Godzilla Library Collection, Vol. 4

Godzilla Library Collection #4

by Chris Mowry, Matt Frank (illustrator), Jeff Zornow (illustrator)

Godzilla returns, and the world will never be the same! Next up in the Library Collection series is Rulers of Earth! The Godzilla Library Collection is a comprehensive line of books that will collect every Godzilla comic series by IDW! Volume 4 collects the first 12 issues of the Rulers of Earth series by Chris Mowry, Matt Frank, and Jeff Zornow. Giant monsters are appearing across the globe and leaving complete devastation in their wake. But who—or what—might be behind their attacks? It's up to Commander Steven Woods and his Counter-Kaiju Reaction forces to hold the monsters at bay while young Lucy Casprell and her scientific research group, the Kaiju Watchers, attempt to find the truth behind the invasions.

Genres: Graphic Novels, Fiction

280 pages, Paperback

Published April 22, 2025

Reviews

[Neil · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall, this was a fun read. I liked that it tied into the prior two series, although it did feel like it was dragging the surviving members of History's Greatest Monster series into this one (as they are mentioned in passing; perhaps they show up in the final thirteen issues of this series?). The artwork in this story is worlds better than History's Greatest Monster series, but some of it is hard to follow in places. The character development is pretty hit-and-miss for me until towards the end.

It as fun seeing Zilla appear in the first issue and fighting Godzilla to boot! I didn't mind the Matthew Broderick bomb from the late 90s too much; it's a fun monster movie if you ignore it's an Americanized "Godzilla". In any case, it was fun seeing the two titans battle it out, with Zilla burrowing underground to get away from Godzilla. Lucy Casprell running out to film Zilla running towards her was a perfect parody of the scene from Hank Azaria's character doing the same in Godzilla; I loved it! Sadly, Zilla doesn't appear again in the this compilation, so we shall see if he appears later.

I loved Woods' character in this series. I especially enjoyed his statement of how he's not out for revenge but figured he was the most qualified to aid in the fight against the Kaiju 'cuz of how he zapped three of them in a damaged Mechagodzilla with an 8-year-old as a co-pilot. His comment to Lucy later was funny, too, about how she'd be somebody else's twin if she (Lucy) punched Godzilla with a robot.

That cheesy grin he gives from surviving one of Destroyah's . . . whatever they are, was a little too cheesy, but it was cool to see Lucy save his bacon like she does. Then you had Lucy making the comment about Woods being "cute", so it seems like they are possibly setting these two characters up as some kind of "team" or "couple"? Hopefully that does not spell disaster and one of them dies later!

Other than maybe two characters in the . . . well, three, I didn't feel like there was much character development in the story. I felt Woods was better developed as a character over the course of the 12 issues, myself. At least, the issues in which he appears. Lucy as well because of how she grew on me. The third character who is "developed" is Jeremy. Guy is a coward, through-and-through. We'll see if that changes in the latter part of the series. I kinda doubt it, though. I suppose I could add Chavez as well, as he appears quite a bit in the series and seems to have his own personality (especially when interacting with Woods).

There are quite a few monsters throughout the series, including a few I was not aware of. Gezora was crazy to learn a little bit about (I googled it to see what I could find out). It is from some 1970 movie called Space Amoeba which sounds like it might have been a crazy movie. Hopefully fun and not "crazy bad"!

I hadn't watched War of the Gargantuas until recently, so it was fun to realize that the brown and green "monsters" that fight Godzilla in Australia are from that movie.

Varan fighting Rodan was kinda crazy; it looked like Rodan had some kind of secondary mutation due to the "spikes" that were sticking out of its belly. It was crazy looking! I could not figure out why they altered Rodan's look like that for the comic. Perhaps it had something to do with it being able to survive the fight with Varan?

That cover image of Manda wrapped around the destroyed aircraft carrier was crazy! It was a cool image on the one hand, but the concept was kinda stupid. An American aircraft carrier sails with an entire battlegroup; it's not going to be out sailing by itself in the ocean. Not even off the coast of the U.S. of A. So that was a pretty lame moment in the story for me, to be honest.

It was fun seeing Jet Jaguar in this series as well; it will be interesting to see if the mystery behind his "appearance" and relationship with the aliens is going to be explained/explored in the latter part of the series. The author definitely left a dangling storyline there with Jet Jaguar that I hope gets explored further.

The humans have some advanced weaponry, but not enough to take out the monsters. Not sure how I feel about that. Also, whatever happened to an entire species dying off every time a new monster appears? Or did this author decide that was a stupid concept and decide to ignore it? Questions, questions, questions, hahahah!.

The story of King Caesar fighting Megalon was fun. I wouldn't mind seeing King Caesar introduced into the movies as well someday, but it was good to see him in action again. At the same time, the author has made a "big deal" about how different groups of monsters represent each of the four major elements and some of the "space monsters" might be the mysterious "fifth element" that is sometimes spoken of by ancient philosophers. We shall see if that gets further developed as well. I am not getting my hopes up.

I do find myself wondering if the three survivors from the last series will ever show up in anything more than a "flashback" image on a screen or some kind of "honorable mention" because of weapons that were developed during that team's idiotic attempt to kill (then capture) monsters using crazy amounts of C-4 explosives. Like that made any sense! In any case, they were kinda teases, so it will be interesting to see if they end up making a "full reappearance.

I think the "weakest part" of this compilation is that IDW could very easily have put all 25 issues together into a collection; I wish they had. Otherwise, I could have just bought the two original trade paperbacks instead of this one as I like the cover on those better than this "collection's" cover.

The next "weakest part" for me is that sometimes it is hard to tell the direction in which the images are supposed to be read. Even if the artist had put a small number in the corner of each image to denote the order to follow when "reading" those images would have helped. There were a couple of moments I could not decide if I had to keep reading "Left to right" or read like normal for the left page before switching to the right page. It did not happen often, but there were a couple of fights that were hard to follow because of how the art was drawn (no words some of those stories).

This has been a fun series to read. I have enjoyed the travels of the teams around the world and what that has involved. It will be fun to find out how it all ends especially with that lead scientist killed by the alien. I do not know if I want to wait for the second volume to show up in "Volume 05" of this series; perhaps I will buy the second half off of Amazon, hahahah! In any case, part of me wanted to rate it 4-stars, but that might be too generous; maybe 3.5 rounded down to 3 stars. In any case, I am glad that I read this book.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

If I had a nickel for every Godzilla story I've read this week in which there's a throw-down in Vegas, I'd have 2 nickels.

A much more fitting continuation to this ongoing comic continuity that brings in some of my favorite kaiju and robots from the franchise, as well as some pretty obscure ones to continue fleshing out the huge roster of monsters that have appeared in this story so far.
There are some really great fights in here with some matchups that I wouldn't have expected, and the ongoing development of the human cast makes them much more likable than they might have been previously (for the reoccurring characters). The inclusion of not one, but two, hostile non-human factions as well adds a bit more intrigue to the plot, as up until this point the kaiju were simply rampaging with no clear direction. I'm curious to see how this story ends in Volume 5.