Ghidorah's Re-Match

 

It is apparently a natural law that--in any monster-based movie universe--the monsters will eventually team-up or fight one another. Just as it happened with the Universal Monsters in the 1940s, so did it happen with the Gozilla universe in the 1960s.

Invasion of the Astro-Monster (1965) as the sixth Godzilla film. By that point, the Big G had fought King Kong and teamed-up with Rodan and Mothra to fight Ghidorah, the Three-Headed monster.

Poor Ghidorah. We are told that he's a Cthulu-level threat that destroyed Venusian civilization. But during the original Showa-era Godzilla films, he appears three times and it defeated handily each time. And on two of those occasions, he was being used as a mind-controlled puppet by alien invaders. 

Invasion (alternately titled Monster Zero) is his second appearance. The action begins on the newly discovered Planet X, located outside the orbit of Jupiter. Two Earth astronauts arrive to explore and make contact with the planet's inhabitants.

Planet X's civilization exists completely underground because (or so the aliens claim) the surface is repeatedly ravished by Ghidorah. Is Earth okay with the aliens transporting Godzilla and Rodan to Planet X? In return, Earth gets a miracle drug that will cure all disease.

That sounds like a good deal, but it turns out the aliens are back-stabbing rats. There's no miracle drug and the aliens are soon mind-controlling all three monsters and calling on Earth to surrender or be destroyed.

Controlling Kaiju to capture Earth is a plan that will be repeated again in 1968's Destroy All Monsters. I think the latter film is better, but Invasion is still a lot of fun. There's some great design work. Planet X's surface is a desolate rock-strewn wilderness that looks pretty cool. The Earth spaceship is neat, as is the Planet X spacecraft (a variation of the standard flying saucer). The monster fights are a lot of fun, though Godzilla's absurd victory dance after an initial fight with Ghidorah is a little bit too silly even for a Kaiju movie. The Godzilla films always worked best when they treated the idea of giant monsters seriously rather than dipping into slapstick. 

But I can't help feeling a little bad for Ghidorah. He's supposed to be a terrifying Destroyer of Worlds. But he just can't win a fight no matter how hard he tries.

Cover Cavalcade

 

The month of May is brought to you by the Letter G

A 1977 cover by Herbe Trimpe. 

Cover Cavalcade

 

MARCH IS GIANT MONSTER MONTH!

A 1977 cover by Herb Trimpe.

Those Darn Escaped Convicts Ruin it for Everyone

Godzilla Raids Again (1955) was rushed out pretty quickly after the success of Godzilla. As a consequence, it's a flawed movie. The first Godzilla (especially the unchanged Japanese release) is a true horror film, with the monster's destruction of Tokyo working as a brutal and heartbreaking metaphor for the atomic bombings that ending World War II.

The sequel has the city of Osaka destroyed, but this is rather casually shrugged off by the human characters, who often act like they are in a romantic comedy. The monster stuff is great, while the human stuff is a bit sub par.

But, despite this, the movie's strengths outweigh its weaknesses. It's the only other film aside from Godzilla in the series that was filmed in black-and-white, which helps give it a more appropriately serious ambiance. The special effects are excellent. And it introduced another monster to what would soon be a very crowed Kaiju universe. 

The movie begins with two pilots stranded on a remote island, where they spotted Godzilla and Anguirus fighting each other. The two monsters fall into the ocean, vanishing for the time being.

This isn't, by the way, the same Godzilla that appeared in the first film. That guy was clearly dead after getting hit by an oxygen destroyer. So this Godzilla (the one who will appear in all the remaining Showa films) is Godzilla #2. But the first film also set this up, with a character musing at the climax that continued atomic testing might awaken another Godzilla.

Godzilla is soon approaching Osaka. The Japanese Defense Force comes up with a pretty nifty plan. The city is blacked out and planes begin dropping parachute flares, slowly leading the monster back towards the sea. It's a wonderfully atmospheric moment. 

