Speaker 1: That was my attempt to make a Godzilla so out.
Speaker 1: My name is Jason Concepcion.
Speaker 2: And I'm Rthy Knight.
Speaker 3: And welcome to a bite sized, but a giant kid
Speaker 3: you mouth bite sized episode of x RA revision of
Speaker 3: the podcast where we dive deep into your favorite shows, movies, comics,
Speaker 3: and pop culture.
Speaker 2: In this episode, we have been waiting to talk about it.
Speaker 2: You guys are waiting to hear it. It's everything Godzilla.
Speaker 2: There's been a lot of Godzilla since we were lost
Speaker 2: in yours, so we had to talk about all of it.
Speaker 1: Folks.
Speaker 3: You may not know this, but you are lucky enough,
Speaker 3: as am I, to be in the presence today of
Speaker 3: a bona fide Godzilla expert, an expert in all things Kaiju,
Speaker 3: in all things giant, nuclear fire breathing lizard.
Speaker 1: That is our.
Speaker 3: Number one Godzilla brainiac. Rosie Night, Rosie, are you ready
Speaker 3: to have multiple questions about all the recent Godzilla projects
Speaker 3: thrown at you like Tokyo train cars sailing across the
Speaker 3: city scape?
Speaker 2: Yes, I am I, as I am an expert. I'm
Speaker 2: speaking in my NPR voice, but yes, no, I'm ready
Speaker 2: throw those train cars at me. I'm wearing my Manila,
Speaker 2: son of Godzilla Tisha. Just to prove my expertise and
Speaker 2: I'm ready to answer all your Godzilla questions.
Speaker 3: Here are the projects which we will be discussing today
Speaker 3: on Apple TV. Plus Monarch Legacy of Monster created by
Speaker 3: Matt Fraction and Chris Black.
Speaker 1: We have the Oscar.
Speaker 3: Winning film Godzilla Minus one from Toho Studios, written and
Speaker 3: directed by Takashi Yamazaki, recently released in theaters. Godzilla ex
Speaker 3: King Kong New Empire Well from Legendary Pictures, directed by
Speaker 3: Adam Wingard, is the sequel to Godzilla Versus cong part
Speaker 3: of the Monster Verse. And then on the comic side, Oh,
Speaker 3: it will be plug time Godzilla Monster Island Summer Camp
Speaker 3: on IDW, of course, written by Rosie Knight, art by
Speaker 3: Oliver Ono, letters and colors by Jody Trautman and Nick Barrita.
Speaker 3: Who Next, we're gonna dive into our recap of Apple
Speaker 3: TV's Monarch Legacy of Monsters. But first some news.
Speaker 2: Seeing as it is the seventieth anniversary of Godzilla, we
Speaker 2: are getting a smorgas board of Godzilla news. First, a
Speaker 2: baby Godzilla sized news update. I'm sad about this one
Speaker 2: because I spoke to him and he told me what
Speaker 2: his plans were for the next movie, and it sounded amazing.
Speaker 2: But Adam Wingar, director and co writer of Godzilla X.
Speaker 2: Kong or Godzilla Kong as you're supposed to say it,
Speaker 2: the New Empire and Godzilla Versus Kong, will not be
Speaker 2: helming the third movie. It's not because of anything scary
Speaker 2: or bad. It's just because he's making a movie called Onslaught,
Speaker 2: not to do with Marvel, and it means the schedules
Speaker 2: clash because obviously New Empire is a huge success and
Speaker 2: I'm sure Legendary just wants to make the movie now.
Speaker 2: Also today, this is a big one if you like it,
Speaker 2: if you're an indie gamer, if you've been playing these games,
Speaker 2: Mint Rocket's award winning game Dave the Diver is getting
Speaker 2: a brand new Godzilla theme DLCs.
Speaker 1: Didn't see that.
Speaker 2: One coming, love it. Excited to see it. The DLC
Speaker 2: is completely free, but only available to play for a
Speaker 2: limited time May twenty third till November twenty third due
Speaker 2: to licensing rights with Toho, which I will say is
Speaker 2: exciting because that probably means Toho is planning on some
Speaker 2: kind of Godzilla video game, because why else would they
Speaker 2: limit it otherwise, So I would like to see that.
Speaker 2: And what will you do in the game. You will
Speaker 2: help an injured Godzilla about the deep sea Kaiju a bearer,
Speaker 2: a bearer who may or may not appear in my
Speaker 2: upcoming graphic novel Monster in Summer Camp. He's like a shrimp,
Speaker 2: basically giant shrimp.
