We’ve seen over the last few years with things like the Kaiju No. 8 manga and Shin Godzilla movie that there are a lot of cool things to do with the Kaiju genre. What we haven’t gotten much is on the comic book side beyond licensed series for Godzilla and King Kong. This brings us to The Giant Kokju from Image Comics. How does this M-rated kaiju parody mini-series start out? Find out with our review of The Great Kokju #1.
CREATIVE TEAM
Writer: Gerry Duggan
Artist: Scott Koblish
Colorist: Hi-Fi
Letterer: Joe Sabino
SOLICITATION SYNOPSIS
“This is a tale of woe about a monster with physical needs. It needs a restroom. It needs food, too. And, most unfortunately, it needs…sexual satisfaction. The only thing standing in its way are the men and women of science.” – Image Comics
REVIEW
The Giant Kokju #1 is the definition of a niche of a niche that’s not looking to change the game of kaiju-related stories. This isn’t going to be competing with other kaiju-related content like Kaiju No. 8. But if you ever wanted an M-Rated parody comic book version of the 1986 Rampage video game then Gerry Duggan, Scott Koblish, and Hi-Fi may have you covered.
Now credit to Duggan and Koblish in how they do not hide the fact that The Giant Kokju is an idea of what a teenager with their hormones out of control would pitch and somehow get approved to publish. The opening page literally tells the reader that. So you can certainly say there is no lie there.
That’s about the nicest thing to say about The Giant Kokju #1 because the story is just mind-numbing as it possibly could be. From the design to the dialogue, this is as generic as you can get with the kaiju genre. This is a comic book that seems to believe being a parody is a giant kaiju-sized hall pass to tell a bad story. Nothing about the low-hanging fruit approach taken works even knowing this is supposed to be a parody comic book.
Everything about this comic reminds you of every cheap, lazy cash-grab parody like the 2008 Superhero Movie. There is so much about the kaiju genre to parody in a fun way. But that is not what The Giant Kokju attempts whatsoever. Rather the entire comic reads like the creative team saw a two-minute supercut of kaiju movies on YouTube and then just said “What if we just added sex to it?”
Duggan does no favors to whatever semblance of a story there is with his narration throughout The Giant Kokju #1. The narration is such a heavy-handed approach to world-building. It gets to the point that by the second page, you just drown out all the narration as random noise.
All these problems highlight how you just don’t care about anyone or anything about this world. There isn’t even an attempt to make anyone go above being a random cannon fodder character. Honestly, that may be the only thing The Giant Kokju #1 gets right about old-school kaiju movies. But as the start of a mini-series, this just adds yet another reason to not read this comic book beyond this first issue.
Because of the direction Duggan takes with the writing there really is nothing Scott Koblish and Hi-Fi could do. The artwork throughout this issue just comes across as a splash of color. Everything from the kaiju to the people look as generic as it can get. There is just nothing to enjoy here.
FINAL THOUGHTS
The Giant Kokju #1 certainly did not lie in its solicitation that its “proudly flying our M rating.” Does that lead to a must-read parody comic book? Absolutely not. It’s a shame because the kaiju genre is filled with ways you can parody it in a fun way. Unfortunately, there was zero attempt at that here. What you instead get is something that is as eye-rolling as comic books can get.
Story Rating: 1 Night Girls out of 10
Art Rating: 4 Night Girls out of 10
Overall Rating: 2.5 Night Girls out of 10