Move over Fenway Park: a different green monster is coming back to Boston this summer.
Cue the Blue Öyster Cult because Godzilla is go-going to the city thanks to “Godzilla vs. Boston,” an upcoming comic book from IDW Publishing that brings the King of the Monsters to the heart of the Hub. Set to hit shelves at local comic shops July 30, the Boston-set issue is an installment in IDW’s “Godzilla vs. America” anthology limited series, which features the legendary movie monster causing mayhem in different cities across the country. The series kicked off earlier this year with Godzilla paying a visit to Chicago, with his next stop slated for Los Angeles later this month (Proceeds from the LA issue will go to support the Binc Foundation, which is assisting book and comic sellers affected by the recent fires).
As a character that’s been around since 1954, this isn’t Godzilla’s first time wreaking havoc in Boston. The city served as the battleground for his onscreen matchup with the three-headed Ghidorah in the 2019 film “Godzilla: King of the Monsters” starring Kyle Chandler, Vera Farmiga, and Millie Bobby Brown.
The upcoming issue isn’t tied to the ongoing “Monsterverse” cinematic series on the big screen. It features a number of standalone stories set in different time periods.
Bringing Godzilla to Boston was “an easy choice” for the team producing the comic, according to a joint statement from editor Jake Williams and associate editor Nic Niño, noting the city’s appeal due to its deep historical roots, and for being “home to some of the finest comic book artists on the planet.” Each “Godzilla vs. America” issue includes stories created by writers and artists with connections to the cities featured.
Boston’s “historical footprint” is also what inspired GLAAD and Eisner Award nominee Steve Orlando to work on the upcoming “Godzilla vs. America” issue.
Orlando, who moved to Boston in 2018, previously got to bring a fan-favorite character to the Hub during his stint writing “Wonder Woman” for DC Comics, which saw the famed superhero dispense justice from the Back Bay to the North End. While he got to blow up his fair share of Boston landmarks in that series, for Godzilla he wanted to tap more into the city’s “maritime lore and whaling, which in of itself was monstrous,” Orlando said in a recent interview.
To pen a story set in the 1800s, Orlando teamed up with Philadelphia-based comic artist Matt Emmons, who grew up on the Bay State’s North Shore, for a Godzilla tale inspired by the Herman Melville classic “Moby-Dick.” According to a synopsis, their contribution to the issue revolves around sailors who swap stories about their encounters with Godzilla, culminating with an attack on the city.
The King of the Monsters is ultimately taken down by “a wave of molasses,” a clear nod to the Great Molasses Flood of 1919. Orlando has been on a “history of whaling kick” for the past few years thanks in part to his fiancée, who is “obsessed with drum corps” and got him into the Melville-inspired drum and bugle corps production “White Whale” by the Boston Crusaders (he’s also currently reading “How to Speak Whale” by Tom Mustill).
“It just felt like an opportunity, especially because this is a time period that you couldn’t necessarily visit in other cities, at least not in the same way,” Orlando said of getting to write a story set in the era of “Moby-Dick.” “I just thought, look, this is one of literature’s greatest monsters. Let’s compare and contrast, and let’s use them as a sendup to one of film’s greatest monsters and sort of dig in and celebrate not just Boston and Godzilla, but the background.”
Emmons called the project “a nice excuse to think about Boston” and jumped at the chance to draw Godzilla. Growing up north of the city, Emmons recalls his parents purchasing a “fixer-upper farmhouse that they’re still fixing up,” with fond memories of the “old barn” and the way nature took hold over time, inspiring his love of “animals and monsters and fiction” — all things he now draws as a professional comic book artist.
“The older I get, the more I look back on where I grew up at the foot of wetlands, picking up frogs … sort of spilled into a huge, deep interest in the natural world,” Emmons said.
The issue also features the work of award-winning illustrator and writer Hanna Cha, a Rhode Island School of Design alum who lives in Boston. Other New England natives involved with the project include Eisner-nominated writer and artist Jesse Lonergan, who grew up mostly in Vermont and lived in the Boston area for a long time before moving to Philadelphia, as well as artist Hayden Sherman, another RISD alum who now lives in Allston.
Sherman’s story for the issue taps into a cuter chapter in Godzilla lore, with the infamous Godzilla Junior held in a secret facility underneath a movie theater that may look familiar to anyone who’s visited Brookline’s Coolidge Corner. But before any official name-drops can be included, Sherman plans to ask for the theater’s blessing on the comic book mention.
“It is meant to be a loving homage to them,” Sherman said. “That their building gets torn down in the story [is] the highest compliment I could give them, hopefully.”
Meanwhile in Lonergan’s tale, Godzilla goes face-to-face with a “kaiju-sized” blue lobster, leading to a “Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs” situation as lobster meat rains down from the sky after the giant reptilian hero saves the day. Lonergan, now in his 40s, remembers watching old Godzilla movies when they were only on at off hours and didn’t feature the state-of-the-art CGI scenes audiences see today. As a longtime fan of Godzilla, getting to work on the comic allowed him to live out a personal passion, touching on his love for those campy films when the monsters were just people in suits.
“My dream, still, I think, is to get to be in the Godzilla suit and destroy a city,” Lonergan said. “If something ever goes right and I can have that kind of birthday party where there’s a city built for me, it’s like my dream.”
“I don’t know, I have a 3-year-old,” he added. “Maybe it’s just touching on that destroy urge.”
“Godzilla vs. Boston” hits shelves July 30.
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