Godzilla Vs Portland: The Popgeeks Review

It took long enough, but someone has finally done the Rose City the honor of having Godzilla stomp on it. Godzilla Vs Portland is the fifth book in a series of one-shots released by IDW this year about the terror lizard visiting individual locations in the nation. Each book contains an anthology of stories written and drawn by professional comic folk who live in the targeted city. And Portland is the comic book capital of the nation with Image, Dark Horse, Oni and others calling it home, not to mention tons of comic writers and artists…it should have been first, not fifth.

Now, I may be a bit biased. I’ve lived in Portland my whole life, and that’s what attracted me to the book in the first place. Not only that, I know several of the people who wrote or drew the stories and consider them friends. If this were a jury selection, I’d be shown the door. But this is Popgeeks, and besides, where are you going to find a second review of this book? I’m all you’ve got!

There are four stories in Godzilla Vs Portland and they are all unrelated to each other. They were thought up independently and are four separate takes on what a Godzilla crisis in Portland would look like. IDW’s press release stated some of the writers would make cameos in the drawings, but I can’t find those for the life of me and like I said, I KNOW these people. Maybe they’re in there, maybe they’re not.

The first story was written and drawn entirely by Colleen Coover and involves a legend of a different sort. When Godzilla rises off the coast of Seaside and starts heading east, concerned citizens push a telephone pole button to summon Mothra but it doesn’t work. Fortunately, the Pacific Northwest has its own native monster…the Sasquatch. A secret society of Bigfeet conduct an emergency meeting and decide “now is the time.” They lift their hairy arms toward the skies and start humming in unison, which from thin air forms a giant kaiju made of moss. The moss monster charges at Godzilla and they have an evenly matched fight. But it turns out the moss monster has an edge — a magic flute that can put Godzilla to sleep, so that ends the conflict. Everyone breathes a sigh of relief, but when one kid cheers they shush him. This is only a solution as long as they all keep quiet!

Dog Day Afternoon is written and drawn by the talented and wonderful Cat Farris. Two Portlanders meet and walk around the city, debating what kind of ingredients the official Portland hot dog would have. Meanwhile, Godzilla is destroying things behind them, but they’re so caught up in the debate that they don’t even notice him. They’re on a journey to reach a food cart that claims to sell the quintessential “Portland Dog.” But right as they get there, Godzilla breath-blasts the cart, turning it into a smoking crater. They don’t notice him NOW either, and demand the shop owner tell them what the dog was.

High Score is a flashback story, taking place in 1981. If you didn’t know, Portland is the city that the urban legend Polybius is said to have happened in, around that time. Having a local perspective on this — and a vast archive of regional television recordings I digitized myself — makes it even harder to swallow, as if something like this really occurred here, the news media of the time would have been all over it. It is indeed a news reporter who digs into Polybius, and she finds something even more shocking: if the game zombifies enough kids, it summons Godzilla! If this is 1981 and the station is 2, then I’m assuming the woman is supposed to be Kim Gilbert, even if she’s called “Stacey Scott.” Compare the two:

It’s somewhat close. Whether writer / artist Caitlin Yarsky did enough research to know this, or it’s just a coincidence, who can say.

The final story, Under Siege In The 503 (a reference to Portland’s area code), is the only one a singular artist didn’t write and dtaw. It’s a collaborative effort: Mark Russell wrote it, Erik Donovan drew it, and Sandy Tanaka lettered it. Russell is a satirist, and he provides the sharpest script in the book, with barbs like the fact Godzilla comes to Portland because cryptids are “drawn to obnoxious architecture.” The citizens try building a tower of food carts to confront him, but all the propane tanks simultaneously explode at the first attack. And the explosion only stuns the beast. Ultimately Godzilla’s defeat comes at the hands of Trail Blazer Damian Lillard, who shoots a three-point basketball bomb directly into his mouth as he’s distracted by a giant inflatable frog.

One curious thing I noticed about these stories is that they all prominently feature Portland landmarks, but with altered names. Powells Books appears twice, but its front sign says it’s “Famous Books” in Dog Day Afternoon and in Under Siege it’s called “Lowell’s Books.” The Hollywood Theatre is called “Hollyworld” in High Score. I honestly don’t think Hollywood would mind if they were shouted out in this book. If this was the work of an over-cautious and overpaid lawyer, it was a wasted effort.

There’s a fair amount of inside jokes in Godzilla Vs Portland. The “target” on the cover looks that way because it’s the design of the famous carpet in Portland Airport, for example. I can’t say for certain what those who live in other states would get out of it, but I didn’t think Portlandia would catch on either as it contains many of the same inside gags. So what do I know. I do know the talent involved are good people and their work here is nice.

Godzilla Vs Portland is available now at comics shops nationwide.