Speaker 4: Now, pre order it now and you will get to
Speaker 4: have some new gameplay with a submarine.
Speaker 2: And it looks really fun.
Speaker 3: That is a game, a beautiful pick slurk game of
Speaker 3: the kind of cutesy, relaxing game genre where you basically
Speaker 3: dive in the ocean and then run a sushi restaurant.
Speaker 3: So I wonder if will Godzilla help you acquire fish
Speaker 3: for the restaurant?
Speaker 2: Kaiju?
Speaker 1: She who's to say?
Speaker 3: Okay, let's dive into our recap for Apple TV's Monarch
Speaker 3: Legacy of Monsters. Okay, tell us about this Godzilla project.
Speaker 2: It is actually like hard to put in toowards how
Speaker 2: good this show is.
Speaker 4: It is it It's unbelievably good. And basically it sets
Speaker 4: one year.
Speaker 2: After the legendary Monster Verse Godzilla movie, which came out
Speaker 2: in twenty fourteen and starred Aaron Taylor. Johnson and Brian
Speaker 2: Cranston momentarily. And so this is set in twenty fifteen,
Speaker 2: and you're basically living in the wake of what they
Speaker 2: call g Day and you have our hero is played
Speaker 2: by Anna Sui who plays Kate Randa, you might recognize
Speaker 2: that surname, and she goes off to find her father
Speaker 2: in Japan, who was a Monarch agent, and she discovers
Speaker 2: he had a secret family and she has a half
Speaker 2: brother called Kentaro, and as they investigate where their father
Speaker 2: hero she has gone, they get entangled in this incredible
Speaker 2: adventure alongside Monarch, including the wonderfully eccentric and ageless Monarch
Speaker 2: agent k Russell as me. So that's kind of your
Speaker 2: modern day. And then the fantastic thing about this show
Speaker 2: is it is told within two timelines. So then you
Speaker 2: have Wyatt Russell playing youngle in the fifties and you
Speaker 2: sort of get to see how Monarch evolved and how
Speaker 2: it became the militarized anti Kaiju unit that it is today,
Speaker 2: and how its origins were actually so much more evolved
Speaker 2: and holistic. It was more about disinvestigating the kaiju and
Speaker 2: learning about them rather than or as they called in
Speaker 2: the Monster Verse, the Titans, and it is honestly just
Speaker 2: blew me away. So Matt Fraction obviously big comic book name.
Speaker 2: There also a lot of the team. We had Marico Tamaki,
Speaker 2: another legendary comic book creator. So this was just such
Speaker 2: a delightful show and the reveals as they go through
Speaker 2: a fantastic Now. I will say, if you love a
Speaker 2: big monster smashing things up, this might not necessarily immediately
Speaker 2: appeal to you, because the monster action is secondary to
Speaker 2: the human action. But if you love a good drama,
Speaker 2: and you love a family intrigue, and you love Anna
Speaker 2: Sawai because you have been watching Shogun, one of the
Speaker 2: best shows of the last decade, then this is such
Speaker 2: a fantastic show to watch. And it does build out
Speaker 2: a lot of what we know about the Monster Verse
Speaker 2: in this interesting time period kind of post Godzilla and
Speaker 2: then pre the rest of the films in the Monster Verse.
Speaker 1: Also starring Shogun's tech a hero hero oh as ANSI's father,
Speaker 1: mysterious father. What has he been up to?
Speaker 2: What's he been up to? Hiroshi Randa, what are you doing?
Speaker 2: What's going on?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: It's so good and Tamlin Tamta is in it as
Speaker 2: Kate Randers as Caroline Rander, who's Kate Randers mum so
Speaker 2: Karai kid legend. There there's so many fantastic actors, but
Speaker 2: one of my favorite people in the whole show is
Speaker 2: Kei Ko, who is the scientist who is essentially the
Speaker 2: founder of Monarch with Bill Randa and Lee Shaw, and
Speaker 2: there's a fantastic love triangle element there, and she's played
Speaker 2: by Marie Amamoto. And the emotional human stories they tell
Speaker 2: in this are mind blowing, especially because everyone knows, especially
Speaker 2: in the American Godzilla films, the human stories are not
Speaker 2: always the best, so yeah, so this really contradicts that.
