Deep Dive DC: Wes Looks at Justice League vs. Godzilla vs. Kong #2

Before we go any further, I really need to say, hot damn I love that cover. It’s incredibly simple, but man it works. Godzilla, so overwhelmingly large that his head doesn’t even completely fit in frame, firing the off a huge stream of atomic breath. And if you look closely, there, barely bigger than a hummingbird compared to the King of the Monsters, is Superman, who, despite the literally gigantic size disadvantage is still holding his own. The hype could not be greater.

Friends, welcome to the second issue of Justice League vs. Godzilla vs. Kong. Last time, Superman was getting ready to ask Lois to marry him and all his friends in the Justice League were wishing him all the best. Meanwhile, after a botched infiltration of the Fortress of Solitude, The Legion of Doom accidentally got transported to an alternate reality where Earth is populated by all kinds of Giant Monsters. Toyman, using a trinket he nicked from the fortress, makes a wish or something, and next thing you know, Godzilla was attacking Metropolis, Superman flying off to confront the big monster and your humble writer getting hyped for the teaser of one of his biggest fictional dream matches.

We open our comic… with Superman trying to talk Godzilla down. Well, that’s certainly not how I was expecting this to start, but it does make sense. Supes isn’t stupid and knows that fights with human sized villains and monsters tend to make one hell of a nasty mess. Godzilla is a masssive skyscraper of a creature that makes a tyrannosaurus look like the Geico Lizard. Superman knows that if he and Godzilla come to blows, there’s undoubtedly going to be a lot of collateral damage and quite possibly some civilian casualties, both of which Superman would prefer to avoid if he can. Superman has no idea if Godzilla can understand him, but something about the way the creature is starting at him gives the Man of Steel this strange feeling that the creature is here for him. Well that’s an unsettling implication that we unfortunately don’t have the time to unpack as Godzilla starts charging up an atomic breath attack. Before the monster can fire, Superman clocks the big lizard in the face. Godzilla doesn’t seem too bothered by taking a punch FROM SUPERMAN and with a swipe of his mighty tail sends the big blue boy scout flying through the window of an office building across town.

No one in the building is hurt, but one guy is a bit concerned that the expensive copier was mangled when a giant lizard swatted Superman into it. After that humorous moment, The Flash arrives and tells Supes that a few more Justice Leaguers are on their way to assist with evacuation and help in the fight. However, there’s a problem. Several problems as it happens. As Wonder Woman, Supergirl, Green Arrow, Hawkgirl, and Green Lantern B-line it for Metropolis, they learn that Godzilla isn’t the only Kaiju that’s shown up in their world. Some kind of Spider-Cthulhu is attacking The Flash’s home town of Central City, a large Wooly Mammoth creature is approaching the island of Themyscira and, fittingly, a Giant Bat is terrorizing Gotham. Looks like the Justice League is going to have to divide and conquer and Cyborg puts out to call to every available hero they know to deal with the threat.

In Gotham, Batman mobilizes the entire Bat family to deal with their monster with Cyborg and Black Canary on their way to provide additional assistance. Plus, the Bat Family may be formidable, but there’s only so much a bunch of normal humans in black spandex throwing batarangs can do against a bat the size of a helicarrier so their going to need a few heavier hitters backing them up.

Meanwhile, Wonder Woman and Green Arrow are heading to Themyscira when they notice an island that’s not on any map, which, according to Ollie, was not there before all this started. So, Arrow has Wonder Woman set him down on the island where he hopes to investigate and maybe find out what’s going on. Besides, while I’m normally not the type to disparage Hawkeye or characters like him, I’m not sure what exactly Oliver expects to accomplish against a Kaiju-sized Mammoth armed only with a bow and arrow. I tried that once in Skyrim, it did not end well.

Meanwhile, at the Legion of Doom, Manta and Cheetah are monitoring the situation, the others having all been dispersed by Toyman’s Wish. We also learn that the Trinket was a Dreamstone, a magical item that can bend reality to your wishes, and Toyman apparently used it to call forth Godzilla. Somehow, that is both the best and worst wish he could have possibly made.

Back in Metropolis, Superman is holding his own against Godzilla, but isn’t really getting anywhere in terms of gaining an advantage in the fight. Hawkgirl arrives, swinging for the fences with her mace, but Godzilla doesn’t even flinch. If you don’t know, Hawkgirl’s mace is made of a material called Nth Metal, a rare alien alloy so powerful that it can negate gravity itself, and Hawkgirl just swung it like she was Joe DiMaggio and the monster was a baseball, but to Godzilla, it was barely a mosquito bite. Damn!

