Godzilla: The Half-Century War #4

by James Stokoe

With this, the penultimate issue in his mind-blowing Godzilla mini-series, James Stokoe asks the question that many monster-hunters are probably afraid to ask themselves - how do you retire when you've never been able to accomplish your mission?

This issue is set in India in 1987, and Ota, the man whose story we've been following since the end of the Second World War, is starting to feel both his age and the futility in his mission.  Just about the only two constants in his life have been Godzilla and failure, and he's getting a little tired of both of them.

Of course, this is the 80s, so science has progressed to the point where the people in the AMF have built their own Mechagodzilla, a Shogun Warriors style giant robot to fight the lizard.  Ota has almost nothing to do on this mission, until he happens to notice Deverich, the bad guy with the monster-luring device we met last issue.  The device brings a new type of Godzilla to the sub-continent, and things get pretty crazy.

Stokoe is so good at books like this that it could be illegal.  His hyper-detailed art looks fantastic here, as it has in every issue of this series, but I'm noticing that his writing is really growing as well.  I've mentioned before how difficult it is to make anyone care about anything in a monster comic, but now I'm quite looking forward to seeing how Ota's half-century war with Godzilla ends next issue.