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Godzilla: Here There Be Aliens
120 pages, Paperback
Published April 21, 2026
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Review of advance copy received from Indie Reviewers
I read this in the original monthly issues, and wanted to share my opinions with anyone considering ordering the upcoming trade paperback.
While this mini-series could be read on its own and fully enjoyed, it is the concluding arc of Frank Tieri’s GODZILLA: HERE THERE BE DRAGONS trilogy.
While I did not appreciate this as much as previous versions it is still one of the better Godzilla series out there. Too many of them are just smash ‘em up epics. This one has much more substance, depth, and even interesting character development.
However, part of my feeling may be related to the absence of the great Inaki Miranda on art, who really brought some amazing detail to the settings. Angel Hernandez’s style is simpler, although he really excels at depicting various kaiju monsters in large panels throughout this series.
Flash forward to the 1950’s and the presence of UFOs in the night sky. It’s the Xilien invasion force. They have been on Earth as shape-shifters during the time of HERE THERE BE DRAGONS: SONS OF GIANTS (second arc of the trilogy) and have infiltrated into U.S. government. Jones is laughed out of the hearing and his special project is in jeopardy. Disillusioned, he is contacted by Dr. Kyoto and forcibly welcomed into the ranks of the Sons of Giants, who have been preparing for the Xilien invasion.
Godzilla is presently on a rampage and finally has the attention of government. A prefect time for the invasion. The Xiliens control Mechagodzilla who joins the battle. The Sons of Giants counter with Jet Jaguar, a Godzilla-sized android originally designed by Benjamin Franklin (former member of Sons of Giants).
Before this ends, a boatload of kaiju enter the fray, including Gigan, Space Godzilla, Hedorah, Mothra, etc. Things get wild when the Simians reveal themselves, life-long foes of the Xiliens. They look like characters straight from PLANET OF THE APES.
It’s a crazy story that touches upon Godzilla mythology from back in feudal Japan days. Tieri wraps up his trilogy in very entertaining fashion.
While this mini-series could be read on its own and fully enjoyed, it is the concluding arc of Frank Tieri’s GODZILLA: HERE THERE BE DRAGONS trilogy.
While I did not appreciate this as much as previous versions it is still one of the better Godzilla series out there. Too many of them are just smash ‘em up epics. This one has much more substance, depth, and even interesting character development.
However, part of my feeling may be related to the absence of the great Inaki Miranda on art, who really brought some amazing detail to the settings. Angel Hernandez’s style is simpler, although he really excels at depicting various kaiju monsters in large panels throughout this series.
Flash forward to the 1950’s and the presence of UFOs in the night sky. It’s the Xilien invasion force. They have been on Earth as shape-shifters during the time of HERE THERE BE DRAGONS: SONS OF GIANTS (second arc of the trilogy) and have infiltrated into U.S. government. Jones is laughed out of the hearing and his special project is in jeopardy. Disillusioned, he is contacted by Dr. Kyoto and forcibly welcomed into the ranks of the Sons of Giants, who have been preparing for the Xilien invasion.
Godzilla is presently on a rampage and finally has the attention of government. A prefect time for the invasion. The Xiliens control Mechagodzilla who joins the battle. The Sons of Giants counter with Jet Jaguar, a Godzilla-sized android originally designed by Benjamin Franklin (former member of Sons of Giants).
Before this ends, a boatload of kaiju enter the fray, including Gigan, Space Godzilla, Hedorah, Mothra, etc. Things get wild when the Simians reveal themselves, life-long foes of the Xiliens. They look like characters straight from PLANET OF THE APES.
It’s a crazy story that touches upon Godzilla mythology from back in feudal Japan days. Tieri wraps up his trilogy in very entertaining fashion.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
The Monster in the Filing Cabinet
How “Godzilla: Here There Be Aliens” turns Cold War paranoia, secret history, and kaiju spectacle into a comic about misreading the world
By Demetris Papadimitropoulos | March 29th, 2026
Vindication is the first bureaucratic disaster in “Godzilla: Here There Be Aliens.” Bob Jones has spent years running the government’s monster desk, a posting his superiors treat as a punch line typed on federal stationery. Then Godzilla levels Japan, the joke becomes national security, and Bob gets the thing cranks dream of most: proof. A lesser comic would stop there and smirk. Frank Tieri does something better. He turns the moment into a bait-and-switch with clearance levels. Bob is right, yes, but only in the narrowest way. He has found the monster and missed the machine that makes the monster only the beginning.
That little office humiliation gives the whole comic its operating logic. “Godzilla: Here There Be Aliens” is not sharpest as a mere kaiju traffic jam with some UFO clutter kicked into the margins, though it is perfectly happy to let giant reptiles, metal doubles, and alien craft make committees look tiny, procedural, and faintly ridiculous. Its real habit is to downgrade every explanation it offers. Just when the story seems to have pinned reality in place, another locked drawer slides open. Project Colossus is a front. Bob’s career has been a decoy. Godzilla is real, but Godzilla is not the whole emergency. The Xiliens have been on Earth far longer than Washington can admit. The Simians are not what they first appear to be. The official file itself has been redacted, misfiled, and, now and then, repackaged as literature.
The plot keeps cutting its own floor out from under whatever explanation has just been offered. Bob’s brief moment of vindication is followed not by promotion but by induction into a deeper drawer of secrecy. Dr. Kyoto reveals that Bob’s monster work has long served as cover for a covert war against the Xiliens, shapeshifting invaders with hooks sunk deep in earthly institutions. The Sons of Giants, whom Bob knew only as monster lore and crank bait, turn out not merely to have guarded kaiju but to have fought this alien campaign for centuries. Roswell gets paper-clipped into the dossier. So does “The War of the Worlds.” So do Area 51, Jet Jaguar, Hedorah, Mechagodzilla, and eventually Mecha-King Ghidorah. The war spreads across the board. Cities crease. Alliances flip. Then the book makes its smartest turn and drags the whole apparatus indoors. Betty, Bob’s wife, is herself Xilien, though not in the neat villain slot the story seems, briefly, ready to assign her. She has infiltrated Bob’s life, certainly. She has also loved him. When Director Stone finally needs killing, it is Betty, not Bob, who fires the shot. The marriage becomes another covert theater in the war.
That is an absurd amount of contraband for one volume to carry without splitting a seam. It is also the book’s native climate. A lazier franchise comic would heap all this on the page and call the heap conviction. Tieri makes the crowding do argumentative work. Every official account in the story is too narrow for what is actually happening. That is why the revelations keep arriving. Not because the comic cannot stop emptying the toy chest, though now and then one hears the hinges complain, but because each new fact makes the previous explanation look puny. Here every memo arrives already outdated.
Tieri’s script is the binder clip that keeps this armload of classified lunacy from scattering. He writes in jab-cut-sidestep bursts: briefing, wisecrack, correction, threat. Bob’s voice does the heaviest lifting. He sounds like a man who has spent too long being laughed at and now takes a bitter pleasure in watching reality humiliate his superiors for him. A comic this full of covert history and kaiju bureaucracy cannot afford grandeur. It needs a register nimble enough to move exposition and dry enough not to gag on it. Without Bob’s bruised humor, the mythology would set like stale briefing-room copy.
The same efficiency leaves a mark. Tieri can make information move. He can make explanation feel like motion. He is less interested in the sentence as a place for interior weather. The prose is clear, punchy, often funny, but rarely sensuous, and when the book reaches for deeper feeling, especially around Betty, it stays more efficient than piercing. That is not a trivial limitation. Betty is where the comic’s machinery finally touches living tissue. She is not only the book’s sharpest twist. She is its emotional hinge, the point where state secrecy becomes marital secrecy, where infiltration stops being a concept and starts sleeping in the house. The comic knows exactly what her revelation does to the plot. It is less patient with what that revelation would do to an actual marriage, an actual body, an actual night after the shooting stops.
Its clearest intelligence shows up in the way it parcels out and then discredits information. The best bit of stagecraft here is serial demotion. Bob thinks he is in a vindication story; he is in a conspiracy story. He thinks he is in a conspiracy story; he is in a secret-history war comic. He thinks he is in a secret-history war comic; he is in a book about bad filing habits, monsters, allies, spouses, institutions, all entered under the wrong labels. That repeated reclassification gives the comic its snap. It also keeps the exposition from hardening in place. Information here rarely sits still. It changes the genre of the scene that just happened.
