It was decades ago, but I remember watching old Godzilla movies on weekend afternoons on channel WUTV Buffalo 29.
Sure, it was a (famously coined) man-in-suit as the monster lizard and the actors voices were dubbed English from the original Japanese, but there was always something way cool about a giant skyscraper sized dinosaur saving mankind from a colossal flying moth (on visible wires) or (another man dressed up as) a weirdly low-tech robot T-Rex.
Back at the time, it was opportunistic television watching for me, to be sure. There was no such thing as event viewing on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon when the rest of the kids on the street were outside riding bikes or playing Hide-And-Seek.
Still, on those lucky occasions, I, like so many others, was enthralled by what I was witnessing on the TV screen: a giant, roaring dinosaur, bizarre monster foes, huge explosions, the high tech gadgetry of the armed forces, frantically fleeing citizens and the jaw-dropping destruction of whole cities!
Once seen at a young age, the visuals are something you can never forget.
Godzilla made his first appearance to mankind in his eponymous black and white film, way back in 1954. A pop-culture product of the burgeoning nuclear age, the monster quickly became a global phenomenon, a veritable King of the Monsters with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame!
Over his seventy-year history in film, television, books, comic books and video games, Godzilla is celebrated as a pop culture icon. He’s a shining stalwart of science fiction and fantasy and is recognized the world over. The monster is constantly in the media cycle as both an enduring, and often heroic, character – but also as a warning for mankind’s scientific discoveries and our constant encroachment on mysteries perhaps best left unrevealed!
Today, we all celebrate Godzilla’s 70th anniversary with the over-sized one-shot: Godzilla 70th Anniversary #1.
Published by IDW Publishing and written and illustrated by a host of top-tier storytellers including Joëlle Jones (Catwoman, Lady Killer), Michael Conrad (Wonder Woman), Matt Frank (Godzilla: Rulers of Earth), James Stokoe (Godzilla: The Half-Century War, Aliens: Dead Orbit), Adam Gorham (Ms. Marvel: The New Mutant), Dan DiDio (Metal Men, ex-DC Comics VP and Executive Editor and Co-Publisher) and many others, the Godzilla 70th Anniversary #1 comic book is a wonderful and thrilling tribute to the larger-than-life monster! It’s a extra-sized anthology of nine different tales that speak to Godzilla’s legacy and takes readers from far-flung places like the American Old West all the way to a modern Tokyo setting…and beyond.
Witness Godzilla fight both the hideous Mothra and the dreadful Mechagodzilla! Cower at the might of ancient god-like monsters as the enormous beings blot the entire horizon! Joyously lament the destruction of whole cities in the wake of their giant shambling!
Godzilla is King! And the Godzilla 70th Anniversary #1 (in any of it’s five celebratory cover options) confirms it!
Stomp through your own city and make the run to the local comic book shop – if only to get your monstrous claws on the over-sized celebration that is Godzilla 70th Anniversary #1 today!