Speaker 2: It also kind of acts as a bit of a
Speaker 2: response to the criticisms that people have had about how
Speaker 2: the American Godzilla films are often like we're the Army
Speaker 2: and we're gonna kill Godzilla and then that's kind and
Speaker 2: this is a really kind of more interesting hard sci
Speaker 2: fi and it has Kissey Clemmens, who I also love,
Speaker 2: who's fantastic and she gets a really interesting role here
Speaker 2: as kind of like a hacker. And yeah, it's just
Speaker 2: one of the best TV shows I watched in the
Speaker 2: last year. It's really fantastic you know what I really
Speaker 2: appreciate it is it's obviously a tie in project, right
Speaker 2: you mentioned comes after it's set in the timeline after.
Speaker 1: Twenty fourteen's Godzilla movie. You have some tie ins to
Speaker 1: cong Skull Island.
Speaker 3: But you don't have to have seen any of that stuff,
Speaker 3: Like this is a standalone story. If you've seen that stuff,
Speaker 3: those times are going to be like, oh wow, that's cool.
Speaker 3: But if you haven't, don't worry about it, because this
Speaker 3: is just a interesting espionage family drama set in the
Speaker 3: Godzilla universe.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think something that I spoke to Chris Black, Yeah,
Speaker 2: I think I'd speak to him five gen I spoke Chris,
Speaker 2: I did it. But the interesting thing there is like
Speaker 2: he I think he talked about it being like a
Speaker 2: ground up view Like when we watch these movies, it's
Speaker 2: often from the Godzilla perspective. You're smashing things things a
Speaker 2: black but this is all about looking up at the
Speaker 2: monsters and what would it be like if you lived
Speaker 2: in a world. We get to see things like in
Speaker 2: Japan they have Godzilla siren raids to practice for if
Speaker 2: he's going to come, and and there are little things
Speaker 2: about life living under a kind of Titan or Kaiju
Speaker 2: threat that is really interestingly built out here in a
Speaker 2: kind of slice of life grounded way that I think
Speaker 2: really adds to the films.
Speaker 3: The other thing I really liked as well, and it's
Speaker 3: a thing that our next project that we're going to
Speaker 3: discuss also shares, is that they brought the fear home
Speaker 3: in Monarch Legacy of Monsters, the PTSD that you would
Speaker 3: have from witnessing one of these attacks, and there's so
Speaker 3: much fear in our next project. Let's move to the
Speaker 3: movie theater with Godzilla minus one Toho Studios, written and
Speaker 3: directed by Takashi Yamazaki, winner of course of the Oscar
Speaker 3: for Best Special Effects. And the thing that stands out
Speaker 3: to me from Godzilla minus one is the screaming. There's
Speaker 3: the there's so and it's absolutely appropriate.
Speaker 1: Characters in this movie are.
Speaker 3: Like throat, raw screaming with fear all the time shaking
Speaker 3: because it is the scariest thing you've ever seen. This
Speaker 3: is like Godzilla and authentic Godzilla at its scariest. Set
Speaker 3: in the post World War Two, the years directly following
Speaker 3: World War Two, Japan under American occupation and Godzilla emerges.
Speaker 3: Tell us about Godzilla minus one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean you summed it up perfectly. The title
Speaker 2: minus one is because after World War Two and the
Speaker 2: horrific attacks on Japan, Japan was at zero. It had
Speaker 2: to rebuild. And then this is imagining what is worse
Speaker 2: than zero. It's if Godzilla emerges and just as you're
Speaker 2: trying to rebuild, you have to deal with this in terrifying,
Speaker 2: entirely new threat. This is very much in the mold
Speaker 2: of the nineteen fifty four original Godzilla. It's Godzilla as
Speaker 2: a threat of war. Godzilla is a threat of nuclear war.
Speaker 2: Godzilla as this monstrous form that is going to force
Speaker 2: you to face up to your fears and discover how
Speaker 2: you feel about your family and your country, and something
Speaker 2: that I found just totally. Also, I just have to
Speaker 2: say to Kashi Yamazaki, the director and writer. He was
Speaker 2: also head of.
Speaker 3: The FX, so he's crazy hats every hat and he
Speaker 3: did this on a budget of ten to twelve million.
Speaker 1: You have, I mean that part of it.
Speaker 3: There's only a few moments where you're like, there's a
Speaker 3: scene with you know, an elevated train moving across Tokyo
Speaker 3: where you're like, okay, I can kind of see it,
Speaker 3: but the rest of the time one hundred percent. You
Speaker 3: never feel any kind of budgetary constriction at all.
Speaker 2: Looks fantastic, Yeah, And I think like one of the
Speaker 2: most one of the things again that this does that.
Speaker 2: As we're talking about that Monarch does that. These movies
Speaker 2: have often been critiqued for even some of the Japanese movies,
Speaker 2: though I often love the human characters in those, this
Speaker 2: movie he has a really strong human storyline, which is
Speaker 2: Koichi is a he's a kamikazi pilot and he basically
Speaker 2: is too scared to do his duty for his country.
