Godzilla In Hell #1

by RobertJCross on July 15, 2015

Written by: James Stokoe
Art by: James Stokoe

I've never divulged this information with my CTG brethren, but I'm somewhat of a Dante scholar and regularly read The Divine Comedy. I even took Italian in college so I'd be able to try and translate Dante's original text. Anyway, that's what this comic is: What if Godzilla was in Dante's Inferno? The answer is that there is no human interaction whatsoever, which makes for no dialogue whatsoever. So it's kind of a picture book in a way. There is the "Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter Here" as Godzilla enters hell, but it's shaped like a building and not a gate.

Stokoe, like I said, is essentially copying Dante and putting Godzilla in it. It's an original idea because no one has ever mixed the world of religious fan-fiction and kaiju together like this. I was refreshed throughout and had complaints but it did zoom by rather quickly because of the lack of dialogue. Perhaps Virgil could have shown up in the form of Rodan or something. So there's not much written here except scenes and they're very well written and chaotic, as they would be in hell. It's good for what it is.

The art, I was a bit underwhelmed by and it was only because I believe Stokoe did the art for the last Godzilla comic I read and it was phenomenal. Maybe double duty is giving him some sort of fatigue because aside from the subject matter of the art itself, I really wasn't impressed with any of the line work. The scenes themselves...top notch and with a little bit better art would have leaped off the page, but I just didn't see anything "magnificent" in this issue. But like I said, excellent attention to scene structure and the like, just needs to brush up on the aesthetic side of things.

I enjoyed it, but it's a fast read. Check it out if you're a fan.

Our Score:

8/10

A Look Inside