In which an astronaut becomes a giant monster, people are eaten, the army is called in, a robot makes an appearance and our fearless reviewer decides to put his money where is mouth is by reviewing a book that’s also free to read online.
Giant monster isn’t scary. But then it doesn’t look like it was meant to be.
Taking a cue from the sci-fi/ horror movies of the fifties and Japanese Kaiju (English translation – “Strange Beast/Monster”) writer Steve Niles (30 Days of Night) and artist Nat Jones give us the story of the astronaut with an insatiable appetite. Set in 2013, Astronaut Don Maggert is on his way back to earth after piloting the world’s first solo flight from the JFK Space Station when he’s attacked by alien parasites. Now on Earth and no longer human, he is the Giant Monster, and he’s hungry.
It is a lot of fun.
The creators get this two reel creature feature to punch way above its weight class by referencing monster themes like Godzilla, King Kong, and the Hulk. Especially the Hulk. These were the ones I noticed and I’m sure there were more. Then they play around with the plot and introduce just enough twists so the monster v/s military storyline doesn’t seem dated.
Supporting characters include the astronaut’s wife (heh), two kids, the army general, federal agents, a German scientist, and a robot.
What’s wrong with it? The same plot loopholes that we associate with every creature feature – the protagonists running into each other amidst a sea of other panic stricken survivors, the two kids forgetting that they have family that’s either facing the monster’s wrath or his digestive system, and the rather efficient crowd control given a situation like this. Like in every creature feature, we don’t really care as long as the action doesn’t let up. It doesn’t and the plot loopholes come to mind only after we’re done reading this. The story isn’t long enough for us to really identify with any of the characters other than the monster, and with the monster eating people in almost every panel, I don’t think we were supposed to identify with him anyway.
The art works for me. They could make the monster look more menacing (I think there’s a size limit on scary monsters – they’re scarier when the humans are in danger of being impaled/disemboweled rather than being swallowed/ stepped on) and maybe the city in chaos scenes could be more detailed but I have a feeling it would make the story look like it was taking itself too seriously.
Giant Monster is free to read here. Not in Marvel Digital quality, so you may want to consider buying the book on the cheap if your buy list already as too many items on it. I picked my copy up at Ashish Books (Fort), along with a few other heavily marked down Boom! Studios stuff (including Talent, which I wrote about earlier). Pick it up at full price if you’ve already bought everything you wanted and would like to try new writers/artists. It’s a book that you’re going to read once and recommend – not like the way you’ll recommend Watchmen, but more like you’ll recommend a well done Hulk v/s The Thing Annual. One thing that this book did for me – it put 30 Days of Night on my buy list. His extra dough was a fun read – now I’d like to see what Steve Niles did on his day job.
