By Brandon T. McClure
The Monsterverse is no stranger to tie-in comics. It's a staple of Legendary Pictures to publish prequel graphic novels through their publishing arm Legendary Comics. So it should come as no surprise that they’ve done it again with Godzilla X Kong: The Hunted by Brian Buccellato, Dario Formisani, Drew Johnson, and Zid, a graphic novel that sets up the events of Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire. Previous Monsterverse graphic novels have ranged from solid entries in the multimedia saga, to rather disappointing ones, and this one falls right in the middle.
The story follows Raymond Martin, notably named for Raymond Bur’s character Steve Martin from the 1954 original film, as he builds a large mech suit in order to hunt Titans in the Hollow Earth. He hates Titans and wants to level the playing field, much like Apex Cybernetics tried with MechaGodzilla. While he’s going through this, Godzilla is pursuing Skylla, who is attacking various nuclear power plants for some unknown reason. Skylla is upsetting the natural order, and most likely trying to make a play for the title of King of the Monsters, so Godzilla will not take that threat lying down. Elsewhere, Kong is surveying his new kingdom in the Hollow Earth, until his story links up with Raymond Martin towards the end
Prequel comics come with perceived limitations. They can’t do anything that alters the status quo and the ending has to set up the film. They exist as marketing for the “more important” medium of film. So it’s hard, as a comic book fan, to get overly excited and expect more from these comics. Writer Brian Buccellato delivers exactly what he was meant to. There are some really interesting aspects to the story but it’s pretty anticlimactic. Nowhere is this personified more than in the Godzilla segments. Just as Godzilla catches up with Skylla, the comic literally stops the story to say “To Be Continued In Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire.” As a marketing tool, it’s fine, but as a standalone story, it’s lacking.
The most interesting part of the story is Raymond Martin, who would actually have made a good antagonist for a feature film. Martin is a wealthy man who’s turned into a big game hunter, and that’s meant literally. He was in San Francisco during the events of the 2014 film Godzilla and lost his entire family to that attack. This has given him a personal vendetta against Titans, but he’s not ready to go after the alphas just yet. It’s through him that we’re introduced to a new Monsterverse Titan called Spineprowler, who’s basically just a giant jaguar (not the first giant cat Titan that Zid has designed). It’s honestly a shame that he’s killed at the end because there’s some potential here, especially with that name.
The Monsterverse comics have come under fire due to tracing allegations. Some of the images from Justice League vs. Godzilla vs. Kong were clearly traced from screenshots of the various Titans. You would hope that when translating the Titans to a comic book, the artist could take some artistic liberties with the designs. Godzilla: Awakening by Max & Greg Borenstein was able to allow their artist team of Eric Battle, Yvel Guichet, Alan Quah, and Lee Loughridge the ability to take these liberties due to there having been no film at the time. But there doesn’t seem to be any obvious tracing in this book.
Mostly, the art is pretty good in Godzilla X Kong: The Hunted. It’s very dynamic and the design of the Titan Hunter is interesting. Fans of the Skull Island: The Birth of Kong comic will no doubt recognize a familiar style as Zid has been the artist on many Monsterverse books. He’s not alone here, of course. The artist team consists of Zid as well as Dario Formisani and Drew Johnson. The three of them mix their styles well since there doesn’t seem to be a clear division of pages between them.
Those looking for an exciting entry in the Monsterverse might be disappointed, but that’s not to say that there is no value in this comic. Raymond Martin is a cool character and there is plenty of Titan action. The major issue is that it doesn’t operate as anything more than a marketing tool for Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire. It doesn’t reach the heights of the best of them, but it doesn’t hit the lows of the worst of them. It’s a perfectly fine and fun entry in the franchise. If you’re already a fan, then you likely won’t regret picking this one up.
6.5/10
Godzilla X Kong: The Hunted is available at your local comic shop, bookstore, or here and the latest entry in the Monsterverse, Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire is in theaters every started March 29th.