Godzilla Legends is another ongoing Godzilla Title from IDW. IDW really seems to be using their license to the Godzilla franchise, which is fine by me. Godzilla Gangsters and Goliaths was a great six issue miniseries. Godzilla Kingdom of Monsters is much more of a mixed bag. But enough about those other series, on to what I'm reviewing today. Godzilla Legends is a new series in which every issue is a stand alone story featuring one Toho's famous Kaiju. This issue's main monster is Anguirus, who is facing off against fan-favorite, Destoroyah. The issue is written by Jeff Prezenkowski and illustrated by Matt Frank. The story is about Destoroyah attacking Japan(we're never told the specific city) and scientists who attempt to summon Godzilla to fight him off but accidentally get Anguirus instead. I like the premise, but the story itself is mixed. The idea of accidentally summoning Anguirus and being disappointed because there's no way he can stop Destoroyah is pretty amusing(the comic even notes that Anguirus has never won a fight), but the human characters are just awful. We have a scientist who is really cowardly and always doubting himself just so that there's an opportunity for a "believe in yourself" moment. Its terribly cheesy, and not in a good way. We have a general who sacrifices himself early on and its supposed to be tragic, but I don't care because I've only seen him for two pages and he's not very interesting. This is undermined even further when the general makes a triumphant return(I still don't care) just so he can heroicly sacrifice himself again just so that he can make another triumphant return. All the human characters have extremely cheesy lines like, "Never underestimate the underdog!" or "You just need to believe in yourself, like I believe in you...". Its also a little odd that the book comes off as really kid-friendly, but then one of the characters calls someone a bastard out of nowhere, causing a weird clash of childish themes with adult language. The monster battle storyline fares better, with Anguirus as the underdog struggling to fight against Destoroyah. If I can say one thing about this issue, its that it manages to get the characters of the monsters down pretty well. One more thing that kind of annoys me is that the book makes a big deal about Anguirus managing to beat Destoroyah, but its the suddenly back alive general who actually freezes Destoroyah. I don't know why they couldn't just have Anguirus freeze him instead, but that's a nitpick. The art is just as mixed as the story. The monsters look good, but the people look really cartoony and silly. Overall, this story is cheesy and suffers from terrible human characters, but manages to get by because of a pretty good monster battle (and I like Anguirus).
Final Score: 5.5/10