Kane Gilmore – Beware of Monsters

A review of the Godzilla: Rulers of Earth
comic book series
By Kane Gilmour

IDW recently wrapped up their Godzilla: Rulers of Earth comic book series, which followed a 12-issue Godzilla: Kingdom of Monsters series and a 13-issue Godzilla series. While I did not read either of those two series, Rulers caught my eye because at 25 issues, it was the longest-ever Godzilla series, and because the art by Matt Frank (with the occasional assist or relief issue by Jeff Zornow*) was simply gorgeous. The question is, at 25 issues (or 6 trade paperbacks), is the series worth it? Read on.

I realize there are bound to be three categories of readers for this series.

Cat 1 are casual readers with little to no knowledge about Godzilla or the 30(!) films for the character.
Cat 2 readers will be like me, those who have watched many or even all of the films, but may not have read all the comics and might not be able to tell the difference at a glance between Battra and Megaguirus—but they at least know it’s not Mothra.
Cat 3 readers can probably tell you the issue, page, and panel number (from memory) of the first time King Ghidorah appeared in a comic book. I’ll try to address how each audience will react to the series.