By Brandon T. McClure
Published as a monthly seven-issue mini-series, Justice League vs. Godzilla vs. Kong by Brian Buccellato with art by Christian Duce and Luis Guerrero has been collected into a single hardcover and can finally adorn the bookshelves of Monsterverse fans. The first inter-company crossover between Legendary Comics and DC Comics makes history by pitting the King of the Monsters against the Justice League for the first time. But this historical crossover may not end up being the triumph fans have been hoping for.
The story begins when the Legion of Doom (which includes Toyman for some reason?) interrupts Clark’s wedding proposal to Lois by breaking into the Fortress of Solitude. Through a series of unfortunate events, the Legion find themselves transported to the Monsterverse and, more specifically, Skull Island. Having stolen the Dream Stone prior, Toyman uses it to wish the Monsterverse Titans to the DC Universe to be taken more seriously as a supervillain. Now in a foreign universe, Godzilla and the other Titans attack various cities like Atlantis, Metropolis, and Themyscira. The Justice League are caught off guard when Superman is seemingly killed by Godzilla and a mysterious, yet familiar, beacon begins controlling the Titans.
The biggest sin that Justice League vs. Godzilla vs. Kong makes is being boring. This is as surface-level as a crossover can get. Buccellato spends five issues setting up a major clash between the Titans, the Justice League, and the Legion of Doom but doesn’t set up why anyone should care about it. Action only matters if audiences care about the characters. There is tons of action though, so if you’re just looking for a comic where Supergirl punches Kong in the face, then flies around the world to punch Scylla in the face then this is the comic for you. But you might be out of luck if you’re looking for a bit more than that. Speaking of Supergirl, she plays a strange role in this book. She spends most of the book flying between action scenes and ends up in every single one until Grodd takes over her mind. It’s not bad or out of character, it’s just a weird decision.
Brian Buccellato is no stranger to writing in both the DC Universe and the Monsterverse, having written Flash, Injustice, and, more recently, Godzilla X. Kong: The Hunted. But here he may have bitten off more than he could chew. Justice League vs. Godzilla vs. Kong has to serve many masters but seems to have fallen into the trap of assuming that people only want to see giant monster fights. Of course, it is very cool to see the DC heroes go up against Kong and Godzilla, but once the initial hype wears off, then what else is there? That premise can’t sustain seven issues, and unfortunately, readers don’t really care about the original Monsterverse Titans. But with all that said, what little characterization for the DC heroes there is, is solid enough to remain recognizable.
The only heroes that get treated dirty in the book are Hal Jordan and the other Green Lanterns. Hal comes across as the whining butt of most everyone's jokes and the other Green Lanterns exist as set dressing. Guy Gardner probably gets it the worst though since he only appears in the book to get crushed to death by Grodd (which no one seems to care about). John Stewart, Jessica Cruz, and Simon Bazz also show up but get only two or three lines of dialogue before they come together to make a construct mech to fight MechaGodzilla. This is undeniably cool, but you do find yourself wondering why the other Green Lantern characters are even there.
The Legion of Doom only exists in this book as placeholders. To the point that you wonder why they’re even there in the first place. There’s some bickering between Black Manta and Cheetah about who leads the team if not Lex Luthor, Toyman disappears after the first issue, and Deathstroke only shows up when he’s looking for the missing Toyman. But outside of these examples, there isn’t anything for the Legion to do. They just watch the Titans attack the heroes until the last issue when they decide to be part of the final fight scene. Outside of the major Legion characters, there are plenty of non-speaking cameos from many villains as the Legion of Doom is trying to boost their numbers. But they’re only there for a Shazam action scene that feels like it exists to fill a page count.