Speaker 2: And he says his plane is malfunctioning, and he lands
Speaker 2: on an island to have it fixed, and he sees
Speaker 2: an attack by Godzilla and it's terrifying and he can't
Speaker 2: bring himself to shoot it because he kind of has PTSD.
Speaker 2: And there is a lot of rumination and exploration here
Speaker 2: of PTSD and the cost of war. And something I
Speaker 2: actually found really powerful in this movie is there is
Speaker 2: a lot of critique of the Japanese government and the
Speaker 2: way that soldiers are treated and the way that war
Speaker 2: is approached, and there is this really beautiful found family storyline,
Speaker 2: and all of that makes these Godzilla attacks even more
Speaker 2: terrifying because you actually care about the people who might
Speaker 2: be harmed, and it makes the success or the fight
Speaker 2: against Godzilla incredibly rip roaring, and everyone in the cinema
Speaker 2: is kind of cheering, and you got grown men just
Speaker 2: crying in the cinema. This is a very emotional movie
Speaker 2: and I just thought it's fantastic. I mean, this is Look,
Speaker 2: the last Japanese Godzilla movie was Shing Godzilla, which is
Speaker 2: widely seen as one of the best Godzilla movies, but
Speaker 2: it is very experimental. The design of Godzilla is extremely strange.
Speaker 2: It has different evolutions, some of which are incredibly grotesque,
Speaker 2: and a lot of the movie, as is the way
Speaker 2: with a lot of recent Japanese Godzilla movies, is set
Speaker 2: focused on humans because of budgetary constraints, so a lot
Speaker 2: of it is like the bureaucracy of Japan trying to
Speaker 2: deal with this new Godzilla attack. And it's seems still
Speaker 2: as a highlight in the sphere, but it's very much
Speaker 2: I think for Godzilla fans or fans of cinema in
Speaker 2: that kind of mold. This movie is so blockbuster, huge
Speaker 2: event film that that's why it ended up up becoming
Speaker 2: you know, this smash hit, making over one hundred million
Speaker 2: dollars at the box office at the fifth highest grossing
Speaker 2: Japanese film of twenty twenty three and one of the
Speaker 2: highest grossing Japanese films ever in America. And it is
Speaker 2: just so incredible. And the thing that's very interesting here
Speaker 2: is we get to see Godzilla as he was, and
Speaker 2: then we get to see Godilla post this new clear bomb,
Speaker 2: and it is really just such a fantastic, wonderful movie.
Speaker 2: And it doesn't rely on you know, oh this other monster,
Speaker 2: isn't it, or oh, this you know Cameo or this connection.
Speaker 2: This is a straight down the line disaster movie. And
Speaker 2: what they achieved with it and that fear and the
Speaker 2: sound design is so spectacular, and I'm not surprised it
Speaker 2: became a huge success. I think that's just absolutely justified.
Speaker 3: I think this movie is the platonic ideal of how
Speaker 3: you present the monster. The evolution of all of the
Speaker 3: set piece scenes to the end when you start seeing
Speaker 3: Godzilla in the in the stark daylight, like all of
Speaker 3: him is amazing, and you start with like in shadow
Speaker 3: you don't know what's going on, and.
Speaker 2: Of the body.
Speaker 3: Yeah, just the big foot coming down and smashing jeeps
Speaker 3: and things like what's going on? Then you have what
Speaker 3: I think is clearly an homage Jaws.
Speaker 1: Where you see portion, you see a portion of.
Speaker 3: The of Godzilla, but what you see is absolutely terrifying.
Speaker 3: And then you know in the final set pieces, there
Speaker 3: he is, and he's in the city and he's kicking trains.
Speaker 1: Across the cityscape.
Speaker 3: Just incredible, an unbelievable achievement.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back after a quick break, and we're back.
Speaker 3: We move to the other film, another entry into the
Speaker 3: Monster Verse Godzilla Verse, King Kong New Empire, a sequel
Speaker 3: to the King Kong franchise and the Godzilla franchise tie
Speaker 3: in Godzilla Versus Kong by Legendary Pictures, directed by Adam Winguard.
Speaker 3: Tell us about this newest entry into the Monster Verse,
Speaker 3: and will Godzilla minus one ever cross over the Monster
Speaker 3: Verse over Kire or do those two things are are
Speaker 3: they just forever separate?
Speaker 2: I think that's an interesting question, So I will first
Speaker 2: explain so as I have learned, so this is a
Speaker 2: hilarious trend. The title for this movie is Godzilla x.
