BHOC: GODZILLA #21

My brother Ken was the monster movie buff in our family, I certainly wasn’t. And yet, Marvel got me following their ongoing GODZILLA comic book series for its final half-dozen issues. How? They used the Marvel Universe, of course. In the issue before this one, the King of the Monsters had battled the Fantastic Four, my favorite Marvel characters. That story had ended in a cliffhanger–so when this follow-up issue appeared at my 7-11, I had to buy it to see how everything turned out. And I’d end up continuing with it all the way to the end of its run in just a couple of months.

One of the interesting choices that was made with most of the licensed property comic books of this era was to set them within the communal sandbox of the Marvel Universe. It was mainly the outer space series such as STAR WARS, BATTLESTAR GALACTICA and STAR TREK that avoided doing this. But GODZILLA, along with ROM and SHOGUN WARRIORS and MICRONAUTS and TRANSFORMERS for a hot minute were all overtly set in the same reality as the assorted Marvel super-champions. This had the effect of making those stories a bit more crucial to the average Marvel fan, but in years gone by, it’s created a whole lot of additional hassles when it comes to reprinting those stories. But nobody was worrying about Trade Paperbacks or Hardcovers in 1979, those things really didn’t exist yet for the comic book business.

So this issue opens up with the Fantastic Four wrapping up their battle with a somewhat-shrunken Godzilla. The Thing leaps into the shark tank they’d corralled the big guy in last time, helping to fight off the angry sharks that want to take a bite out of him. From there, though, the question of just what to do with Godzilla comes up. But fortunately, Reed Richards has a brilliant idea about that. Using Doctor Doom’s time machine back at the Baxter Building, Reed sends Godzilla backwards in time to the Mesozoic era, the time of dinosaurs, where he can live unfettered among others of his kind. It’s a great solution, certainly better than killing the poor critter, and it sets up the next story in a big way.

Because it turns out that the Mesozoic period of the Marvel Universe wasn’t as devoid of human life as our own world. So once Godzilla arrives, he’s immediately targeted by the brutal Lizard-Warrior tribe that lives beyond the Valley of the Flame as a potentially good night’s meal. They unleash a pair of domesticated dinosaurs on Godzilla, leading to a very strange fight scene in which all of the combatants are massive lizards.

The sounds of the battle, though, attract the attention of Moon Boy and his dinosaur friend Devil Dinosaur–two of the last creations of Jack Kirby while he was working at the company. This is the first time that Devil and Moon-Boy would be integrated into the Marvel Universe, where they’d appear with some scattered regularity over the years. Upon seeing Godzilla breathe fire like that of the nearby volcano that gives the Valley of the Flame its name, Moon-Boy assumes that Godzilla must be some manner of demon, and he urges Devil to attack the foreign intruder. That’s right, it’s a classic Marvel throw-down between two heroes operating under false pretenses!

Because they’re both heroes, the two combatants are too evenly matched for one to claim a clear victory over the other, but we do get a couple of pages of the savage throwdown in the way of action. At that point, Moon-By becomes aware of the Lizard-Warriors moving into position en masse for an attack on them and the valley, and he realizes his mistake. Rushing down the cliffside, he implores the two monsters to stop their fighting and instead work together to defend the valley. Devil, of course, listens to Moon-Boy straight away. The question is, will Godzilla?

And of course, the answer is yes! Moon-Boy’s eyes remind Godzilla of those of his youthful human friend Rob Takiguchi from the present, and so he resolves to listen to the stranger. And as the issue begins its wrap-up, the Lizard-Warriors descend into the Valley en mass, with a pair of powerful Dinosaurs all that stands in their way. Frankly, I like Godzilla and Devil’s odds in this conflict. The next issue blurb promised more of the Fantastic Four in the following issue, and so despite the evidence of the story I had just read, that was enough to get me to commit to coming back for the follow-up in a few weeks.