis Lanham on letters does some great expressive work with the VFX. It’s not a foundational text for any of these Nazi fighters but it is a thrilling read packed full of cool as hell moments. Ghost Rider flies a hellfire fighter jet! Wolverine has fire claws! Young Bucky has a demon cyborg arm! – TR
- Wolverine and Kitty Pryde #1
- Let’s give credit to letterer Ariana Maher where it’s due. Doing the lettering for any comic from writer Chris Claremont must be a thankless task. Longtime X-book readers are well aware of the writer’s walls of text detailing the interior monologues or lives of characters. No exception here in Wolverine and Kitty Pryde #1, what can charitably be called a legacy sequel to the 40 year old mini series Kitty Pryde and Wolverine. Was anyone clamoring for a follow up to what happened after that series? Wasn’t material more less covered in the issues of Uncanny X-Men after it happened? This is yet another series where a foundational writer gets stuck replaying the hits. Editor Tom Brevoort has been very clear about how Claremont won’t be on a modern X-book because he has very clear ideas on how these characters should function or where he wants to take them. Yet it must not be a lot of fun for him being forced to only write stories that taking place in between other stories he’s already told. There must be a frustration in replaying the hits for any of these writers. It isn’t helped by artist Damian Couceiro. Remember when Claremont worked regularly with artists like Frank Miller, Jim Lee, Barry Windsor-Smith, or Art Adams? The work Couceiro does here only highlight’s the writers weakness. His art on this series looks a little reminiscent of 80s Matt Wagner but lacks Wagner’s fascination playing with page design and comics form. Couceiro’s pages just get the job done but fail to inspire any kind of reaction. Wolverine dropping on top of an enemy in a fight sequence looks kind of silly instead of eliciting surprise. The same goes for the finale of the book. There’s a transition that takes but it’s sort of perfunctory and no mood or mystification at what’s happening. The events just occur. Sort of like how this book just exists. Really put talent like this on books the creators have passion. – DM
That’s it this week for The Marvel Rundown, True Believers. Join us next week as Alan Davis, Mark Waid, Sara Pichelli, and other legends launch Fantastic Four Fanfare.