Speaker 2: Kong The New Empire, but you don't pronounce the X,
Speaker 2: I got told that an official press release. So it's
Speaker 2: Godzilla Kong the New Empire. Okay, So now I did
Speaker 2: a really fun press junkit for this five G and
Speaker 2: as Brian Tyree Henry said, the ex implies that they
Speaker 2: do like a collab. You know, they're not. It's not
Speaker 2: Masses anymore right now, they're teaming up. You know, they're bros. Like,
Speaker 2: it's not it's not who's going to win in a fight,
Speaker 2: it's who are they going to fight against? So if
Speaker 2: you didn't know, Godzilla Versus Kong came out during COVID
Speaker 2: was actually a massive success. Even though it was day
Speaker 2: to day on HBO. It ended up making I think
Speaker 2: like forty or fifty million dollars, which for COVID times
Speaker 2: was really good, especially when people could stream it at home.
Speaker 2: That was also directed by Adam Wingard. It was a
Speaker 2: hard sci fi kind of turn, had a lot of
Speaker 2: bisexual lighting. They were going into the center of the earth.
Speaker 2: Alex Scarless God was in it. It was totally out there
Speaker 2: and people just really responded to it in a way
Speaker 2: that I don't even think Legendary was expecting. So this
Speaker 2: is a sequel to that, and Essentially you have Rebecca
Speaker 2: Hall who's returning, Brian Harry Henry who's returning, Kaylee Hottle
Speaker 2: who plays this young character called Jea who communicates with
Speaker 2: Kong and lived with him on Skull Island, And this
Speaker 2: is essentially just a completely that shit crazy sci fi movie.
Speaker 2: Dan Stevens plays a Titan vet as in a veterinarian
Speaker 2: for Titans, and we meet him when he swings down
Speaker 2: to do to extract a bad tooth that Kong has,
Speaker 2: And essentially the status quo that we have is Kong
Speaker 2: lives in the Hollow Earth. So in this the Hollow
Speaker 2: Earth conspiracies are real. The Hollow Earth which was found
Speaker 2: by Bill Randa, who is the grandparent of the Randa
Speaker 2: kids from Monarch, and Kong lives in the Hollow Earth,
Speaker 2: and Godzilla lives on the surface world and in the seas,
Speaker 2: and he is basically there to stop any Titan catastrophes,
Speaker 2: but he's still like causing problems, Like Godzilla's like going
Speaker 2: to sleep in the Colisseum and he's not. You know,
Speaker 2: I would be happy if he was here, but not
Speaker 2: everyone's happy he's here. So Monic is kind of dealing
Speaker 2: with these two different worlds, and they have to go
Speaker 2: back into the Hollow Earth to get Kong to team
Speaker 2: up with Godzilla against this new threat, which is a
Speaker 2: giant ape called the scar King, and he rules over
Speaker 2: this kind of indentured servitude race of apes in the
Speaker 2: depths of the Hollow Earth, and he's been trying to
Speaker 2: get to the surface world to take it over. And
Speaker 2: this is a really fun throwback. It's definitely I spoke
Speaker 2: to Adam Wingard a couple of times, who's a fantastic director.
Speaker 2: He directed a lot of cool horror movies. He directed
Speaker 2: The Guest, which is so fantastic with Dan Stevens, so
Speaker 2: this is a little bit of a reunion for them.
Speaker 2: And this is very much inspired by the later Shower
Speaker 2: era Godzilla movies. It's those wacky, campy fun stories that
Speaker 2: you remember when you're a kid. Everything that happens in
Speaker 2: this movie is a bombastic surprise. You get unexpected monsters
Speaker 2: who show up, we get some really cool law building.
Speaker 2: Gea gets a really focused role, which I love because
Speaker 2: Kayley Hole is a fantastic young deaf actress and it's
Speaker 2: awesome to see her leading this franch Kong also gets
Speaker 2: a cool robotic arm called his Beast Arm, which is
Speaker 2: like completely bonkers, and it's just I think something that
Speaker 2: I really love that I've seen the internet embrace if
Speaker 2: you are a Godzilla fan, Godzilla's been around since nineteen
Speaker 2: fifty four, right, there are so many different versions of Godzilla.
Speaker 2: Manilla is a campy, silly version. You have this most
Speaker 2: obvious original Godzilla movie is an unbelievably dark and reflective
Speaker 2: treatise on the horrors of war. But you can also
Speaker 2: have mecha Godzilla fighting King Gnora in space, you know.