That matters because the book is not really about secrecy in the abstract. Plenty of genre stories have hidden rooms, covert agencies, and classified files. What “Godzilla: Here There Be Aliens” keeps circling is a messier problem: misclassification. It is a book about how human beings sort the world too quickly and sort it wrong. Godzilla is not the deepest threat. The Simians are not the enemy Bob first assumes. Betty is both infiltrator and spouse, deception and attachment. Even history itself has been filed under the wrong heading. The book’s pleasure comes not only from opening drawers but from discovering how bad the labels on those drawers were in the first place.
Angel Hernandez’s art understands that assignment. The human world arrives in offices, corridors, television studios, control rooms, rooms designed to make men feel briefly in charge. Then a beam cuts through, or a ship descends, or a giant body enters the frame, and the geometry starts to look laughably temporary. Heather Breckel’s colors help: rust, bruise-purple, smoky blue, metallic glare. This is not dreamy apocalypse. It is briefing-room apocalypse. Tight, talk-heavy scenes build pressure. Larger action beats peel the casing off. The layouts do more than arrange spectacle. They keep putting paper authority beside nonhuman scale, and paper authority keeps losing.
That visual logic also sharpens the book’s sense of institutions. Bureaucracy here is not mocked because bureaucracy is inherently dull. It is mocked because it cannot contain the scale of what is happening. The hearing room, the military office, the television studio, the secret base, all are built to imply command. Then the monsters arrive, the aliens arrive, the robots arrive, and command starts to look like a set decoration left standing after the wall behind it has gone down. The comic does not simply tell us that official stories are insufficient. It stages that insufficiency panel by panel.
Here the book stops looking like competent franchise upkeep and starts arguing with the public record. Its accomplishment is not that it stuffs Godzilla mythology, UFO lore, conspiracy fiction, revisionist history, and giant-robot combat into one volume. Plenty of franchise books stuff. What matters is that this one turns overabundance into propulsion. The least misleading comparisons are not other Godzilla books so much as comics that treat history as a cover story springing leaks. Warren Ellis and John Cassaday’s “Planetary” is far more elegant, Jonathan Hickman and Nick Pitarra’s “The Manhattan Projects” far more feral, but both help locate the game Tieri is playing: the pleasure of watching public history lose its composure. He does not reach their highest register. He does work convincingly in a neighboring one.
The comic’s quietest and best trick is to make monstrosity harder to sort than the title suggests. Godzilla is catastrophic, but not finally the deepest threat. The Simians first register as one more sinister wrinkle, then emerge as indispensable allies. Betty is both infiltrator and spouse, both deception and attachment. By the close the book has slipped, almost under cover of its own clamor, from fear to stewardship. The kaiju are no longer only things to deny, contain, or weaponize. They become beings whose existence imposes obligation. That is the book’s slyest moral turn. The reader begins with proof and ends with responsibility.
Which is why the emotional limitation matters. Betty is where the bill comes due. Her reveal drags the logic of infiltration out of the Pentagon and into the house. It ought to feel bewildering, intimate, ugly, tender, nearly impossible to absorb at speed. Here it is powerful and fast. The scene lands and moves on before it can ache properly. Bob works because he is such an efficient carrier of disbelief, irritation, and battered wonder. He never quite becomes a deeply inhabited consciousness. The same goes for parts of the worldwide war. The book keeps the escalation readable, which is no minor engineering feat, but some cities and some monsters end up less as scenes than as map pins. That is the price of the comic’s velocity. It can think quickly. It cannot always stop long enough to bleed.
Still, that speed is not emptiness. The book’s contemporary charge lies less in allegory than in procedure. The memo is always late, and the file is always smaller than the threat. Tieri understands a world in which official explanations arrive incomplete and defensive, naming only the manageable slice of reality. He is also smart enough not to climb on a box and announce the parallel. The comic keeps moving. It never stiffens into a lecture disguised as monster havoc.
I land at 83/100, which translates cleanly to 4 out of 5 stars: a sharp, unruly, deliberately overstuffed comic whose design is stronger than its psychology, whose best ideas outrun its emotional reach, and whose deepest pleasures lie in the way it keeps revising the explanations it first hands you.
What sticks is not the loudest blast or the biggest machine, enjoyable though both are. It is the quieter turn underneath them. Bob begins by wanting the world to admit that monsters exist. He ends in a world where the stranger task is deciding which monsters deserve fear, which deserve trust, and which, for all their ruinous scale, must be protected when the sirens stop. That is the smudge the comic leaves on the glass. Not the thrill of learning that the world is stranger than expected. The more nettling realization that the old mistake was never disbelief alone. It was the neat little human arrogance of thinking we had already filed the creatures in front of us under the right labels.
How “Godzilla: Here There Be Aliens” turns Cold War paranoia, secret history, and kaiju spectacle into a comic about misreading the world
By Demetris Papadimitropoulos | March 29th, 2026
Vindication is the first bureaucratic disaster in “Godzilla: Here There Be Aliens.” Bob Jones has spent years running the government’s monster desk, a posting his superiors treat as a punch line typed on federal stationery. Then Godzilla levels Japan, the joke becomes national security, and Bob gets the thing cranks dream of most: proof. A lesser comic would stop there and smirk. Frank Tieri does something better. He turns the moment into a bait-and-switch with clearance levels. Bob is right, yes, but only in the narrowest way. He has found the monster and missed the machine that makes the monster only the beginning.
That little office humiliation gives the whole comic its operating logic. “Godzilla: Here There Be Aliens” is not sharpest as a mere kaiju traffic jam with some UFO clutter kicked into the margins, though it is perfectly happy to let giant reptiles, metal doubles, and alien craft make committees look tiny, procedural, and faintly ridiculous. Its real habit is to downgrade every explanation it offers. Just when the story seems to have pinned reality in place, another locked drawer slides open. Project Colossus is a front. Bob’s career has been a decoy. Godzilla is real, but Godzilla is not the whole emergency. The Xiliens have been on Earth far longer than Washington can admit. The Simians are not what they first appear to be. The official file itself has been redacted, misfiled, and, now and then, repackaged as literature.
The plot keeps cutting its own floor out from under whatever explanation has just been offered. Bob’s brief moment of vindication is followed not by promotion but by induction into a deeper drawer of secrecy. Dr. Kyoto reveals that Bob’s monster work has long served as cover for a covert war against the Xiliens, shapeshifting invaders with hooks sunk deep in earthly institutions. The Sons of Giants, whom Bob knew only as monster lore and crank bait, turn out not merely to have guarded kaiju but to have fought this alien campaign for centuries. Roswell gets paper-clipped into the dossier. So does “The War of the Worlds.” So do Area 51, Jet Jaguar, Hedorah, Mechagodzilla, and eventually Mecha-King Ghidorah. The war spreads across the board. Cities crease. Alliances flip. Then the book makes its smartest turn and drags the whole apparatus indoors. Betty, Bob’s wife, is herself Xilien, though not in the neat villain slot the story seems, briefly, ready to assign her. She has infiltrated Bob’s life, certainly. She has also loved him. When Director Stone finally needs killing, it is Betty, not Bob, who fires the shot. The marriage becomes another covert theater in the war.
That is an absurd amount of contraband for one volume to carry without splitting a seam. It is also the book’s native climate. A lazier franchise comic would heap all this on the page and call the heap conviction. Tieri makes the crowding do argumentative work. Every official account in the story is too narrow for what is actually happening. That is why the revelations keep arriving. Not because the comic cannot stop emptying the toy chest, though now and then one hears the hinges complain, but because each new fact makes the previous explanation look puny. Here every memo arrives already outdated.
Tieri’s script is the binder clip that keeps this armload of classified lunacy from scattering. He writes in jab-cut-sidestep bursts: briefing, wisecrack, correction, threat. Bob’s voice does the heaviest lifting. He sounds like a man who has spent too long being laughed at and now takes a bitter pleasure in watching reality humiliate his superiors for him. A comic this full of covert history and kaiju bureaucracy cannot afford grandeur. It needs a register nimble enough to move exposition and dry enough not to gag on it. Without Bob’s bruised humor, the mythology would set like stale briefing-room copy.
The same efficiency leaves a mark. Tieri can make information move. He can make explanation feel like motion. He is less interested in the sentence as a place for interior weather. The prose is clear, punchy, often funny, but rarely sensuous, and when the book reaches for deeper feeling, especially around Betty, it stays more efficient than piercing. That is not a trivial limitation. Betty is where the comic’s machinery finally touches living tissue. She is not only the book’s sharpest twist. She is its emotional hinge, the point where state secrecy becomes marital secrecy, where infiltration stops being a concept and starts sleeping in the house. The comic knows exactly what her revelation does to the plot. It is less patient with what that revelation would do to an actual marriage, an actual body, an actual night after the shooting stops.
