Godzilla: The Half Century War

Godzilla: The Half Century War is a pretty perfect comic book. The art is incredible, the characters are believable and likable, and it has freaking Godzilla in it, what is there not to love about this comic? Even though this is a Godzilla comic, it is not about him but it is about the troops on the ground trying to stop him from ripping apart Tokyo in the 1950's. This is something that is rarely explored in Godzilla movies except for the original. Generally stories with Godzilla revolve around him fighting another giant monster and in the process destroying a city or two. The shift in focus is amazing and it really worked in the comic book format. Ota Murakami is a Lieutenant in the Japanese Self Defense initiative that was set up in Japan after World War II. The entire book is a flashback to his first encounter with Godzilla, and we come to learn that they have been battling with each other for a total of fifty years. This means that there will be many more battles to come from this awesome series. This series is written and drawn by James Stokoe and he does an incredible job. The art in this book is phenomenal, and while being cartoonish it still gives you a very grounded feeling. The action is spectacular and the battles of a single tank against Godzilla are breathtaking. The sheer detail of the destruction in the book would be a lot for most artists but Stokoe handles both the writing duties and the art duties masterfully.

This is a comic that seems to be tailor made for Hollywood. Given that many movie series have been gritty reboots over the last decade, it seems to be time to properly reboot Godzilla. No super agile, egg laying dinosaur needed, we just need a lumbering tower of destruction. That is the way Godzilla was created and it doesn't seem like is anything broken there that needs to be fixed. Base it around Godzilla's attack on a major American coastal city such as San Francisco or Los Angeles. I am assuming that Hollywood would not be rebooting the series and then centering Godzilla's attack around Tokyo again given the Tsunami that stuck there a few years ago and it would not be a good look to destroy Tokyo in a movie at this time. Also basing the movie around a squad fighting on the ground such as in Battle Los Angeles would be a great idea. If you take the squad concept and cut all of the dumb stereotypes of that movie, the new Godzilla movie would be pretty amazing in my opinion.

This is the best single comic book that I have read this year and it doesn't seem like anything will be challenging this book for a while. I cannot wait to see what this series has in store for future issues and I am looking forward to next month's issue. This is a book that needs to get more attention and if you are into comics then you should go to your local shop and pick this up. If you do not have a local comic shop then use Comixology to download the comic.

This is the way Godzilla should be remembered.