Is It Good? Godzilla: Cataclysm #1 Review

IDW is giving us a new Godzilla miniseries by Cullen Bunn and Dave Wachter. Is it good?

Godzilla: Cataclysm #1 (IDW Publishing)

In the future, a war among the various Toho kaiju has absolutely devastated the urban world, leaving people everywhere to live like refugees within their own cities.

While on a supply run, a group is attacked by overgrown insects. That’s more than enough to ruin anyone’s day, but things get a whole lot worse when Biollante shows up…and a whole lot more awesome with the arrival of Godzilla.

Is It Good?

Yes. Good lord, yes.

My brief and simple summary does not do the beauty of this book justice. Bunn quickly establishes a believable dystopian world where things don’t just magically recover after kaiju incursions.
His words, however, are greatly enhanced by Wachter’s eye popping art. While the scenes feature the monsters were cool, his imagery of a desolated city is so incredibly good that it gave me chills.

…but the monster renderings are still pretty amazing, too.

About the only flaw with the book is its timing. We go from “The monsters are all gone” to “HOLY CRAP THE MONSTERS ARE BACK” in a ridiculously short amount of time. But even taking that into consideration, Bunn effectively introduces us to characters whose view of the kaiju returning makes the story even more compelling.

I apologize in advance to the all the IDW Godzilla fans out there, but THIS is the type of Big G comic that I want to read. The human characters aren’t fawning over the monsters and wondering how to save them. They’re scared and angry at these beats that destroyed their homes. There’s isn’t a convoluted, mythology-laden subplot that newer readers have absolutely no chance of following.

This is truly scary and devastating kaiju action… just the way it should be.