Its clearest intelligence shows up in the way it parcels out and then discredits information. The best bit of stagecraft here is serial demotion. Bob thinks he is in a vindication story; he is in a conspiracy story. He thinks he is in a conspiracy story; he is in a secret-history war comic. He thinks he is in a secret-history war comic; he is in a book about bad filing habits, monsters, allies, spouses, institutions, all entered under the wrong labels. That repeated reclassification gives the comic its snap. It also keeps the exposition from hardening in place. Information here rarely sits still. It changes the genre of the scene that just happened.
That matters because the book is not really about secrecy in the abstract. Plenty of genre stories have hidden rooms, covert agencies, and classified files. What “Godzilla: Here There Be Aliens” keeps circling is a messier problem: misclassification. It is a book about how human beings sort the world too quickly and sort it wrong. Godzilla is not the deepest threat. The Simians are not the enemy Bob first assumes. Betty is both infiltrator and spouse, deception and attachment. Even history itself has been filed under the wrong heading. The book’s pleasure comes not only from opening drawers but from discovering how bad the labels on those drawers were in the first place.
Angel Hernandez’s art understands that assignment. The human world arrives in offices, corridors, television studios, control rooms, rooms designed to make men feel briefly in charge. Then a beam cuts through, or a ship descends, or a giant body enters the frame, and the geometry starts to look laughably temporary. Heather Breckel’s colors help: rust, bruise-purple, smoky blue, metallic glare. This is not dreamy apocalypse. It is briefing-room apocalypse. Tight, talk-heavy scenes build pressure. Larger action beats peel the casing off. The layouts do more than arrange spectacle. They keep putting paper authority beside nonhuman scale, and paper authority keeps losing.
That visual logic also sharpens the book’s sense of institutions. Bureaucracy here is not mocked because bureaucracy is inherently dull. It is mocked because it cannot contain the scale of what is happening. The hearing room, the military office, the television studio, the secret base, all are built to imply command. Then the monsters arrive, the aliens arrive, the robots arrive, and command starts to look like a set decoration left standing after the wall behind it has gone down. The comic does not simply tell us that official stories are insufficient. It stages that insufficiency panel by panel.
Here the book stops looking like competent franchise upkeep and starts arguing with the public record. Its accomplishment is not that it stuffs Godzilla mythology, UFO lore, conspiracy fiction, revisionist history, and giant-robot combat into one volume. Plenty of franchise books stuff. What matters is that this one turns overabundance into propulsion. The least misleading comparisons are not other Godzilla books so much as comics that treat history as a cover story springing leaks. Warren Ellis and John Cassaday’s “Planetary” is far more elegant, Jonathan Hickman and Nick Pitarra’s “The Manhattan Projects” far more feral, but both help locate the game Tieri is playing: the pleasure of watching public history lose its composure. He does not reach their highest register. He does work convincingly in a neighboring one.
The comic’s quietest and best trick is to make monstrosity harder to sort than the title suggests. Godzilla is catastrophic, but not finally the deepest threat. The Simians first register as one more sinister wrinkle, then emerge as indispensable allies. Betty is both infiltrator and spouse, both deception and attachment. By the close the book has slipped, almost under cover of its own clamor, from fear to stewardship. The kaiju are no longer only things to deny, contain, or weaponize. They become beings whose existence imposes obligation. That is the book’s slyest moral turn. The reader begins with proof and ends with responsibility.
Which is why the emotional limitation matters. Betty is where the bill comes due. Her reveal drags the logic of infiltration out of the Pentagon and into the house. It ought to feel bewildering, intimate, ugly, tender, nearly impossible to absorb at speed. Here it is powerful and fast. The scene lands and moves on before it can ache properly. Bob works because he is such an efficient carrier of disbelief, irritation, and battered wonder. He never quite becomes a deeply inhabited consciousness. The same goes for parts of the worldwide war. The book keeps the escalation readable, which is no minor engineering feat, but some cities and some monsters end up less as scenes than as map pins. That is the price of the comic’s velocity. It can think quickly. It cannot always stop long enough to bleed.
Still, that speed is not emptiness. The book’s contemporary charge lies less in allegory than in procedure. The memo is always late, and the file is always smaller than the threat. Tieri understands a world in which official explanations arrive incomplete and defensive, naming only the manageable slice of reality. He is also smart enough not to climb on a box and announce the parallel. The comic keeps moving. It never stiffens into a lecture disguised as monster havoc.
I land at 83/100, which translates cleanly to 4 out of 5 stars: a sharp, unruly, deliberately overstuffed comic whose design is stronger than its psychology, whose best ideas outrun its emotional reach, and whose deepest pleasures lie in the way it keeps revising the explanations it first hands you.
What sticks is not the loudest blast or the biggest machine, enjoyable though both are. It is the quieter turn underneath them. Bob begins by wanting the world to admit that monsters exist. He ends in a world where the stranger task is deciding which monsters deserve fear, which deserve trust, and which, for all their ruinous scale, must be protected when the sirens stop. That is the smudge the comic leaves on the glass. Not the thrill of learning that the world is stranger than expected. The more nettling realization that the old mistake was never disbelief alone. It was the neat little human arrogance of thinking we had already filed the creatures in front of us under the right labels.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
My thanks to NetGalley and IDW Publishing for an advance copy of this graphic novel dealing with the King of All Monsters, this time in hero mode, defending the Earth from alien fiends, and mutated kaiju from beyond the stars.
Godzilla is a complicated kaiju that no one understands, not even the cult that has monitored his existence over the centuries. Godzilla can be a villain, a creature of hate and malice tromping through the cities of Japan, causing billions in damage, and leaving a trail of broken military equipment, and casualties. Other times Godzilla is a hero, the last bastion before rampaging kaiju and enemies from beyond the Earth, the disruption of water signaling that Godzilla is coming and fire and stomping await those who threaten the innocent. In Godzilla: Here There Be Aliens written by Frank Tieri and illustrated by Ángel Hernández, the King of All Monsters must defend the earth against an alien threat, one that has lived among us, infiltrated everything on Earth, and are using foul kaiju mecha and Frankenstein like, kaiju strong enough to defeat even Godzilla and mamy monster allies.
The book begins with Bob, a mid-level analyst trying to gain attention to a research project he has been working on, dealing with giant monsters and the true history of America. The time is the start of the Cold War. Enemies exist around every corner, and Bob has a fear that the enemies might be closer than one thinks. Bob suggest that many powerful people in history worshipped a creature known as Godzilla, a giant lizard that might have helped save humanity in the past. Laughter is his only response, but this laughter turns to gasps as Godzilla appears in Japan, tearing high tension wires down, and smashing real estate. This appearance also causes the Xilens, shape shifting aliens who have lived among us for years to launch their final and fatal attack on Earth. Bob is soon drawn into a conspiracy going back centuries, dealing with monsters, aliens, the secret history of the Earth, and the fate of mankind. However with this alliance of robots, kaiju and even aliens be enough to save the Earth from being destroyed?
A big planet spanning adventure with lots of action, lots of deception, and lots of cool images of monsters. The story is the culmination of a Godzilla secret history story, an Illuminati story featuring kaiju, that I found interesting. There are plenty of fights, lots of conspiracy and lots and lots of twists and turns. And stomping. Lots of stomping. Franken-kaiju, giant robots, bigger mechas, numerous kaiju, different aliens, the story is pretty full of all the best from various 70's Toho movies. The story moves fast, and holds up well. The art is quite good, capturing the awe of seeing these creatures, their battles, and the destruction left in their paths. I liked the design of the aliens, and can't help but think that must have been hard to draw.
A fun adventure. One doesn't need to have read the other stories in this series to follow this tale. Everything is explained and really it is more the fire blasts and kaiju battles that are the draw. A fun book, with a real cinematic feeling to it.
Godzilla is a complicated kaiju that no one understands, not even the cult that has monitored his existence over the centuries. Godzilla can be a villain, a creature of hate and malice tromping through the cities of Japan, causing billions in damage, and leaving a trail of broken military equipment, and casualties. Other times Godzilla is a hero, the last bastion before rampaging kaiju and enemies from beyond the Earth, the disruption of water signaling that Godzilla is coming and fire and stomping await those who threaten the innocent. In Godzilla: Here There Be Aliens written by Frank Tieri and illustrated by Ángel Hernández, the King of All Monsters must defend the earth against an alien threat, one that has lived among us, infiltrated everything on Earth, and are using foul kaiju mecha and Frankenstein like, kaiju strong enough to defeat even Godzilla and mamy monster allies.