In Gotham, Batman and Batwoman fight the giant bat creature in their respective bat jets while Nightwing and the other members of the Bat family are protecting civilians at ground level. Our heroes are holding their own, but they’re not exactly having better luck than Supes and Hawkgirl are having back in Metropolis. To make matters worse, the creature is armed with some kind of Sonic attack. Jason Todd, who in this comic, is an impulsive idiot, aims a sniper rifle and is ready to shoot the monster right between the eyes. Batman orders Jason to stand down since they want to keep the creatures attention away from the ground while the city is still being evacuated, but like I said, Jason is an idiot and opens fire. Jason does manage to hit the monster in the eye, but all that does is piss it off, leading it to fire its sonic attack and vaporize a building. Fortunately, the timely arrival of Cyborg and Black Canary keeps the casualties to a minimum. After Batgirl knocks out Jason with a punch to the face, Batman has an idea. Maybe if the creature fights with sonic attacks, then it may be vulnerable to sonic attacks, and wouldn’t you know it, Black Canary is here now. Using a sonic amplifier rigged to Batwoman’s Jet, Canary blasts the Bat Monster with everything she’s got, causing it to drop right out of the sky, complete with a sweet panel of Batman on the ground doing the “Cool Guys Don’t Look At Explosions” walk as the monster lands behind him.

Back in Metropolis, Hawkgirl and Superman still have their hands full with Godzilla, their attacks seeming more annoying than damaging to the big lizard. Right now, all our heroes can do is distract the monster to buy the city time to evacuate, but sooner or later they’re going to need to figure out a strategy to beat this thing. That’s when Captain Marvel shows up. As one of the few members of the Justice League whose powers rival even those of Superman, Captain Marvel might be just what’s needed to tip the scales. Godzilla fires his atomic breath leading to an extremely awesome beam struggle with Superman’s heat vision. While the beast is distracted, Captain Marvel lands on Godzilla’s head and yells “SHAZAM” calling down a huge bolt of lightning. An incredibly risky move but don’t forget, Captain Marvel is actually a twelve-year-old child, so, unlike Jason, you can forgive his impulsiveness. Well, Godzilla is staggered, the lighting bolt being the first attack to have visibly phased the big monster, but unfortunately, Superman doesn’t have time to capitalize on it. See, calling down the lightning has the unfortunate drawback of causing Captain Marvel to revert to the powerless body of young Billy Batson, who is currently falling to his death. Superman acts quickly and saves Billy, but it looks like Godzilla isn’t out of the fight just yet and charges up an even bigger atomic blast than the last. Since Billy doesn’t have time to change back into his alter ego, Superman shields the child, taking the full force of the blast. And so our comic ends with a burnt and bloody Superman down for the count as a triumphant Godzilla roars. The Man of Steel has fallen. All Hail The King of The Monsters!

This comic was excellent. Truly excellent. I’m not even sure where to begin. I love how we see the Justice league actually developing strategies against the monsters, coordinating civilian evacuation while holding off the beast and searching for an opening. The comic didn’t really need this, most readers likely would have been satisfied with a straightforward monster brawl, but the fact that they went the extra mile like this just adds so much. If I had a nitpick, it would be that the other three monsters are not recognizable ones from the Godzilla series. Yeah, the fight with the giant bat monster was nice, it may have had a bit more impact if it was say… Battra. Yes, Battra isn’t exactly one of the a-list Godzilla monsters, but it would have fit the theming. However, let’s get into the meat and potatoes here. The centerpiece of this comic is the big fight between Superman and Godzilla. The dream match the world has been waiting for for almost seventy years. I said myself that I’d been wanting to see this fight for a long time. So, did it deliver? To simply say yes it delivered would almost devalue the experience. This fight was everything I wanted and more. I loved the scale of it all, especially just how big a threat, both literally and figuratively, Godzilla is presented to be. For comparison, we saw Supes fight Titano, another gigantic threat, in the last issue and finished him off before The Flash was able to get there. Here, when The Flash showed up, Superman was flat on his ass in the wreckage of what was once a very expensive copy machine. Superman feels outclassed here, which is incredibly rare. I know Superman being overpowered is a turn off for many comic book fans and while I don’t necessarily agree that this makes the character uninteresting, it is true that one can count the number of villains that pose a realistic physical threat to Superman through brute strength alone on one hand. It is extremely rare that Superman is the underdog in the fight, which makes the situation all the more dire when such a threat arises. As for Godzilla, I personally think Godzilla stories are at their best when Godzilla is depicted as a nigh unstoppable force of nature, walking through any obstacle put in his path, be it the might of the Japanese military or a rival Kaiju who thinks it can challenge the king. Here, Godzilla takes everything our heroes can dish out and shrugs it off. A punch from Superman, a minor inconvenience. Getting whacked by an Nth Metal Mace, kinda tickles. A tremendous blast of lightning from the very Gods themselves, merely causes the beast to stumble a little bit before quickly recovering. Godzilla really does feel like a threat unlike anything The Justice League has ever faced and the magnitude of this is felt by the reader. As I said, this issue was truly excellent and still left me wanting more. There are still many questions left to be answered. Why is Godzilla fixated on Superman specifically? Where is Toyman in all this? When will Grodd and Kong come into play? And perhaps the most important question, if Superman cannot defeat The King of Monsters, what in this world possibly can? I don’t know, but I know I can’t wait to find out.