The Big Picture
- Godzilla faces new foes like Sherlock Holmes and Jay Gatsby in an upcoming comic series from IDW, written and illustrated by Tom Scioli.
- The series takes place in 1922 with Gatsby seeking revenge on Godzilla after he destroys his West Egg estate.
- Godzilla’s past comic appearances include battling Marvel heroes and even basketball legend Charles Barkley.
Forget King Kong, Mothra, and Rodan, because Godzilla is about to take on his toughest foe yet: the public domain. Godzilla’s Monsterpiece Theater, a new comic book series from IDW, will see the King of the Monsters battle it out with Sherlock Holmes, Jay Gatsby, and more. TheWrap has the news that the series will be written and illustrated by Tom Scioli.
The series is set in 1922, when one of Jay Gatsby’s famously raucous parties inadvertently summons Godzilla, who destroys Gatsby’s lavish West Egg estate. Seeking revenge, Gatsby teams up with an assortment of other literary icons to fell the beast. Says Scioli, “Imagine if Godzilla thundered into the great American novel. It’s an epic. It’s a grand, globe-spanning adventure, but it’s also an intimate story of love and heartbreak.” Scioli promises. The series’ first cover, which is an homage to the iconic Jack Kirby cover of Fantastic Four #1, sees Godzilla rising from the Earth to confront Holmes, Gatsby, H.G. Wells‘ time traveler from The Time Machine, and a mysterious caped and clawed figure who might just be Dracula. An alternate cover homages Francis Cugat’s famous painting of a disembodied woman that graced the cover of the first edition of The Great Gatsby – with a grinning Godzilla, naturally, replacing the woman. The series will span three forty-page issues; a release date has yet to be announced.
What Other Comic Books Has Godzilla Been In?
Godzilla has featured in manga in his native Japan since debuting on the big screen in 1954, often in adaptations of his many films. Over in North America, Marvel published a 24-issue Godzilla: King of the Monsters series in the 1970s, by Doug Moench and Herb Trimpe, that saw Godzilla battle not only other giant monsters but also the company’s famous superheroes, including Spider-Man and the Avengers. It was recently homaged by a series of variant covers. The license passed to Dark Horse Comics in the late 1980s, and they published Godzilla comics for twelve years; one of their efforts was the offbeat Godzilla vs. Charles Barkley, which was inspired by the 1992 Nike commercial that pitted Godzilla against the basketball legend in a super-sized game of one-on-one. IDW acquired the license in 2010, and has published a plethora of Godzilla comics, including James Stokoe‘s acclaimed Godzilla: The Half-Century War; among their recent efforts is Godzilla: Here There Be Dragons, which was set in the golden age of piracy.
Scioli’s work is noted for his imaginative nature and devotion to the work of legendary artist Jack Kirby; he broke out with American Barbarian, a creator-owned series that saw a post-apocalyptic hero duke it out in a Saturday-morning-cartoon-influenced wasteland with the mechanical pharaoh Two-Tank Omen. Other series by Scioli include G.I. Joe vs. the Transformers, Fantastic Four: Grand Design, and comic book biographies of Kirby and Stan Lee.
Godzilla’s Monsterpiece Theater has not yet set a release date. Stay tuned to Collider for future updates.