The book begins with Bob, a mid-level analyst trying to gain attention to a research project he has been working on, dealing with giant monsters and the true history of America. The time is the start of the Cold War. Enemies exist around every corner, and Bob has a fear that the enemies might be closer than one thinks. Bob suggest that many powerful people in history worshipped a creature known as Godzilla, a giant lizard that might have helped save humanity in the past. Laughter is his only response, but this laughter turns to gasps as Godzilla appears in Japan, tearing high tension wires down, and smashing real estate. This appearance also causes the Xilens, shape shifting aliens who have lived among us for years to launch their final and fatal attack on Earth. Bob is soon drawn into a conspiracy going back centuries, dealing with monsters, aliens, the secret history of the Earth, and the fate of mankind. However with this alliance of robots, kaiju and even aliens be enough to save the Earth from being destroyed?
A big planet spanning adventure with lots of action, lots of deception, and lots of cool images of monsters. The story is the culmination of a Godzilla secret history story, an Illuminati story featuring kaiju, that I found interesting. There are plenty of fights, lots of conspiracy and lots and lots of twists and turns. And stomping. Lots of stomping. Franken-kaiju, giant robots, bigger mechas, numerous kaiju, different aliens, the story is pretty full of all the best from various 70's Toho movies. The story moves fast, and holds up well. The art is quite good, capturing the awe of seeing these creatures, their battles, and the destruction left in their paths. I liked the design of the aliens, and can't help but think that must have been hard to draw.
A fun adventure. One doesn't need to have read the other stories in this series to follow this tale. Everything is explained and really it is more the fire blasts and kaiju battles that are the draw. A fun book, with a real cinematic feeling to it.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Great big kaiju thanks to IDW Publishing and NetGalley for sharing an advanced copy of their latest Godzilla collection Godzilla: Here There Be Aliens by Frank Tieri with artwork by Angel Hernandez. I really enjoyed this story as it represents much of what makes the Godzilla stories so fun and entertaining. Not only does Godzilla work to protect the earth from an alien invasion, but he also teams up with some of his other kaiju friends like Mothra, Jet Jaguar, and Rodan to battle the invading Xiliens, a deceptive group of aliens who have the ability to shape-shift and take on human forms, and have been attempting to take over the world for centuries. However, they’ve upped their intensity to attempt to overtake the world by infiltrating various high-level government and military positions in post WWII America. I loved the historical element of the story in that it features President Eisenhour and other references to real historical individuals and events.
The main story follows Bob, a man who is trying to get pentagon buy in to use Godzilla as a defense weapon for Project Colossus. This project is based on the secret society called The Sons of Giants, whose members included Queen Elizabeth I, Ben Franklin, and Napoleon. These individuals protected the kaiju but also used them for defense and protection as well. Bob is interested in learning more about how this group might work to protect American interests and partner with the Pentagon for American defense; however, his supervisor, Director Stone, doesn’t take him too seriously, until Godzilla is sighted attacking Japan, when Eisenhour has renewed interest in seeking out the kaiju for America’s use. On his way to meet with the President, Bob is kidnapped by another mysterious group led by Dr. Kyoto. Bob finds out that this group is the one actually responsible for Project Colossus, and he also learns about the threat that the Xiliens pose to the inhabitants of Earth. As Bob learns more about Project Colossus and Dr. Kyoto’s role, the Xiliens attack various cities around the world, bringing out the kaiju to help defend major cities like Paris, Mexico City, New York, and Barcelona. Dr. Kyoto sends out Jet Jaguar, the robot kaiju, to battle the Xiliens and Mechagodzilla. Other kaiju like Rodan and Mothra battle evil kaiju helping the Xiliens. It’s a great story featuring kaiju battles in different major cities, all while the Xiliens are trying to take over Earth. It’s a fun and exciting story with some good action and great artwork from Angel Hernandez. I loved that the story also takes place during the original Godzilla time period, but the action happens all over the world. I’m also finding that I really enjoy these longer-form Godzilla stories that unfold over several issues. They allow for more plot to unravel, some characters to develop, and some surprises and tension to build. I’m hoping that IDW continues to create more stories like this that unfold over several issues and also feature a range of characters and kaiju. Highly recommended!
The main story follows Bob, a man who is trying to get pentagon buy in to use Godzilla as a defense weapon for Project Colossus. This project is based on the secret society called The Sons of Giants, whose members included Queen Elizabeth I, Ben Franklin, and Napoleon. These individuals protected the kaiju but also used them for defense and protection as well. Bob is interested in learning more about how this group might work to protect American interests and partner with the Pentagon for American defense; however, his supervisor, Director Stone, doesn’t take him too seriously, until Godzilla is sighted attacking Japan, when Eisenhour has renewed interest in seeking out the kaiju for America’s use. On his way to meet with the President, Bob is kidnapped by another mysterious group led by Dr. Kyoto. Bob finds out that this group is the one actually responsible for Project Colossus, and he also learns about the threat that the Xiliens pose to the inhabitants of Earth. As Bob learns more about Project Colossus and Dr. Kyoto’s role, the Xiliens attack various cities around the world, bringing out the kaiju to help defend major cities like Paris, Mexico City, New York, and Barcelona. Dr. Kyoto sends out Jet Jaguar, the robot kaiju, to battle the Xiliens and Mechagodzilla. Other kaiju like Rodan and Mothra battle evil kaiju helping the Xiliens. It’s a great story featuring kaiju battles in different major cities, all while the Xiliens are trying to take over Earth. It’s a fun and exciting story with some good action and great artwork from Angel Hernandez. I loved that the story also takes place during the original Godzilla time period, but the action happens all over the world. I’m also finding that I really enjoy these longer-form Godzilla stories that unfold over several issues. They allow for more plot to unravel, some characters to develop, and some surprises and tension to build. I’m hoping that IDW continues to create more stories like this that unfold over several issues and also feature a range of characters and kaiju. Highly recommended!
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
ARC review - Thank you IDW and NetGalley!
“It’s them aliens again!” Agent Bob Jones, responsible for a government task force investigating the existence of kaiju, is pulled into a web of intrigue and conspiracy when the nefarious shape-shifting Xiliens invade with their army of space kaiju. The mythical earthbound creatures led by Godzilla may be humanity’s last hope for survival.
📝 Author: Frank Tieri
👨🏻🎨 Artist: Angel Hernandez
🖍️ Colorist: Heather Breckel
🔡 Letterer: Steve Wands
👨💻 Editor: Jake Williams
📐 Designed by: Darran Robinson
🏢 Publisher: IDW Publishing
🗓️ Published: Apr 21, 2026
📚 Length: 120 Pages
This comic has a little of everything - aliens, government conspiracies, and more Godzilla lore than you can shake a stick at.
Tieri and Hernandez seamlessly blend classic 1950’s science fiction themes and the Godzilla franchise. The plot reminded me a lot of movies like Invasion of the Body Snatchers and other classic Cold War alien invasion b-movies. The Godzilla gang is all here too. I’ve long been a fan of the campier installments in the Godzilla franchise and Tieri clearly is, too. This comic pulls a ton of little-used Godzilla monsters out of the toy box and dusts them off. Jet Jaguar even makes an appearance! Who doesn’t love that?
There is a lot going on in this comic and a lot of characters to track, which is both its greatest strength and the only real critique I have. All of the lore and characters and plot, in my opinion, results in pacing problems.
The human drama is one of the most difficult elements to balance in a Godzilla story. Human characters are necessary to give the plot stakes and ground the narrative, but the monster set-pieces are the most exciting part of the story. At times, this story feels like it focused too much on the human story to the expense of the kaiju. I liked Bob, especially in the first and last issues, but would have enjoyed more time with Godzilla and friends.
The kaiju fights also don’t last quite as many pages as I had hoped they would and narration boxes often distract from the epic art. I find that I prefer to have the art in big set pieces speak for itself. In this comic, the set pieces lacked some breathing room. I think this miniseries could have benefited from one or two more issues.
Pacing problems aside, this comic is a lot of fun, especially for someone well-versed in the Godzilla franchise. It seamlessly blends the golden age of science fiction movies with relatively obscure parts of the Godzilla franchise. I’m glad I read it. Yes, it could have benefitted from some more time with our favorite kaiju, but any time with Godzilla is time well spent.