But then a group of convicts being transported in a truck jump their guards and make a break for it. Several of them steal a gas truck, but then end up smashing it into some gas tanks. The resultant fire brings Godzilla back to the city. Who thought it was a good idea to transport dangerous criminals while the city is blacked out and threatened by a giant monster is not explained.

At the same time, Anguirus shows up and the two are soon fighting, leaving a trail of destroyed buildings behind them.

                                     

The fight is the highlight of the film. It's exciting and well-choreographed. Eventually, the Showa universe would give us many, many monster vs. monster battles, but this one still stands out as one of the best.

Anguirus is killed,with Godzilla using his atomic breath to disintegrate the body. Which, I guess, means Anguirus' future appearances are actually a second Anguirus. And, despite the two monsters being mortal enemies here, they will be the best of friends in future movie appearances. Maybe Godzilla #2 felt guilty about killing Anguirus #1, so made friends with Anguirus #2.

With Osaka trashed, Godzilla returns to that remote island. The Japanese come up with a plan of setting off an avalanche and burying Godzilla in ice, but accomplishing this plan will first require one of the main characters to sacrifice himself. It's a great ending, representing the only moment in the film in which the human characters generate any real emotion.

Godzilla Raids Again can be said to point the fledgling film series away from serious themes & meaningful metaphors, turning it towards the spectacle of giant monsters slugging it out. In a way, that's too bad. As entertaining as the Showa film are, the original is the only one that is a true classic, with a clear message and a sincere sense of tragedy. But, at the same time, the sequel set the stage for monsters like King Ghidorah, Mecha-Godzilla and Gigan. The world would be a sadder place without them. And, despite its flaws, Godzilla Raids Again is a fun film when taken on its own. If you get a chance to watch it, though, make sure its the Japanese cut. The American cut, titled Gigantis, the Fire Monster, is poorly done and only adds to the movie's existing flaws.

Playing Baseball with a Giant Lobster

The original Godzilla (especially the non-dubbed, Japanese version) was a parable condemning nuclear weapons, but it didn’t take the many sequels long to eschew any thematic point to the movies. The inherent coolness of watching imaginatively designed monsters destroy cities and battle one another soon overwhelmed any desire to shove a moral into the series.

The Godzilla series as a whole scores a 9.1 on the Bogart/Karloff Coolness scale, while the 1966 entry, Godzilla vs the Sea Monster (aka Ebirah, Horror of the Deep), scores an 9.0. It’s a fun movie, made when Godzilla had pretty much finishing morphing from horrible menace to occasional savior of humanity. The previous film, for instance, had Godzilla and Rodan double-teaming Ghidorah to save the planet from alien invasions.

This time out, the villains are humans—a secret organization called Red Bamboo that’s set up a lab/slave labor camp on a Pacific island to produce nuclear weapons.

The main characters are four guys who get shipwrecked on the island and an escaped slave—a very, very pretty girl originally from Infant Island. (Infant Island, as I’m sure you all know, is the home of Mothra.)

While hiding out from the Red Bamboo, the heroes stumble across a cave in which they find a sleeping Godzilla. Soon, they get separated and the movie does a fine job of balancing several convergent plot threads. Secret bases are being infiltrated, escapes are being planned, traps are being set, and one character ends up taking an unplanned but fortuitous balloon ride.

One of those threads involves several of the heroes using a make-shift lightning rod to wake up Godzilla, who soon gets into a battle with Ebirah, a giant lobster. And it is a… well, let’s say unique battle. Godzilla tosses a giant boulder at Ebirah. Ebirah bats it back at Godzilla with his claw. Godzilla head-butts the boulder back Ebirah. The lobster catches it in his claws and—I’m not making this up—does a little wind-up before throwing it back at Godzilla.

The scene is emblematic of the entire film. It’s silly—but it still plays everything seriously and the end result is an entertaining fantasy film. Everything that happens is actually inherently logical within the context of Godzilla’s expanding mythology.  We even get a Mothra cameo at the story’s climax.

So Godzilla playing catch with a giant lobster may be absurd, but we have no problem accepting it a face value while watching this movie.