Speaker 2: So what's fantastic is to see people understand that Godzilla
Speaker 2: minus one can exist and it can make a ton
Speaker 2: of money, and it can be this really heartfelt, fantastic
Speaker 2: masterpiece that wins Oscars, and two months later you can
Speaker 2: have Godzilla Kong the New Empire come out and you
Speaker 2: can enjoy both of them.
Speaker 4: And that's actually the point of these movies and the
Speaker 4: power of what Godzilla can do is you can tell
Speaker 4: so many different stories within this world and that's why
Speaker 4: it has been keeping people so engaged for you know,
Speaker 4: seven decades, And I think that's what's really cool.
Speaker 2: And at first I saw a lot of memes of
Speaker 2: people being like, oh, it's gonna look so bad after
Speaker 2: Godzilla Minus one, and then I kind of sort of
Speaker 2: started to see people change their minds and be like,
Speaker 2: you can enjoy both guys, Like you can have the
Speaker 2: point of the Godzilla franchises, you can have all these
Speaker 2: different versions. So in that case, I've been very happy
Speaker 2: to see people embrace that, and this was a huge success.
Speaker 2: So I think we can expect to see another movie
Speaker 2: in wing Guards part of the Monster Verse. And he
Speaker 2: did tell me that his hope if he did a
Speaker 2: third one of these films would be to do for
Speaker 2: Godzilla what he did for Kong here and what he
Speaker 2: did for Cong here was kind of look at his
Speaker 2: roots and find him a family and kind of give
Speaker 2: him that role as king. So I think for the
Speaker 2: next Monster Verse movie, if we do get one, which
Speaker 2: is quite likely, I think this is almost its overfour
Speaker 2: one hundred mens dollars already, we'll get that big Godzilla
Speaker 2: story where Godzilla is the focus and we learn about
Speaker 2: Godzilla's origins in this legendary monster use and.
Speaker 3: Then finally we go to the comic space in the
Speaker 3: longtime home of the Godzilla ip idw it's trushing and
Speaker 3: the comic Godzilla Monster Island Summer Camp written by none
Speaker 3: other than yourself, with art by the wonderful Olive Oil.
Speaker 2: Oh He's amazing.
Speaker 3: Letters by Jody Troutman, colors by Nick Marino, A wonderful
Speaker 3: project featuring everybody's favorite child, Godzilla.
Speaker 1: Tell Us about tell Us about this?
Speaker 2: Well, I feel very honored I got to write this.
Speaker 2: I love Manila. I have a Manilla tattoo. So years
Speaker 2: ago now, when Jazz Joyner was working on IDW, they
Speaker 2: were looking for Godzilla pictures and I came up with
Speaker 2: this idea for a kid's graphic novel that was called
Speaker 2: Godzilla Monstra Island Summer Camp. And it was basically like,
Speaker 2: what if Manila was at summer camp? Right, because I've
Speaker 2: never been summer camp, and I think it seems cute,
Speaker 2: and they really liked it, and then you know, life
Speaker 2: happens and did and it takes a long time to
Speaker 2: get licensing and stuff like that, and a year later
Speaker 2: they said, oh, actually we're gonna make it, so I said,
Speaker 2: oh great, and then that's been like the last two
Speaker 2: years of our lives has been doing this and Nick
Speaker 2: ended up getting brought on to do color assists to
Speaker 2: help Oliver finish the book. So those two got this
Speaker 2: really great rapport and made something really beautiful. And Jody's
Speaker 2: letters are just out of this world. So basically it's
Speaker 2: about our leader is a girl called Zelda who's named
Speaker 2: after very famous syndicated cartoonists called Jackie Zelder ORMs, and
Speaker 2: she goes to a summer camp that's supposed to be
Speaker 2: an art summer camp, but when she gets there, they've
Speaker 2: turned it into a kind of maniacal high tech sports
Speaker 2: summer camp, sports saus sport anna and she's less than
Speaker 2: happy about it, but luckily she has a great cabin
Speaker 2: with a couple of really cool mates, Ramiko, whos named
Speaker 2: after Ramiko Takahashi and Weezy who's named after Louis Simonson
Speaker 2: some other great comic creators that I love. And together
Speaker 2: they have this adventure that leads them to a strange
Speaker 2: portal where they discover that the summer camp is built
Speaker 2: on Monster Island, the famed Godzilla location. Zelda meets Manila
Speaker 2: and they realize that something is going on with more
Speaker 2: ink summer camp that is making the monsters on Monster
Speaker 2: Island angry, and they have to find out what happens
Speaker 2: and maybe commit some eco terrorism on the way to
Speaker 2: help them escape. And we got to have so much
Speaker 2: fun here. There's so many monsters we get to introduce,
Speaker 2: both idw I mean, oh, we've had some great editors. Obviously,
Speaker 2: Jazz was the one who picked it up, and then
Speaker 2: David Marriott, who is a sonic die hard who's now
Speaker 2: over at Boom. He was on the book for a while,
Speaker 2: and then Jake Williams is the guy who's really gotten
Speaker 2: us over the finish line. And they've all been so
Speaker 2: supportive and great, and Toho as well, was just so
Speaker 2: open to and into this story and they were really cool.