3/5 Stars
Thank you IDW Publishing for providing a copy of this ebook for review consideration via NetGalley.
“It’s them aliens again!” Agent Bob Jones, responsible for a government task force investigating the existence of kaiju, is pulled into a web of intrigue and conspiracy when the nefarious shape-shifting Xiliens invade with their army of space kaiju. The mythical earthbound creatures led by Godzilla may be humanity’s last hope for survival.
📝 Author: Frank Tieri
👨🏻🎨 Artist: Angel Hernandez
🖍️ Colorist: Heather Breckel
🔡 Letterer: Steve Wands
👨💻 Editor: Jake Williams
📐 Designed by: Darran Robinson
🏢 Publisher: IDW Publishing
🗓️ Published: Apr 21, 2026
📚 Length: 120 Pages
This comic has a little of everything - aliens, government conspiracies, and more Godzilla lore than you can shake a stick at.
Tieri and Hernandez seamlessly blend classic 1950’s science fiction themes and the Godzilla franchise. The plot reminded me a lot of movies like Invasion of the Body Snatchers and other classic Cold War alien invasion b-movies. The Godzilla gang is all here too. I’ve long been a fan of the campier installments in the Godzilla franchise and Tieri clearly is, too. This comic pulls a ton of little-used Godzilla monsters out of the toy box and dusts them off. Jet Jaguar even makes an appearance! Who doesn’t love that?
There is a lot going on in this comic and a lot of characters to track, which is both its greatest strength and the only real critique I have. All of the lore and characters and plot, in my opinion, results in pacing problems.
The human drama is one of the most difficult elements to balance in a Godzilla story. Human characters are necessary to give the plot stakes and ground the narrative, but the monster set-pieces are the most exciting part of the story. At times, this story feels like it focused too much on the human story to the expense of the kaiju. I liked Bob, especially in the first and last issues, but would have enjoyed more time with Godzilla and friends.
The kaiju fights also don’t last quite as many pages as I had hoped they would and narration boxes often distract from the epic art. I find that I prefer to have the art in big set pieces speak for itself. In this comic, the set pieces lacked some breathing room. I think this miniseries could have benefited from one or two more issues.
Pacing problems aside, this comic is a lot of fun, especially for someone well-versed in the Godzilla franchise. It seamlessly blends the golden age of science fiction movies with relatively obscure parts of the Godzilla franchise. I’m glad I read it. Yes, it could have benefitted from some more time with our favorite kaiju, but any time with Godzilla is time well spent.
3/5 Stars
Thank you IDW Publishing for providing a copy of this ebook for review consideration via NetGalley.
May 8, 2026
Falling just in-between my ratings for Here There Be Dragons I/II (though I can't give fractional points), Here There Be Aliens certainly wraps up the centuries-spanning plot started by the first two volumes, but it does so in a way that feels very wrong and doesn't really have much in the way of payoff. In terms of how the plot is presented, it might have just been one of the more exposition-heavy books in the entire run of Godzilla comics that I've read thus far, with not much actual action in the book in favor of long-winded monologues and explanations of what is going on during the Xilien invasion of Earth instead of showing much of it at all; this is best exemplified by the fact that the main character of the book has no real agency and spends his time on the page mostly being dragged around by other people and being a witness to them talking about the plot, or acting on the plot to move it forward with him just along for the ride.
Taken in isolation, I'd say this book isn't worth the read, but as part of the trilogy, it has some good payoffs for elements introduced in the other books.
More spoiler filled comments are hidden just in case:
Taken in isolation, I'd say this book isn't worth the read, but as part of the trilogy, it has some good payoffs for elements introduced in the other books.
More spoiler filled comments are hidden just in case:
May 5, 2026
The time-1945. The place-the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
World War II drags on and the Japanese refuse to surrender. President Truman approved dropping two atomic bombs on the cities killing thousands, severely injuring others and destroying the cities.
Not long after more died from radiation poisoning and later still many of the babies born after the bombings were deformed, crippled and severely mentally and physically challenged.
The Japanese surrendered and the Japanese population was in shock. To some extent they still are. How does one cope with a such disastrous event?
In the 1950s at the dawn of the Nuclear Age Japanese film makers translated and represented their fear of anything atomic into a landmark movie starring a giant lizard with devastating atomic breath that had been created by radiation.
The creature rampaged through Tokyo killing and destroying. So was born Godzilla the King Of The Monsters.
In IDW Publishing’s new one-shot hardbound graphic novel: Godzilla Here There Be Aliens, by Frank Tiera and Angel Hernandez, Godzilla makes his appearance when earth is invaded.
Millennia ago an alien armada arrived on earth to colonize it. Earth’s dominate species at the time: the Simian, managed to send the aliens packing.
Defeated but determined to make earth their own they vowed to return one day.
Thousands of years later the aliens sent sleeper agents to earth disguised as humans. Once they determined the time was right to invade earth the again they sent their fleet of ships.
This time however they also brought their own giant monsters: alien Kaiju.
Fortunately for humanity the Simians still existed, also disguised as humans. Earth also had its own Kaiju, including Godzilla.
Can humanity, with the aid of the Simians and Kaiju, hope to defeat the aliens and will Godzilla prove to be the deciding factor?
Get ready for a Godzilla tale like no other as the creative team introduces a whole new facet to the legend of Godzilla. It’s non-stop action, intrigue, subterfuge and danger as Godzilla confronts the alien hoard with earth’s fate in the balance.
Psalms 37:4 - Delight thyself also in the LORD; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.
World War II drags on and the Japanese refuse to surrender. President Truman approved dropping two atomic bombs on the cities killing thousands, severely injuring others and destroying the cities.
Not long after more died from radiation poisoning and later still many of the babies born after the bombings were deformed, crippled and severely mentally and physically challenged.
The Japanese surrendered and the Japanese population was in shock. To some extent they still are. How does one cope with a such disastrous event?
In the 1950s at the dawn of the Nuclear Age Japanese film makers translated and represented their fear of anything atomic into a landmark movie starring a giant lizard with devastating atomic breath that had been created by radiation.
The creature rampaged through Tokyo killing and destroying. So was born Godzilla the King Of The Monsters.
In IDW Publishing’s new one-shot hardbound graphic novel: Godzilla Here There Be Aliens, by Frank Tiera and Angel Hernandez, Godzilla makes his appearance when earth is invaded.
Millennia ago an alien armada arrived on earth to colonize it. Earth’s dominate species at the time: the Simian, managed to send the aliens packing.
Defeated but determined to make earth their own they vowed to return one day.
Thousands of years later the aliens sent sleeper agents to earth disguised as humans. Once they determined the time was right to invade earth the again they sent their fleet of ships.
This time however they also brought their own giant monsters: alien Kaiju.
Fortunately for humanity the Simians still existed, also disguised as humans. Earth also had its own Kaiju, including Godzilla.
Can humanity, with the aid of the Simians and Kaiju, hope to defeat the aliens and will Godzilla prove to be the deciding factor?
Get ready for a Godzilla tale like no other as the creative team introduces a whole new facet to the legend of Godzilla. It’s non-stop action, intrigue, subterfuge and danger as Godzilla confronts the alien hoard with earth’s fate in the balance.
Psalms 37:4 - Delight thyself also in the LORD; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.
April 28, 2026
The basic shape of the many IDW Godzilla comics seems to be to plug Big G and his other monsters into a different kind of story, as background, as setting, as McGuffin, or as chaos instigator. Godzilla: Here Be Aliens sort of does this to a body-snatcher-style alien invasion, except as it rolls on, it turns out to be a very traditional Godzilla story from a slightly askew angle. We open with a scientist railing at the government again about the existence of monsters. It is the fifties, and a classic Godzilla period piece. He soon gets snatched and taken to Area 51 where he discovers there aren't just monsters - but there are also aliens (Xiliens here), and they are trying to take over the Earth. As they have done for the last thousand years, only to be defeated by The Sons Of Giants and the kaiju, which they have kept secret. So our hero is brought into the conspiracy, to see (as the individual comics would have had it) reveal after reveal of secrets, other aliens, other monsters...
