Godzilla: The Half Century War #1 by James Stokoe

Picture what you would want from a Godzilla comic...visualise it clearly in your mind. got it? good!

Now go and buy a copy of Godzilla The Half Century War #1 and revel in how shitty your imagined version of Godzilla smashing Tokyo up actually was, because this comic looks like this:

yeah, i know right!

That's right people, this Godzilla comic is written and drawn by James Stokoe. For those of you the don't know Stokoe is the supremely talented mother fucker responsible for Orc Stain, one of the greatest comics out there on the stands. It was announced earlier this year he would be helming a five part Godzilla miniseries, whilst this means we probably won't get an issue of Orc Stain this year I think it's a fair trade off because, again, we get to point our greedy little eyes at shit like this:

i mean seriously! SERIOUSLY!

It was very tempting to run a review of this comic that comprised of just images of Stokoe's pencils and the word 'FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK' because the pencils in this book (like EVERYTHING Stokoe draws) are FUCKING INSANE. 

Every panel is hyper detailed, crammed with rubble or smoke or explosions or broken glass or debris. There is so much to look at in the pages of this comic. Hell, you know you are reading something special when you have genuinely just spent about fifteen minutes looking at how awesome all the explosions and plumes of smoke are. 

But the primary focus of this book is the big green bastard, Godzilla. The sense of scale in this comic is like nothing i've seen since I last read Akira. Stokoe makes Godzilla tower above the Tokyo skyline, smashing buildings in half with his tail and letting off massive beams of irradiated energy and toppling skyscrapers. The first glimpse of Godzilla we get is a giant foot looking from behind a building, I audibly gasped when I looked at it:

FUCK

Stokoe's linework comes off like a radiation soaked hybrid of Moebius and Akira Toriyama. Godzilla looks towering and indestructible whilst the humans scampering around beneath his feet are fleshy and vulnerable, like our protagonist Lt Ota Murakami.

A special mention should be made about the tank in Half Century War, I haven't seen a tank imbued with such personality since the Fuchikomas from Ghost in the Shell. As Murakami and his war buddy (Kentaro) attempt to distract Godzilla and draw him away from the populace of Tokyo the little green tank looks like it is running for his little life!

holy shitsnacks!

The plot of Half Century War is simple. Murakami first encounters the irradiated beast in 1954, destroying Tokyo. This issue chronicles his first encounter and how he became involved with this hulking reptilian leviathan. Incoming issues promise to explore this bizarre relationship throughout the decades.

As pure spectacle this comic excels, Stokoe's lush manga informed style is so exciting to look at, the rich and lurid colours burn off the page into your retina. But the story itself is also of equal quality. It feels like the first half of the first act from a really badass Godzilla movie, a proper Toho one not that walking abomination that was the Hollywood effort (with pastry faced Matthew Broderick, god that was a shitty movie). I'm hooked already, I didn't even need to read this comic to know I would be as James Stokoe is one of the industries most gifted story tellers. Go. Now. Buy it, read it and thank god you don't live in coast Japan...