Speaker 2: I mean, one of the only notes I got from Toho,
Speaker 2: which was so good, was like Godzilla can't give a
Speaker 2: thumbs up. They were like, he can't do that, okay,
Speaker 2: And I was like, oh yeah. I was like, I've
Speaker 2: seen him do it, but like I understand in the
Speaker 2: context of this book that he can't do it. But
Speaker 2: they did let Manila wave at one point because they
Speaker 2: said it was an emotional moment, so I was like,
Speaker 2: I got that one in there. But yeah, it's beautiful.
Speaker 2: The book is so gorgeous and I'm just so honored
Speaker 2: that we got to tell this super fun graphic novel,
Speaker 2: which I think is like the first IDW Godzilla Kids
Speaker 2: graphic novel. It's not going going to be comics first.
Speaker 2: You can't buy it in the single issues in the
Speaker 2: comic shop. It's just one hundred page graphic novel and
Speaker 2: we got to do some really fun how to make
Speaker 2: a comic stuff In the back. I got to do
Speaker 2: biographies of each of them cartoonists and comic creators who
Speaker 2: inspired the main characters. Has just been a total dream.
Speaker 3: It drops in August, so pre ordered now if you
Speaker 3: are interested in the art. Is just absolutely delightful. That
Speaker 3: is Godzilla, Monster Island Summer Camp on IDW. Let's go
Speaker 3: to Who's Who. Every show we close the show with
Speaker 3: a variety of fast moving segments. Today it's Who's Who,
Speaker 3: in which we talk about some of our favorite weird
Speaker 3: characters from a characters from a given universe. In this episode, Rosie,
Speaker 3: I'm gonna ask you to power rank, yes, your top
Speaker 3: three favorite Monster Island, Godzilla adjacent friends and foes characters
Speaker 3: from the Godzilla universe.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back after a quick brick and we're back, Rosie.
Speaker 1: I hand it to you.
Speaker 2: Okay, So probably the most powerful character in the Godzilla universe.
Speaker 2: It's hard. I would say that Geigan is pretty high
Speaker 2: up there. He has a very strange blades as part
Speaker 2: of his body. He's quite quite a powerful guy. I
Speaker 2: would say Mecha Godzilla, I think is a number classic
Speaker 2: mecha Godzilla. I would say we go so three Geigan, okay,
Speaker 2: two Mecha Godzilla because he is like really powerful and
Speaker 2: he is like a cool robot. One. I probably just
Speaker 2: have to go for Mathra because I think Mathra is
Speaker 2: she always comes in at the last moment. She often
Speaker 2: there to save Godzilla. She can kind of power Godzilla
Speaker 2: up by wrapping him in her wings, so I think
Speaker 2: she is really up there. Obviously, Godzilla's the original boy,
Speaker 2: but just for fun, I'm gonna leave him out this time.
Speaker 2: Some other big ones that have to shout out so
Speaker 2: that Godzilla bros don't hate me. Just destroy very very
Speaker 2: powerful coy kiro who's like a cool Godzilla with like
Speaker 2: guns on his back. You know. Kingodora obviously up there,
Speaker 2: but I.
Speaker 1: Do think like that's one of my favorites.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Kingidora is like very cool, but his.
Speaker 1: No love for uh no, love for the smog monster.
Speaker 2: Hit or you know what I think, sadlygenic, I actually
Speaker 2: love I love Herdora. He almost actually got he he
Speaker 2: almost made it into our book, but he was not
Speaker 2: the right fit for our ecological tale. But I do.
Speaker 2: I would say he's probably quite weak when it comes
Speaker 2: to his actual powers. Sadly, but the movie, the movie
Speaker 2: is incredible, and I will say, uh, Godzilla Kong. New
Speaker 2: Empire director Adam Wingard did say Her Doora is like
Speaker 2: one of the movies that for him is why Godzilla
Speaker 2: will always top Kong when it comes to like the
Speaker 2: best movies, because it is so experimental and strange, I mean, hilariously.