Showa period Godzilla films ofter had Big G defending the earth from aliens, and specifically their kaiju. So the ramping up of Godzilla, to Jet Jaguar, to Mechagozilla to - BLIMEY - FrankenKingGhidorah is merely using comic's unlimited special-effects budget to good use. Though this escalation does remove a lot of tension, and in the end, the rather cardboard nature of the human characters made it oddly unengaging. Frank Tierir knows his Godzilla clearly, and his classic conspiracy theory texts. Hence, it pops along nicely, and Agel Hernandez is clearly enjoying drawing the fights. Though, again, with the IDW kaiju comics, there is a thin line between flowing action art and incomprehensibility (Hernandez broadly stays on the right side). It's a fun Godzilla comic, but a pretty standard one that won't give you much more than the original films, except one of those tedious secret societies that HG Wells, and Queen Elizabeth I, and anyone else it wants to cherry-pick from history as part of.
Showa period Godzilla films ofter had Big G defending the earth from aliens, and specifically their kaiju. So the ramping up of Godzilla, to Jet Jaguar, to Mechagozilla to - BLIMEY - FrankenKingGhidorah is merely using comic's unlimited special-effects budget to good use. Though this escalation does remove a lot of tension, and in the end, the rather cardboard nature of the human characters made it oddly unengaging. Frank Tierir knows his Godzilla clearly, and his classic conspiracy theory texts. Hence, it pops along nicely, and Agel Hernandez is clearly enjoying drawing the fights. Though, again, with the IDW kaiju comics, there is a thin line between flowing action art and incomprehensibility (Hernandez broadly stays on the right side). It's a fun Godzilla comic, but a pretty standard one that won't give you much more than the original films, except one of those tedious secret societies that HG Wells, and Queen Elizabeth I, and anyone else it wants to cherry-pick from history as part of.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
Simply put, this sci-fi with kaijus romp is a lot of fun to read. The story follows Bob, a Pentagon worker who is fighting to continue his department, which researches kaiju, but he is having difficulty as they are still secret and have been kept hidden by a mysterious organization over the centuries. Then, in short order, Godzilla attacks Japan, aliens attack the Earth, Bob is kidnapped by a mysterious organization led by Dr. Kyoto, and he learns about the long history of one group of aliens trying to take over the Earth with another working to defend it. Then there are several issues worth of aliens, kaiju, government conspiracy, action, and so forth.
The writing is snappy with excellent retro-styled artwork, and this volume is a lot of fun to read. Godzilla: Here There be Aliens strikes me as what it would have been like if there was an American Godzilla movie that was released in the 1960s...and I mean that as a huge compliment. My biggest complaint is that while Godzilla and the other expected kaiju are present in this book, there is not enough kaiju fighting other kaiju or aliens for me. It was more of a page of a fight, and then had more dialogue discussing it.
What Works: Snappy writing with excellent artwork! Also, there is plenty of Jet Jaguar, one of my favorites.
What Doesn’t: Not enough kaiju action.
Final Thoughts: A fun read for sci-fi and Godzilla fans looking for a graphic novel collection that is adventure-filled. I have read several of IDW's Godzilla series, and this has been my favorite so far. This collection is good but not great, and in my opinion, with just a bit more kaiju action, it would have been improved.
Read more at: https://thrillingtonsuperherobooks.bl...
The writing is snappy with excellent retro-styled artwork, and this volume is a lot of fun to read. Godzilla: Here There be Aliens strikes me as what it would have been like if there was an American Godzilla movie that was released in the 1960s...and I mean that as a huge compliment. My biggest complaint is that while Godzilla and the other expected kaiju are present in this book, there is not enough kaiju fighting other kaiju or aliens for me. It was more of a page of a fight, and then had more dialogue discussing it.
What Works: Snappy writing with excellent artwork! Also, there is plenty of Jet Jaguar, one of my favorites.
What Doesn’t: Not enough kaiju action.
Final Thoughts: A fun read for sci-fi and Godzilla fans looking for a graphic novel collection that is adventure-filled. I have read several of IDW's Godzilla series, and this has been my favorite so far. This collection is good but not great, and in my opinion, with just a bit more kaiju action, it would have been improved.
Read more at: https://thrillingtonsuperherobooks.bl...
April 25, 2026
2.5 rounded up as this is a very bombastic attempt at a finale to the Here There Be Godzilla trilogy (a trilogy that impressively managed to all be standalone books as well). It continues the more thriller-esque angle from Here There Be Dragons 2 through having a heavy espionage angle. It’s got big and small scale espionage to help add some meat to the massive fights. Most of this book is just people watching and talking about Kaiju and robots fighting so the espionage element helps address it, make it more manageable, and slightly less dry. I think Godzilla fans would enjoy the spectacle more here as the artist changed to someone ok but weaker leaving the spectacle to the concept alone. It's a fun concept but heavily seeped in Fandom with how the Kaiju fights are presented and the incorporation of Jet Jaguar, Mecha Ghidorah, and Franken Ghidorah. It's meant to be a cool Oh Shit moment I think but I'm not into Godzilla that much so it didn't land as much. That being said, Hedorah is here! Not only that, multiple Hedorahs! Yay!
The artist has switched for this final volume in the trilogy to Angel Hernandez. Normally their art has thicker lines that aren't choppy or blocky but I guess a bit close. Not in a bad way though. It's readable and can evoke chaotic scenes well. In close ups where he can give more detail the faces remind me of a blend of the Archer TV show and Jamie McKelvie. And those are two art styles I love! It's still a bit weak with it struggling to maybe sell the bombastic extra-ness that this is going for. But I think the page count doesn't help that either nor does the quick pace to get everything done in five issues.
The artist has switched for this final volume in the trilogy to Angel Hernandez. Normally their art has thicker lines that aren't choppy or blocky but I guess a bit close. Not in a bad way though. It's readable and can evoke chaotic scenes well. In close ups where he can give more detail the faces remind me of a blend of the Archer TV show and Jamie McKelvie. And those are two art styles I love! It's still a bit weak with it struggling to maybe sell the bombastic extra-ness that this is going for. But I think the page count doesn't help that either nor does the quick pace to get everything done in five issues.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Review of advance copy received from Edelweiss+
Take this as a bit of froth and it might be fine for a nice slice of entertainment. Unfortunately, it takes itself far too seriously. A scientist is trying to convince the US government they should be worried about something just registering on the breeze of rumours from Japan – something called Godzilla. But others already know there are routine alien attacks on earth, which brings in all the other kaiju from the mythos, a League of Extraordinary Alien-Bashers (such as Franklin – oh, and Wells' "War of the Worlds" was faction), and shapeshifters in power playing with mankind.
This, like all the weaker Godzilla stories, unfortunately sticks to the tried-and-trusted-and-disliked elevator pitch of "big characters go hell for leather, while us humans bicker about it". There is little else to this, and the puddingy, mish-mash mixture of influences only generates anything of interest when a certain Charlton Heston character quote turns up.
Certainly absent from this is Godzilla – while he's around somewhere, it's other kaiju that do the fighting, albeit it's just mahoosive character-free-zone fighting mahoosive character-free-zone. Here's King Ghidorah, Queen Ghidorah, Ace (Ventura) Ghidorah, Jackie Dora – and none of them matter at all. OK, the humans do register, but the rest of this is a total mess. Accept this as a pseudo-retro, disposable bit of flim-flam and you might see to giving it two stars.
This, like all the weaker Godzilla stories, unfortunately sticks to the tried-and-trusted-and-disliked elevator pitch of "big characters go hell for leather, while us humans bicker about it". There is little else to this, and the puddingy, mish-mash mixture of influences only generates anything of interest when a certain Charlton Heston character quote turns up.
Certainly absent from this is Godzilla – while he's around somewhere, it's other kaiju that do the fighting, albeit it's just mahoosive character-free-zone fighting mahoosive character-free-zone. Here's King Ghidorah, Queen Ghidorah, Ace (Ventura) Ghidorah, Jackie Dora – and none of them matter at all. OK, the humans do register, but the rest of this is a total mess. Accept this as a pseudo-retro, disposable bit of flim-flam and you might see to giving it two stars.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
I would like to thank the publisher for sending me an e-arc in exchange for an honest review through NetGalley.
Jones has a job within the government – to put together proof that there are monsters living on our world. But when he’s laughed out of a meeting, he doesn’t expect to receive a call telling him the president needs him… because the king of monsters himself has just awoken in Japan. Godzilla isn’t here to cause chaos and destruction, though, and as alien forces invade earth and begin to destroy everything in sight, it’ll be up to Godzilla and the rest of earth’s kaiju protectors to stop them.