You could say the main villain of Justice League vs. Godzilla vs. Kong is Lex Luthor. He discovers the pieces of MechaGodzilla and puts them together after Godzilla is chained to the seafloor after his fight with Tiamat and the Kraken (not the Monsterverse Kraken, the DCU one). Lex even builds MechaGodzilla in a way that allows him to pilot it from the inside, unlike how it was in Godzilla vs. Kong, which seems like a cool idea and allows for some great posturing from Lex in the field. But Lex pretty much disappears from the book once MechaGodzilla is unleashed. You might even forget that he’s inside MechaGodzilla since there’s no point for him to be there. There’s not even a hint that MechaGodzilla has possessed him like he did Ren Serizawa to explain away the lack of supervillain posturing.
The League of Assassins show up randomly on Skull Island to steal the skull of the Skull Devil also, and then disappear (that’s a lot of uses of the word “skull”). They show up again towards the end so the Bat-Family could have someone to punch, but they serve no purpose to the story. Even the newly revived (and redesigned) Skull Devil serves no purpose to the story, other than to give Kong someone else to fight while Batman fights MechaGodzilla in a new mech of his own. It’s frankly weird that the League of Assassins shows up at all. One of the middle issues ends with Ra’s Al Ghul menacingly watching the Skull be placed in a giant Lazarus Pit and then never shows up again. Christian Duce and Luis Guerrero take it upon themselves to redesign the Skull Devil as well. While the original design was simple, this new design is way too busy. It’s reminiscent of the poorly received MUTO Prime that appeared in the comic Godzilla: Aftershock. Like the MUTO Prime, it’s not a good redesign.
With all that said, there are still some interesting ideas and fun to be had. A beam clash between Godzilla’s atomic breath and Superman’s laser eyes, a mech created by five Green Lanterns, a cute Jaws reference with Tiamat and the Flash, and a transforming Batwing keep the book entertaining for readers only interested in having some fun. Most of the exciting aspects of the book show up at the end which makes you wonder why the book is seven issues long and not four. Probably the best thing in the book is the short-lived Kong and Green Arrow relationship. The two of them form a quick understanding while Green Arrow is scoping out the newly appeared Skull Island, but doesn’t really come to anything by the end of the book. It would have been nice to explore that a bit more. Green Arrow is also one of the better-written characters, for what little he’s there.
The Monsterverse Godzilla must be considered a complicated design for artists to draw because there are many instances in this comic where Godzilla has been traced from a screenshot of the previous Monsterverse films. It’s disappointing but you have to wonder if there’s a larger reason for it other than laziness. Perhaps Legendary doesn’t want artists taking any artist license with Godzilla. But outside of that, the artwork is good. The splash pages are dynamic, the Justice League looks great, and the action is easy to follow. It’s just too bad that Christian Duce and Luis Guerrero weren’t able to go really crazy with the art. While there are cool things they’re able to do, it does feel restricted by the story they’re drawing.
The released hardcover is very beautiful and makes up for the lackluster story that it collects. The pages are published on the matte paper that most DC comic books use, which makes the book feel hefty and thick. Unfortunately, the colors don’t pop as much as you’d expect because of that but readers most likely won’t notice. The Dan Mora cover that makes up the dust jacket can be removed to show the Christian Duce and Luis Guerrero wraparound cover. Both covers are beautiful and were the right picks for this collection. But if you were hoping to see more of the stunning variant covers that were commissioned for this crossover, then you’re in luck. The back of the book includes the variant covers for every issue. Honestly, they could have published a collection of those covers and sold it separately. They’re worth the price of the book alone.
If you’re a Godzilla fan, or more specifically a Monsterverse fan, then this is a fun read. It’s just hard not to imagine a crossover that could utilize Godzilla’s entire rogues gallery, like Ghidorah or Biollante and not just the Monsterverse originals. It’s not that the likes of Camazotz or Behemoth aren’t fun to see, it’s just that they don’t have the personality or history that the original Japanese Kaiju do. Since this doesn’t sit anywhere in either continuity, it probably would have been beneficial to include monsters like Rodan or Mothra, who have appeared in the Monsterverse. Rights issues most likely prevented that from happening since none of those monsters have appeared in a Monsterverse comic book. Still though, while it may be boring at times, there’s enough here to not regret reading it outright.