Godzilla vs. X-Men Review

I’ve said it before, I’ve said it again, we love us a good crossover here on this blog, especially when that crossover is between two of my favorite franchises, those being Godzilla, the King of the Monsters and Marvel Comics, specifically, The X-Men. Unlike the Predator crossover we’ve been covering, this is not an ongoing story, but rather part of a series of one-shots collected in a trade called “Godzilla vs. The Marvel Universe” that pit various Marvel Heroes, including The Fantastic Four, The Incredible Hulk, Spider-Man, The Avengers, Thor and in this particular outing, the X-Men, against the King of the Monsters. The neat thing about this comic is that each one is set in a different decade and playfully emulates the style of comics of the era. Our comic here brings us to my favorite decade, The 90’s… don’t worry this is the good 90’s not the Rob Liefeld 90’s. What that means is that we’re dealing with the Heisei era of Godzilla and an X-Men line up similar to that of the 90’s cartoon. Although, interestingly enough, Rogue is absent from the lineup. One would think, as one of the physically strongest of the X-Men who has the ability to absorb energy would useful when fighting a giant monster, but what are you gonna do. In any case, enough preamble, let’s start the show.

We open our comic with, what else, Godzilla destroying a Japanese city, or as the Japanese call it, Friday. Attempting to fight Godzilla is Japanese Superhero, very inconsistent member of the X-Men and very consistent stubborn jackass, Shiro Yoshida, also known as Sunfire. Oh, and the 90’s is creeping in already people, because one page into this thing we have a two page spread that I have to turn on its side. It’s cute here because it’s paying homage to the era, but I seriously hope that trend is dead and buried at this point. In any case, as we can imagine, Sunfire pretty much gets his ass handed to him by Godzilla immediately.

At the Xavier School, the Professor is on a Zoom call with Sunfire, a Japanese government official who appears to have personal beef with Godzilla named Kaneto, asshole US government agent Henry Peter Gyrich and generally well-meaning but still kind of shady government agent Valerie Cooper, who, I’m not kidding, is the sister of FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper, the protagonist of Twin Peaks. No really, that is canon to the mainline Marvel Universe. Honestly, given all the weird shit that happens in Twin Peaks, I have no problem believing that it exists in both the Marvel and Godzilla Universe. Anywho, Xavier has been contacted by Shiro to help with the Godzilla problem. While most at the table want to blow the creature to hell, Xavier suggests that the monster’s actions suggest intelligence and Xavier believes that if he can get inside the creature’s mind, he may be able to reason with it. However, if a peaceful solution doesn’t work, Xavier is prepared to send in The X-Men to fight the monster. However, even as strong as they are, our heroes are still roughly the size of fleas to Godzilla. Fortunately, former thief and my personal favorite X-Man, Remy LeBeau, aka Gambit, is on the case, breaking into a government black site and stealing the Super Adaptoid, a robot capable of mimicking super powers. Interestingly enough, it says that the robot is non sentient, which I’m pretty sure is not the case, but I’m willing to roll with it for the sake of the narrative.

A couple days later, The X-Men are flying out to Japan to face off against Godzilla, who we see is after a large ship marked Trask. If that name sounds familiar, Bolivar Trask was the guy who invented The Sentinels, giant robots designed for the sole purpose of eliminating mutants, and a ship with his name on it has the full attention of Godzilla. Whatever is on that boat is very dangerous and probably racist. However, hypothetical racist robots or not, the main threat here at the moment is still Godzilla, so the X-Men deploy the Adaptoid and, with the Professor linking the X-Men’s minds to the robot, the Android takes a form that looks like all the X-Men combined into one entity. Even better, Gambit swiped some Pym Particles from that government black site and is using them to make the robot grow Godzilla sized. And, after another two page spread I have to turn on its side, God Dammit, the fight is on.

The X-Men Gestault is able to hold its own just fine against the King of the Monsters. That’s good. However, before the fight can really kick into high gear, the think in the Trask ship breaks loose. That’s bad. How bad? Well, what we have here is the Tri-Sentielmechakaiju, a Sentinel robot in the form of a three headed dragon (not unlike King Ghidorah) and combing the powers of Rodan, a Pterodactyl Kaiju and frequent ally of Godzilla, Battra, a more violent and aggressive version of Mothra, and Biolante, the answer to the age old question, “what do you get when you cross Godzilla with Audrey II from Little Shop of Horrors.” This thing is roughly fifty-seven different varieties of bad news. Xavier correctly deduces that this thing is the much bigger threat and The X-Men decide to call a truce with Godzilla and take down this abomination. With the help of the X-Men, Godzilla blasts the Tri-Sentinel into oblivion with his atomic breath.

In the aftermath, Godzilla is still on a warpath and Mr. Kaneto, the government official from earlier who wanted Godzilla blasted to Kingdom Come is right in the monster’s path of destruction. Xavier finally attempts to reach Godzilla telepathically in hopes of calling the creature down, also reaching Kaneto in the process. What we learn is that Kaneto has a particular hate boner for Godzilla because his father was killed back in the 50’s, collateral damage from the events of Godzilla’s battle with Anguirus in the film Godzilla Raids Again. Xavier can see that Godzilla never intended to kill anyone other than the monster he happened to be fighting at the time and that Kaneto’s anger is misplaced. Kaneto isn’t buying it and is appalled that the X-Men would side with a monster, but Cyclops says that the X-Men can relate to a being that protects a world that hates and fears it.

Kaneto backs down, Godzilla leaves knowing that the threat is neutralized, Sunfire thanks the X-Men for their help and we end with some song and dance about how mankind are the real monsters.

So this story is pretty indicative of how the other stories in this collection go. The heroes fight Godzilla, or at least fight Godzilla in as much as their individual capabilities will allow, there’s only so much someone like Spider-Man can do against a Dinosaur the size of a Skyscraper that eats Nukes for Breakfast, a more malevolent Kaiju shows up, our heroes are forced to join forces with Godzilla to vanquish the new threat, our heroes celebrate their victory, and Godzilla fucks off. There are some variations on that formula, but generally, each story sticks to that basic structure. As for this story in particular, while I thought it was a little rushed and predictable, and I could have done without the two page spreads, even if the gimmick was kind of endearing, it’s still Godzilla fighting the X-Men, so by default, it was a ton of fun. I wouldn’t be against covering some of the other Godzilla/Marvel crossovers in the future. Let me know if that would interest you. Wes, out.