The Queue: Godzilla vs The Marvel Universe

Yesterday, Eno asked the following question:

What’s your most memorable comic book that involved dinosaurs of any kind?

And so now I must tell you all a story.

Remember when I said comics are weird, y’all?

Devil Dinosaur was a comic created by Jack Kirby about a small pre-Homo Sapiens (possibly intended as a Neandertal or even Homo Habilis) named Moon Boy who found a T-Rex baby with red skin and raised him up to become the powerful Devil Dinosaur. It didn’t last very long, but the idea keeps popping back up, including a recent run with Devil in the modern day alongside Moon Girl, an inhuman with enhanced intelligence.

That’s weird enough, but after the original Devil Dinosaur series ended because it didn’t have enough people with capes in it (philistines) Marvel had acquired the rights to Toho’s famous giant green behemoth Godzilla. And because Marvel was out of their minds, they decided that in their Godzilla stories, Godzilla existed in the same universe as the Avengers, X-Men, Fantastic Four etc etc.

This led to SHIELD attempting repeatedly to stop Godzilla with giant robots (it didn’t work, but the robots later showed up in an Avengers book) before somebody remembered that Dr. Hank Pym, aka Ant-Man, aka Giant-Man, aka Yellowjacket, aka pick an identity Hank had invented a gas that could shrink things.

They then proceeded to shrink Godzilla down to the size of a common Norwegian rat. However, Godzilla escaped the Helicarrier, fought rats in the sewers (let’s just say that the rats didn’t have atomic breath and he still did) and slowly began regaining his original size while in Manhattan.

Matt, you  may be thinking, what on Earth does this have to do with Devil Dinosaur? I promise I’m getting there. See, Godzilla comes up to the surface in a museum and of course the Fantastic Four are there with Dr. Doom’s old Time Machine because it’s a comic and they’re weird and so, a donnybrook breaks out, and eventually Reed gets the idea of using the Time Machine to send Godzilla to the past where he won’t be such a problem.

I guess no one bothered to tell Reed that Godzilla is normally the size of a skyscraper and would likely absolutely wreck the curve for actual dinosaurs, huh?

Anyway, Godzilla’s radiation messes with the Time Machine, Godzilla ends up in the same Hidden Valley where Devil Dinosaur and Moon Boy live, they fight, then they team up and become friends, but then Godzilla get yoinked back to the modern day when Reed realizes that he just sent a radioactive monster back in time while it was still growing and we end the series with Godzilla basically slapping around the Avengers and Fantastic Four before getting bored and leaving.

I was eight years old. This comic fundamentally shaped my entire life. I am the odd person you know today because Jack Kirby made up a dinosaur and Marvel Comics decided that they licensed Godzilla and should therefore put him up against the Avengers.

Why did you even say this, now it’s all I’ve ever wanted and I know it won’t happen and I’m sad. Why did you make me sad, Soeroah? I shared an awesome Godzilla story with you and everything.

Look, we all saw what happened with Warlocks, didn’t we?

Don’t take a classes cool abilities and share them out too liberally. Making it so everyone can be a Rogue (or at least pretend to being one) would make being a Rogue feel less special. I think giving every class an Execute was a BS move (maybe not every class, but like at least two of them) and it’s been years.

I also like special outdoor sets, but I’m not on board with the idea of sharing class abilities too liberally. I’d rather that a special outdoor set like this added something that fit the theme of the set, like maybe an ability to traverse the terrain in a new way or a big elemental AoE if the zone could justify it (like summon lava explosions in a volcanic zone).

I mean, Therizinosaurus is getting a bit overexposed lately, but if you like big herbivorous/omnivorous dinos, we could always go with Deinocheirus mirificus. Giant freaking claws on an animal that likely spent most of its time eating fruit and plant matter and fish, and a size comparable to the largest Tyrannosaur in the region, Tarbosaurus, plus bite marks on some bones that match ol’ Tarby equals built in storytelling.

I would also still like to see Therizinosaurus, though, as well as many of its relatives. And I’d like to see Stenonychosaurus or other Troodontids — while Troodon itself is no longer considered valid, Stenonychosaurus is, and it’s basically the same thing, a big brained extremely bird-like dinosaur probably hitting the upper limits of how smart an animal can get before we start wondering if it’s smarter than we are.

Seriously, Corvids like Crows and Ravens can use tools, some even make tools, and can recognize our faces and even sarcastically repeat our words to make fun of us. I have no problem believing Stenonychosaurus was getting to that level.

I agree with every point you make here.

Sometimes I just put things up here so folks know I liked the comment or question.

Stop strangling dolphins. It’s wrong. And also, it’s extremely hard to imagine you can possibly be good at it, their necks are entirely encased in their fleshy integument of fat and muscle, it would be like trying to strangle a weightlifter’s torso.

Back in Vanilla I made gold by having at least one gathering profession, selling everything I got on the AH, and also vendoring everything I couldn’t auction. I mean, that old strip about crisp basilisk urethra wasn’t entirely a joke.

There’s an entire storyline in the last continuity of IDW’s Transformers where Starscream actually becomes leader of Cybertron after the Autobot/Decepticon war is over, and more shocking, is good at it. He’s still a conniving, self serving jackass, but he mellows it down to the point where he’s a conniving, self serving jackass politician. 

This is the same run that gave us Autobot Megatron (I’m not kidding) who was friends with Bumblebee and who avenged Bumblebee’s death at Shockwave’s hands. He even wears Bumblebee’s Autobot crest and he willingly stands trial knowing that he is responsible for the deaths of billions. He even cops to being a monster.

The IDW run on Transformers was epic as heck. Someone who worked here and who I knew (but not as well as I should, as I’m very much not good at being social) and I always managed to connect over the IDW run, and it became something I always looked forward to talking to him about. Seriously, if you get the chance, go back and read those stories.

Okay, I’m taking a risk with this Queue, so we’ll see if it publishes normally or not. I may have to crop the heck out of it.

Take care, everyone, Ask Liz lots of questions that aren’t about Godzilla please.