Speaker 2: I'm a fan of weak Godzilla characters, like no surprises,
Speaker 2: Like I love Nilla, who, to be honest, can just
Speaker 2: like blow a smoke and it's always like rolling over
Speaker 2: somebody's tail all the fire.
Speaker 3: It's kind of a fiery he's doing his best.
Speaker 2: And I also like Kamakouris is in our book, who's
Speaker 2: like this really cool giant kind of like praying Mantis,
Speaker 2: because that's like a classic character who is in who
Speaker 2: lives on Monster Island, but realistically very weak, like I
Speaker 2: don't really think he's doing much. Ibira giant Shrimp, I'm
Speaker 2: a big fan of him. Also probably not one of
Speaker 2: your strongest characters. I mean, throughout the years, there's been
Speaker 2: so many outrageous kind of like you know, Jet Jaguar.
Speaker 2: I think, right, he's just really really cool and he
Speaker 2: can fly and he can change size, but like, what
Speaker 2: else has he really got going on? Like also probably
Speaker 2: quite weak, sadly, but there is just there's so many
Speaker 2: of these characters. I think that's part of why people
Speaker 2: love it so much. It's so easy to find your favorite.
Speaker 2: Is it Hidora? Is it someone weird? Is it Kyro?
Speaker 2: You know, kids love Cayrou because he's like super cool?
Speaker 2: Is it Geiger? Who? Is it Biolante, who is literally
Speaker 2: no joke, a DNA combination of a scientist, dead daughter
Speaker 2: and a rose, and then she becomes this kind of
Speaker 2: crazy monstrous beast whose spores can create monsters, I mean, unbelievable.
Speaker 2: Mathra is probably the most overpowered person in the franchise,
Speaker 2: so I do believe that she's well, But then you
Speaker 2: have weird things like Monster X. You know, there's so
Speaker 2: many good, weird characters that I think, really any poweranking
Speaker 2: is kind of so subjective. I once ranked all the
Speaker 2: Godzilla movies and that was just the most subjective thing ever.
Speaker 2: I know some people were in there like what is
Speaker 2: wrong with you? But that's kind of the fun of
Speaker 2: all of this stuff. And yeah, so I would say
Speaker 2: I will stand by the fact that I do think
Speaker 2: Mathra is probably the most powerful monster in the Godzilla vers.
Speaker 2: And also as for you, you know you mentioned earlier,
Speaker 2: and I do think people think about this a lot,
Speaker 2: the Legendary Monster Verse and the Toho Verse, like ever
Speaker 2: kind of crossover. The answer is, hypothetically yes, because Legendary
Speaker 2: licenses everything from Toho, so everything has to be approved
Speaker 2: by Toho the same way in our comics it does.
Speaker 2: And we've seen Legendary already do some really interesting crossovers.
Speaker 2: They recently did the Godzilla Justice League crossover, which has
Speaker 2: been like so popular, it's been just the total smash
Speaker 2: for DC comics and Legendary. So I think there's always potential.
Speaker 2: And I mean in the past, the Americanized Godzilla, who
Speaker 2: is you know from the Godzilla movie with the American
Speaker 2: the very hilarious American casting of Sarah Jesscamarka's husband Matthew Broderick. Yes,
Speaker 2: that Godzilla has actually featured in Japanese Godzilla movies getting killed,
Speaker 2: so you know there is a precedent, and I do
Speaker 2: believe that with the success of what's going on, it's
Speaker 2: unlikely that would necessarily be like a minus one, but
Speaker 2: I wouldn't be surprised if at some point we could
Speaker 2: see some kind of portal space where those streams may cross.
Speaker 2: But who knows.
Speaker 1: Well, Rosie, thank you for blessing us with your copious
Speaker 1: Godzilla knowledge.
Speaker 2: Always say I'd love to be Godzilla ring.
Speaker 3: This has been our massive, bite sized Godzilla episode of
Speaker 3: X ray Vision.
Speaker 1: See you next time. Bye.
Speaker 3: X ray Vision is hosted by Jason Kisumsion and Rosie
Speaker 3: Knight and is a production of iHeart Podcasts. Our executive
Speaker 3: producers are Joelle Smith and Aaron Kaufman. Our supervising producer
Speaker 3: is a Boo Zafar. Our producers are Carmen Laurent and
Speaker 3: Mia Taylor. Our theme song is by Brian Basquez.
Speaker 2: Special thanks to Soul Rubin and Chris Lord, Kenny Goodman
Speaker 2: and Heidi a Disco moderator.