The first issue of IDW‘s Godzilla’s Monsterpiece Theatre was a fascinating, nearly impossible high-wire act of mixing F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby with a classic Godzilla monster movie. And while that was an interesting experiment, things go entirely off the rails in the delightfully unhinged second issue of the series.
Don’t get me wrong, artist and writer Tom Scioli somehow maintains the plot of The Great Gatsby while also mixing in an aged Sherlock Holmes, H.G. Wells’s The Time Machinist, a cyborg version of Jules Verne, and some other literary characters too spoilery to mention here. If at times the book feels like a rough parody of Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill’s League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, that’s likely not purposeful; it’s just that the two ideas are adjacent to each other.
What Scioli masterfully does is keep heaping on concept after concept, while always looping back to the central conceit: Gatsby versus Godzilla, with the former’s true love Daisy caught in the middle. If the second issue strays further from the initial idea, that’s okay… It started in one place, and is slowly circling outward in an increasingly wacky spiral of literary conventions.
It’s helped by Scioli’s cartooning, which ably channels old newspaper strips while also looping in an often genuinely terrifying Godzilla. He’s apt at drawing multiple characters, big monster attacks, and more intimate scenes between Gatsby and Daisy.
And the place this issue gets to at the end might be the absolute wildest thing that’s happened in 70 years of Godzilla history. Seriously. This comic has to be read to be believed. And while it could be a goof, all credit to Sciloi for treating this all seriously. It’s better — and crazier — for it.
Godzilla’s Monsterpiece Theatre #2 hits stores this Wednesday, November 6, 2024.
Godzilla’s Monsterpiece Theatre #2 Rating:
Godzilla’s Monsterpiece Theatre #2 Official Synopsis:
The roar of the twenties escalated to a mighty SKREONK as Godzilla attacked the party of the wrong man and hurt the wrong lady. Now Jay Gatsby has enlisted the help of Sherlock Holmes, Thomas Edison, Jules Verne, The Time Machinist, and more to put an end to the Godzilla threat once and for all. Watch as our new team travels twenty thousand leagues under the sea and turns Paris into the ultimate Godzilla trap in this thrilling feat of cartooning by the unrivaled Tom Scioli.
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