Godzilla versus aliens. Was it ridiculous? In a way, yes. Was it beautifully rendered and well executed? Also yes. Was it fantastic from start to finish with insane twists? HECK YEAH. I loved the art in this as we got to see some of my favorite kaijus fighting the xilien invasion – form godzilla to mothra to rodan, this was packed with lots of great moments. I loved the plot, the way we get the Sons of Giants secret society alongside aliens living among us, an alien invasion, and the rise of the kaijus to help fight them off. I loved how retro this felt as it did feel like an 80’s monster movie at times. Would recommend to anyone as this was such a fun, fast-paced graphic with a retro-style art that had me hooked and a well written plot that kept me entertained from start to finish.
Jones has a job within the government – to put together proof that there are monsters living on our world. But when he’s laughed out of a meeting, he doesn’t expect to receive a call telling him the president needs him… because the king of monsters himself has just awoken in Japan. Godzilla isn’t here to cause chaos and destruction, though, and as alien forces invade earth and begin to destroy everything in sight, it’ll be up to Godzilla and the rest of earth’s kaiju protectors to stop them.
Godzilla versus aliens. Was it ridiculous? In a way, yes. Was it beautifully rendered and well executed? Also yes. Was it fantastic from start to finish with insane twists? HECK YEAH. I loved the art in this as we got to see some of my favorite kaijus fighting the xilien invasion – form godzilla to mothra to rodan, this was packed with lots of great moments. I loved the plot, the way we get the Sons of Giants secret society alongside aliens living among us, an alien invasion, and the rise of the kaijus to help fight them off. I loved how retro this felt as it did feel like an 80’s monster movie at times. Would recommend to anyone as this was such a fun, fast-paced graphic with a retro-style art that had me hooked and a well written plot that kept me entertained from start to finish.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
I received this book courtesy of Netgalley for the purpose of a fair and honest review.
Overview: It's the early 1950's, and the Americans have heard of the phenomenon that's happening in Japan. Bob has been ringing the alarm about the mythical Godzilla along with a secret society for these kaiju. Unfortunately, his proof comes with an alien invasion. Can Bob advise the United States' government on how to stop the invasion? Is Godzilla on our side? Or will we be seeing who gets the remains of the earth? Let's find out.
Dislikes: Director Stone is a horrible monster. Oh sure, spies have been a part of war for a long time, probably since the dawn of war itself, but this was just ridiculous.
Likes: This was an outright grab-bag of goodies and cameos for the Godzilla fan. We even had a fight between the King of the Monsters and his mechanical doppelganger.
Bob stayed devoted to his wife, even if you an easily understand his problems.
I loved how Mr. Tieri blended the American history with the Kaiju secret society.
Director Stone got a perfect ending. Then we had a beautiful fight between Jet Jaguar, Mechagodzilla, and Godzilla himself.
Conclusion: This was a fun book. What? Where did you think that my love of creature features came from? If you are a fan of Godzilla or Kaiju movies in general, then this book is for you. Enjoy the read.
Overview: It's the early 1950's, and the Americans have heard of the phenomenon that's happening in Japan. Bob has been ringing the alarm about the mythical Godzilla along with a secret society for these kaiju. Unfortunately, his proof comes with an alien invasion. Can Bob advise the United States' government on how to stop the invasion? Is Godzilla on our side? Or will we be seeing who gets the remains of the earth? Let's find out.
Dislikes: Director Stone is a horrible monster. Oh sure, spies have been a part of war for a long time, probably since the dawn of war itself, but this was just ridiculous.
Likes: This was an outright grab-bag of goodies and cameos for the Godzilla fan. We even had a fight between the King of the Monsters and his mechanical doppelganger.
Bob stayed devoted to his wife, even if you an easily understand his problems.
I loved how Mr. Tieri blended the American history with the Kaiju secret society.
Director Stone got a perfect ending. Then we had a beautiful fight between Jet Jaguar, Mechagodzilla, and Godzilla himself.
Conclusion: This was a fun book. What? Where did you think that my love of creature features came from? If you are a fan of Godzilla or Kaiju movies in general, then this book is for you. Enjoy the read.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Godzilla: Here There Be Aliens delivers exactly the kind of wild, larger-than-life spectacle kaiju fans crave. The cover alone sets the tone: Godzilla stomping through a suburban neighborhood while a fleet of UFOs hovers overhead, blending classic monster mayhem with pulpy sci-fi invasion vibes.
The concept is delightfully over-the-top — extraterrestrials entering the Godzilla mythos adds a fresh twist while still honoring the franchise’s roots in city-smashing chaos. The artwork is dynamic and cinematic, capturing both the scale of destruction and the eerie menace of the alien presence. Godzilla looks powerful and expressive, while the glowing saucers and burning skyline create a dramatic sense of urgency.
Writers Frank Tieri and artist Angel Hernandez clearly lean into the fun, embracing genre mash-ups rather than playing it safe. If there’s any downside, it’s that the premise can feel a bit pulpy and campy for readers who prefer the darker, more grounded interpretations of Godzilla.
Overall, this is a thrilling, visually striking entry that combines monster action with sci-fi flair — a must-check-out for fans who enjoy their kaiju stories bold, imaginative, and just a little outrageous.
The concept is delightfully over-the-top — extraterrestrials entering the Godzilla mythos adds a fresh twist while still honoring the franchise’s roots in city-smashing chaos. The artwork is dynamic and cinematic, capturing both the scale of destruction and the eerie menace of the alien presence. Godzilla looks powerful and expressive, while the glowing saucers and burning skyline create a dramatic sense of urgency.
Writers Frank Tieri and artist Angel Hernandez clearly lean into the fun, embracing genre mash-ups rather than playing it safe. If there’s any downside, it’s that the premise can feel a bit pulpy and campy for readers who prefer the darker, more grounded interpretations of Godzilla.
Overall, this is a thrilling, visually striking entry that combines monster action with sci-fi flair — a must-check-out for fans who enjoy their kaiju stories bold, imaginative, and just a little outrageous.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
I was excited to jump into Godzilla: Here There Be Aliens, because I liked the first two (one, two) books in this series.
Thank you Netgalley and IDW Publishing for sending this book for review consideration. All opinions are my own.
I wasn’t sure if I was into it at first, but they stuck the landing.
While I didn’t start out loving this book at all, I admit that it all came together in an enjoyable experience by the end.
Since a lot of the Godzilla lore has passed me by over the years, I had zero idea what was and wasn’t going over my head. The aliens were wild.
I don’t think that this one hit the heights that Here There Be Dragons II – Sons of Giants hit, this book has the harder job of convincing a story told over centuries.
Each volume successfully built upon the last.
This story did a fantastic job considering this saga. Threading things throughout history to this moment when the Xiliens planned their invasion so meticulously was great.
The Kaiju fight was elite.
I loved the worldwide Kaiju fight. It was nearly every monster that I’ve ever heard of in this universe battling to survive and conquer. The art from Angel Hernandez was awesome. Heather Breckel’s colors really stood out to bring that art to life.
Thank you Netgalley and IDW Publishing for sending this book for review consideration. All opinions are my own.
I wasn’t sure if I was into it at first, but they stuck the landing.
While I didn’t start out loving this book at all, I admit that it all came together in an enjoyable experience by the end.
Since a lot of the Godzilla lore has passed me by over the years, I had zero idea what was and wasn’t going over my head. The aliens were wild.
I don’t think that this one hit the heights that Here There Be Dragons II – Sons of Giants hit, this book has the harder job of convincing a story told over centuries.
Each volume successfully built upon the last.
This story did a fantastic job considering this saga. Threading things throughout history to this moment when the Xiliens planned their invasion so meticulously was great.
The Kaiju fight was elite.
I loved the worldwide Kaiju fight. It was nearly every monster that I’ve ever heard of in this universe battling to survive and conquer. The art from Angel Hernandez was awesome. Heather Breckel’s colors really stood out to bring that art to life.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Thank you Netgalley, IDW Publishing and Author Frank Teri and Artist Angel Hernandez for the eARC Comic of Godzilla: Here There Be Aliens in exchange for an honest review.
This is what a Godzilla comic is?! Listen. I read mainly Buffy Comics, a few Marvel comics like Loki, Blade, Civil War etc. I have never touched a Godzilla comic. This was so fun. This comic took There's Always a Bigger Fish and ran with it. I think I might have become a Godzilla comic fan. This comic was genuinely so fun for me. It reminded me of what it's like to be a kid again and have whimsy. I had such a hard time putting this down and pacing myself through it because I just needed to know what would come next. I'm sorry, I really can't get over how much fun this comic was. It really could have kept going and throwing more "anything you can do I can do better" and "I'll take your bet and raise you!" and I probably would have ate it up without a second thought.