The invaluable Official Godzilla Compendium tells us that this film was originally meant to feature King Kong rather than Godzilla. A version of the giant ape had already appeared in the classic King Kong vs. Godzilla in 1962 and he’d pop up again in the not-quite-in continuity film King Kong Escapes in 1967.

This explains a couple of odd plot devices used in the film. To quote the Compendium: “He [Godzilla} is revived by lightning, which is exactly how Kong was revived near the climax of King Kong vs. Godzilla, and Godzilla has an unlikely romantic interest in Kumi Mizuno (a beauty-and-the-beast situation more commonly associated with Kong.)”

Though, to be fair, Kumi Mizuno (the actress playing the escaped slave girl) is nice enough on the eyes to interest any male, regardless of species.

Cover Cavalcade

Godzilla's been miniaturized and has gotten loose in the New York City sewers. If you're wondering why he's fighting a rat in this effectively composed cover--that's why.

Godzilla in the Marvel Comics Universe

As with DC's The War That Time Forgot series or Dell/Gold Key's Turok, Son of Stone, some ideas work simply because they are unashamedly geeky. This was certainly the case in the 1970s, when Marvel Comics got the rights to do a comic book featuring Toho Studio's star monster Godzilla.

Rather than do something with a seperate continuity, it was decided to simply drop the big green guy down into the middle of the Marvel Universe. Writer Doug Moench and artist Herb Trimpe seemed to have thought the implications of this through pretty thoroughly, then began to have fun with it.

So when Godzilla shows up in Alaska and starts whip-snapping the Alaskan pipeline around, it seemed only natural that a SHIELD helicarrier would be dispatched to deal with him. Poor Dum Dum Dugan is in charge of the operation and spends the next two years in a constant state of frustration as he tries to find some way of dealing with the mutant lizard. This by itself was cool. Dum Dum had been a supporting character for years, both in Sgt. Fury and the Howling Commandos and in the SHIELD stories that ran in Strange Tales. As a high ranking and experienced SHIELD agent, it made good solid comic book sense for him to be in charge of the anti-Godzilla forces.

The connection to the Marvel Universe continues through each issue. When Godzilla attacks San Francisco, the Champions help drive him off. A little bit into the seiries, Dum Dum suddenly slaps his forehead with a "why didn't I think of this before" and orders that someone get in touch with super-scientist Hank Pym as soon as possible. Soon after, Godzilla's getting squirted with several tons of Pym's shrink gas.

But even a pint-sized Godzilla is trouble. Getting loose in the sewers of New York, he has an epic fight with a rat. He begins to slowly grow again and is maybe 20 feet tall when he throws down with Ben Grimm of the Fantastic Four in the Museum of Natural History. Smothered unconscious by Mr. Fantastic (who encases the monster in his pliable body), he's then tossed through Doctor Doom's time machine, on the assumption that he'll be happier back in a prehistoric age.

This leads to first a fight against Moon Boy and Devil Dinosaur, then a team-up with them against some evil cave men. Godzilla's radioactive nature causes the time machine to eventually sling-shot him, now full-sized again, back to modern Time Sqaure. Some problems just won't go away. At least not until the book is cancelled, which happens after SHIELD and the Avengers manage to lure Godzilla out into the Atlantic Ocean.

This series is a lot of fun for any Godzilla/comic fan, combining the big guy with the comic book world in ways that make comic book sense and maintains Marvel continuity. Trimpe's art is good and holds up well in the recently published "Essential Godzilla" despite the loss of color. The series ran 24 issues and there were only a couple of minor missteps during its brief run. A two-part story in which Godzilla essentially helps round up some cattle rustlers was very weak. More annoying was a completely unnecessary supporting character: a kid (the nephew of a Japanese scientist whose brought in by SHIELD as a Godzilla expert) who keeps whining undendlingly to everyone about how Godzilla isn't evil and shouldn't be hurt. The little snot is a walking advertisement for the need to spank children.

But despite these flaws, the series remains entertaining throughout its entire run. It's well worth taking the time to read.