What’s hot right now in the eyes of Hollywood? Godzilla and IP crossovers, mainly that first one. What would be the best way to combine the two now that the big lizard’s fought King Kong, the Justice League, and even the Power Rangers? Give him a real challenge, a big curveball no one would’ve expected before now: pit Godzilla against a roster of well-known characters from western literature.
Later this year, writer/artist Tom Scioli and IDW are bringing Godzilla’s Monsterpiece Theatre to shelves. In the three-issue miniseries, Godzilla will go up against Sherlock Holmes, Jay Gatsby, HG Wells’ Time Traveler and…Dracula? Yep, the Prince of Darkness himself. Our basic setup is that it’s 1922, and one of Jay’s big attention-grabbing parties does its job too well and lures Godzilla onto the scene. After the King of the Monsters does what he does best, Jay teams up with the other literary characters show him what’s for, old sport. How are they gonna take him down? Who knows, but it’s probably gonna be as silly as this entire premise.
“Imagine if Godzilla thundered into the great American novel,” Scioli told TheWrap. As a fan of the original Godzilla movie, he’s always wanted to do a comic with the character, to the point he made a Godzilla graphic novel as practice for this. He went on to call it the literal comic of his dreams, a “grand, globe-spanning adventure and intimate story of love and heartbreak.” Scioli’s also determined to do the most with it: according to him, Godzilla’s going to smash up a dance contest during his rampage, and elements like submarines, horses, and speedboats will also come into play, as will Jules Verne somehow.
Godzilla’s Monsterpiece Theatre kicks off in October. Peep the main, pulpy cover by Scioli himself down below.
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