If you want a fun unhinged blockbuster that thrills you and keeps you turning the page then pick this one up.
This is what a Godzilla comic is?! Listen. I read mainly Buffy Comics, a few Marvel comics like Loki, Blade, Civil War etc. I have never touched a Godzilla comic. This was so fun. This comic took There's Always a Bigger Fish and ran with it. I think I might have become a Godzilla comic fan. This comic was genuinely so fun for me. It reminded me of what it's like to be a kid again and have whimsy. I had such a hard time putting this down and pacing myself through it because I just needed to know what would come next. I'm sorry, I really can't get over how much fun this comic was. It really could have kept going and throwing more "anything you can do I can do better" and "I'll take your bet and raise you!" and I probably would have ate it up without a second thought.
If you want a fun unhinged blockbuster that thrills you and keeps you turning the page then pick this one up.
May 10, 2026
Actual rating: 3,5 stars!
Godzilla + aliens + all kind of kaijus + secret society = this book
Though the title is Godzilla, I felt like Godzilla is not the main story of this book. Godzilla was just side characters since the aliens were the focus.
So many things going on in terms of story and characters (?) I am glad I am (kinda) familiar with godzilla and kaiju universe so I didn't get overwhelmed with many kaijus popping up (almost) endlessly.
The subplot of secret society who protects the knowledge of extraterrestrial stuff was really good, at least for me. I wish it got explore more. Maybe in other books 🤞🏻
The writing style was witty and easy to understand. Though some parts contained too much information at once.
The illustrations were good and fit the vibe of the story. They also helped (me) understand the story better. The style reminded me of the "OG" godzilla animation I used to watch when I was little.
Thank you to Frank Tieri, IDW Publishing, and NetGalley for the ARC.
Godzilla + aliens + all kind of kaijus + secret society = this book
Though the title is Godzilla, I felt like Godzilla is not the main story of this book. Godzilla was just side characters since the aliens were the focus.
So many things going on in terms of story and characters (?) I am glad I am (kinda) familiar with godzilla and kaiju universe so I didn't get overwhelmed with many kaijus popping up (almost) endlessly.
The subplot of secret society who protects the knowledge of extraterrestrial stuff was really good, at least for me. I wish it got explore more. Maybe in other books 🤞🏻
The writing style was witty and easy to understand. Though some parts contained too much information at once.
The illustrations were good and fit the vibe of the story. They also helped (me) understand the story better. The style reminded me of the "OG" godzilla animation I used to watch when I was little.
Thank you to Frank Tieri, IDW Publishing, and NetGalley for the ARC.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
SIMPLY THE BEST!
Godzilla: Here There Be Aliens is an unhinged and wildly creative 3rd story in the "Here There Be.." series. It is inventive while also being firmly seated within the Kaijuverse. I felt it was the perfect finale that takes everything this series has been building toward and just cranks the dial all the way up. I love how it jumps from ancient‑feeling lore straight into full‑blown alien chaos like it’s the most natural thing in the world. It’s goofy in the best way, absolutely packed with monster mayhem and retro sci‑fi vibes, but also just genuinely enthralling. I tore through it, grinning because it never stops being bold, bizarre, and ridiculously entertaining. And don't worry there are plenty of twists and turns as this ancient cult takes more of a modern(ish) day in this final volume. You don't want to miss this one!
Godzilla: Here There Be Aliens is an unhinged and wildly creative 3rd story in the "Here There Be.." series. It is inventive while also being firmly seated within the Kaijuverse. I felt it was the perfect finale that takes everything this series has been building toward and just cranks the dial all the way up. I love how it jumps from ancient‑feeling lore straight into full‑blown alien chaos like it’s the most natural thing in the world. It’s goofy in the best way, absolutely packed with monster mayhem and retro sci‑fi vibes, but also just genuinely enthralling. I tore through it, grinning because it never stops being bold, bizarre, and ridiculously entertaining. And don't worry there are plenty of twists and turns as this ancient cult takes more of a modern(ish) day in this final volume. You don't want to miss this one!
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Thank you IDW Publishing and NetGalley for the ARC!
This was a really fun story that I couldn't put down! A unique tale full of action as aliens have invaded Earth, but it provides all the best elements from the kaiju universe. With so many twists and turns, I didn't feel like I had a moment of rest (in the best way!)
Frank Tieri storytelling is simply captivating, I could feel the tension being built so rapidly. Coupled with Ángel Hernández's breathtaking art, this is a comic that pulls you in from beginning to end.
Although this is the conclusion to the Godzilla: Here There Be Dragons trilogy, this can be read as a standalone.
"If the kaiju have been here for centuries, influencing our history...is it far-fetched to believe visitors from another planet have as well?"
This was a really fun story that I couldn't put down! A unique tale full of action as aliens have invaded Earth, but it provides all the best elements from the kaiju universe. With so many twists and turns, I didn't feel like I had a moment of rest (in the best way!)
Frank Tieri storytelling is simply captivating, I could feel the tension being built so rapidly. Coupled with Ángel Hernández's breathtaking art, this is a comic that pulls you in from beginning to end.
Although this is the conclusion to the Godzilla: Here There Be Dragons trilogy, this can be read as a standalone.
May 7, 2026
Campy and chaotic ! Godzilla is back ! Following in the foot steps of the "Godzilla: Here There Be Dragons" series , "Godzilla: Here There Be Aliens" is a a wild and raucous monster mash of a book. Set in the mid fifties and rife with cold war anxieties and B-movie vibes this book takes up were the previous series left of and tells a tale of covert alien invasion with Godzilla and his crew portrayed as the saviors of the human race.. Expect men in black, sinister aliens, Mecha everything, perhaps not so sinister aliens, one cataclysmic clash after another and a president with a secret.
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher, IDW publishing for providing me with a DRC in exchange for my honest review.
Read
April 20, 2026There are UFO's in the skies! And these are no weather balloons! Rather they are part of the Xilien invasion fleet that is coming out of hiding to take over the world! They first tried back in the time of the Romans, but now they are back and stronger than ever. They have taken over Monster Island, infiltrated various governments, and feel sure of victory! But there are still some rogue elements of the U.S. government agencies that are fighting back! And with the assistance of Godzilla, other kaiju, and unexpected allies, maybe they have a chance! Read this exciting conclusion to this trilogy of monster action!
Thanks Netgalley and IDW for the chance to read this title!
Thanks Netgalley and IDW for the chance to read this title!
Review of advance copy received from Edelweiss+
In this third installment of the Here There Be Dragons trilogy, the action is transported to 1950s America as we get a full scale alien invasion mixed with Cold War paranoia in this incredibly fun series that blends history and kaiju. I’ve read quite a few of IDW’s Godzilla comics and this is easily among the very best of them with fun nods to both the real world and pop culture. I’m sad to see the series end, but I would gladly be there for another story.
Special Thanks to IDW Publishing and Edelweiss Plus for the digital ARC. This was given to me for an honest review.
Special Thanks to IDW Publishing and Edelweiss Plus for the digital ARC. This was given to me for an honest review.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
The cover of this is superb, and the artwork within does not disappoint either. So many Kaiju, and a couple of fun twists in the story as well! I especially loved the part with Mothra as she is my favourite, and the panels with her were perfect! I have not read the first two books in the series, but this worked just fine as a standalone.
I received this book courtesy of Netgalley for the purpose of a fair and honest review.
I received this book courtesy of Netgalley for the purpose of a fair and honest review.
Read
February 17, 2026Wow. Okay so this had some twist and turns, its maximum chaos all the time. This happens, then a bigger thing, now this then that. You wont stop, you wont believe it. It so random and over the top maybe too much but embrace the chaos and strap in for the ride.
November 26, 2025
horrible historia, que poco tiene que ver con precuelas
Review of advance copy
Nicely mashed Godzilla and sci-fi, but the development of the secondaries and their motivations is cursory at best , leaving the reader a bit deflated.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Hmm. I like pulp, but I gotta say this one was too pulpy for me ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. The art is great, though.
Arc through Netgalley
Arc through Netgalley
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
A weird drug trip
of a story
where in
everything from
the '50s was
smashed together
into a semblance
of a coherent
story.
But only just.
of a story
where in
everything from
the '50s was
smashed together
into a semblance
of a coherent
story.
But only just.
May 3, 2026
The concluding and perhaps most epic chapter of the Godzilla Here There Be . . . trilogy. Like the other two books in this trilogy this was so much fun!
June 4, 2026
Dare I say this Godzilla storyline was out of this world? ;)
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