Godzilla Stomps the Marvel Universe in New Variant Covers!

Wow, I love all of those covers. LOL. Godzilla fan here, so ... these amused me.

Loved Godzilla: King of the Monsters. Not a fan of Godzilla vs Kong:The Empire. One, Kong was never the same height as Godzilla. My running wall paper for TV has Kong standing on top the Empire state building and no bigger than the spike of the building. And if he was that size, that building would have crumbled. Another of Godzilla where he is taller than say the Brooklyn Bridge. It didn't work for story-wise, too much change to even the playing field as it were.  The ax thing with Kong made me shake my head. Odd thing in those type of movies that use 'vs' in them is in general whomever is on the backside is the loser. It's like a trailer that tells you the ending.

Trailers can totally spoil a film to the point of not having to watch it.

I'm not sure how much you know about the Godzilla and Kong franchise histories and how they intertwine. I find it all fascinating so I apologize for any info-dumping of stuff you already know(or even don't want to know, lol). The King Kong(s) of the first two Kong films, King Kong(1933) and Son of Kong(1933) were both just giant apes. King Kong was said to be 25 feet tall and the so-called 'Son of Kong' was only about twice the height of a man. The first Kong movie created what was then groundbreaking advancements in special effects and also musical scoring, revolutionizing the industry worldwide and is considered one of the greatest monster movies ever made!

The film was re-released in theaters in 1952, which is when Ishirō Honda first saw it and was inspired. After seeing The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms in 1953, itself inspired by King Kong, Ishirō would create as co-writer and director the original 1954 Godzilla film released by the Toho film studio...also considered one of the greatest monster movies ever made!

By the early 1960's, the King Kong franchise had not had a new film in the almost three decades since the original and its sequel were made. Godzilla had had only one sequel as well, and seven years out from its release the franchise was considered dormant. Universal had acquired the film rights to Kong from RKO and was developing a new Kong movie, King Kong vs. Frankenstein(with a giant version of Frankenstein's monster derived from their Universal Monsters series). They completed a script and re-titled the film King Kong vs. Prometheus, in reference to the original Mary Shelley book but ultimately decided to farm the film out to a foreign studio to make it at a reduced cost, which is how Toho acquired the rights to use Kong.

Toho immediately saw the potential in making a film starring both America's big monster and Japan's together, thus Frankenstein was replaced with Godzilla in the hopes it would both reignite the Godzilla franchise and be a commercial success. Ishirō Honda, Godzilla's creator, would direct the film. Honda had handed off the second Godzilla film to Motoyoshi Oda, Godzilla Raids Again, but had returned to the Kaiju genre with Rodan in 1956 and again with Mothra in 1961. Hondo was exited not only to return to his creation, but to have the opportunity to pair him with the American monster that had helped inspire him to create Godzilla.

Hondo originally planned to use stop-motion animation for both monsters in line with the first Kong movies, but that was found to be too expensive, so he decided to use Japan's 'suit-motion'(just a guy in a suit) for both monsters. This had the effect of making both monsters of equal size so Hondo decided to re-imagine Kong not as simply a giant ape from the American movies but as a true kaiju of a kind and size with Godzilla, complete with powers of his own. Where Godzilla would be established to be weakened by electricity, Toho's Kong would be strengthened by it, allowing their Kong to grow in strength and endurance beyond just his now-massive physical size.

King Kong vs. Godzilla was released in Japan in 1962, and became the second-highest-grossing Japanese film in history upon its release. The film still remains the most attended Godzilla film ever in Japan. A heavily re-edited "Americanized" version of the film was released theatrically in the United States in 1963, but despite changes to actors and music it left the story itself intact. King Kong vs. Godzilla is credited with motivating Toho to resume the Godzilla series after years of dormancy and was followed by Mothra vs. Godzilla in 1964 also by Hondo. He would go on to direct five additional Godzilla films: Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster (1964), Invasion of Astro-Monster (1965), Destroy All Monsters (1968), All Monsters Attack (1969) and Terror of Mechagodzilla (1975). His other notable Kaiju films include: Frankenstein vs. Baragon (1965), The War of the Gargantuas (1966), and...King Kong Escapes (1967).

In the meantime, King Kong had an animated TV series called The King Kong Show, produced by Videocraft International and Toei Animation. It was the first anime-based series produced in Japan for an American company and ran for three years on ABC. The show mirrored the evolution of Godzilla, as Kong also became a protector of humanity. Hondo decided to incorporate characters and themes from the show into King Kong Escapes, the fourth King Kong movie and the second and last Kong movie produced by Toho since King Kong vs. Godzilla until their eventual team-up with Legendary Pictures decades later.

Toho had wanted to use King Kong again and Kong was included in an early draft for the 1968 film Destroy All Monsters but he was ultimately dropped because Toho's license to Kong was about to expire. In the early 1990s there were plans for a King Kong vs. Godzilla remake. When they fell through, Toho planned to bring back Mechani-Kong as an opponent for Godzilla, re-titling the project Godzilla vs. Mechani-Kong. However, it was too difficult to obtain permission to use even the likeness of King Kong for the film.

America went back to making Kong Kong movies starting with the 1976 remake, which also was now done with a guy in a suit. They scaled Kong up in size to 40 feet, significantly taller than the 25 foot original(but still far shorter than Toho's Kong)and replaced the Empire State Building with the World Trade Center. It was well received, but the sequel King Kong Lives(1986) was not. Peter Jackson's 2005 remake of King King returned Kong to his original size of 25 feet, and the rights issues with Kong were now gone as the character had entered the public domain.











No worries. If everybody saw things the same way life would be boring. I don't mind a difference of opinion, especially one rooted in common ground. I reserve the right to try and change your mind.

I like that Deadpool cover, too, for the same reason. Also the Hulk cover is really good as it manages to make the Hulk look imposing until you realize he's in the foreground just battling Godzilla's claws and Godzilla is looming massively behind him. I'm not sure many illustrators would have thought of doing that.

I feel ya on tons of email and multiple addresses. Primary gets a TON, two others I check semi-regularly and four more I mostly ignore unless Yahoo/whoever tells me it's been dormant too long and they are going to delete my messages(which has already happened with three of them before I had notifications forwarded to the primary. Sigh. I really wish I could get some of them back. I use to check ALL of them daily at least but some are connected with online identities I no longer actively use. That sounds...nefarious...but it's really not, lol.)

It's worse keeping up with it all with increased demands on my time from daily life. I've had to let a lot of stuff go. Sites I would frequent regularly I haven't been to now in years. I never even go on a comic news site anymore unless I'm following a link from somewhere else. I barely read comics anymore. On forums, I find I'm getting more likely to give a quick response to something I'm not that interested in and skip doing a more lengthy post on something I'm more passionate about because I can't find the time to really do it justice. Still trying to get part two of Iceman - The Dragon Mythos completed. Sigh. At this point I'm probably lucky this forum isn't more active, as I'm not sure I could find the time to effectively moderate it.

I love learning and sharing information. I wish I had more time for it.

NO love for Kong?!



"Monkey Ninjas, attack!"

Kidding.

Sad tangent: When Googling for the above image of Monkey Fist and his Monkey Ninjas from Disney's Kim Possible(One of my favorite cartoons); I learned that the actor who voiced Monkey Fist(among many others across a prolific career), Tom Kane, suffered a stroke in 2020 that left him with significant weakness on the right side of his body and impaired his ability to his speak, write, and read. He was forced to retire early as a result.

Tom, you helped bring to life many great and beloved characters and all us fans are forever grateful.