Godzilla: Mechagodzilla 50th Anniversary (2024)
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Godzilla: Mechagodzilla 50th Anniversary, referred to on its cover as Godzilla: Mechagodzilla 50th Anniversary Special, is a one-shot comic book from IDW Publishing, written by Rich Douek and illustrated by Andrew Lee Griffith. It was released on May 29, 2024.[1]
Description
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For 50 years, the King of the Monsters, Godzilla, has gone toe to toe with its robotic doppelgänger, Mechagodzilla! As an intrepid reporter profiles the history of Mechagodzilla and its creator before the launch of the newest model, he finds himself entangled in a much deeper conspiracy. A decades-spanning adventure celebrating the mechanical monster’s milestone![1]
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Plot
Naito Hiroki, a former rescue worker, recalls finding orphaned Tamotsu Sato in the ruins of Tokyo after Godzilla's first attack on the city. He tells his interviewer, reporter Benjamin Sacks, that he considers saving Sato akin to saving the world, believing that the machines Sato went on to invent prevented Godzilla and the other kaiju from exterminating humanity. Sacks calls his editor after the interview concludes, reluctant to write the desired puff piece and feeling that something is missing from the public perception of Sato. A scientific prodigy, much of his life following his recruitment by the military is classified. His only promising lead is Corporal Kenshin, Sato's co-pilot aboard the Super X, the first of his machines to challenge Godzilla. Its cadmium missiles sent the monster reeling, but when it deployed its energy shield in anticipation of his atomic breath, he leapt into the air to swipe at it instead, destroying it. Sato rescued Kenshin from the craft's wreckage. No longer able to use his legs, Kenshin could only watch Sato's next invention challenge Godzilla on TV. It first took the form of a replica of the Monster King, but when he bathed it in atomic breath, its disguise burned away to reveal a gleaming machine: Mechagodzilla. The mech struck Godzilla first, but he quickly overpowered and decapitated it. Kenshin believes that the battle helped delay Godzilla's next attack, and scoffs when Sacks suggests that Mechagodzilla's construction provoked Godzilla. All of the kaiju, he maintains, have no goal besides humanity's destruction.
Sacks returns home to find a mysterious man, Kichiro, waiting inside. He promises to tell him the truth about Sato. Though he passed off the original Mechagodzilla as his invention, Sato had nothing to do with its construction. Following its battle with Godzilla, his team recovered a device from inside its head that contained writing in an alien language. Sato concluded that the aliens in question viewed Godzilla and the other kaiju as the primary threats to their conquest of Earth - meaning that, for the moment, they shared a common goal. He demanded absolute secrecy from his team while he harnessed their advanced technology. He repeatedly rebuilt more advanced versions of Mechagodzilla in the following years, but Godzilla still triumphed over them each time that they clashed. Attaching a Super X successor, the Garuda, to its back seemed like it would allow the mech to finally prevail, interrupting a battle between Godzilla and Rodan with a flurry of lasers and physical blows. But Sato didn't expect Rodan to come to Godzilla's aid, and the two kaiju won the day, then departed the city peacefully. To Kichiro, this proved that the monsters were more intelligent and less blindly destructive than they had originally thought, and he no longer considers them enemies. Sato, however, is more determined than ever to wipe them out. Before Kichiro can explain to Sacks how he plans to do this, a black ops team shoots and kills him and abducts Sacks.
Sacks, handcuffed, finally finds himself face-to-face with a smirking Sato. He explains that, contrary to what Kichiro believed, he was involved with the construction of the original Mechagodzilla, building it with the aliens' help. He accepts their rule of Earth as inevitable, and views working with them as facilitating a less violent invasion. He admits that he has thus far failed to defeat Godzilla, but insists that his newest creation, Mechagodzilla Kiryu, will change that. It possesses a gem on its forehead to convert humanity's collective hatred of the kaiju into raw power, and he plans to use Sacks' interviews to help burnish his image as humanity's savior even further. He debuts Kiryu in Tokyo before an adoring crowd, arriving in the rebuilt Garuda, and whips them up into a frenzy. As he promises, Godzilla soon emerges to challenge Kiryu, but finds himself outmatched by the hate-fueled mech. Watching the battle, Sacks persuades his captors to let him go, saying that Sato has decided unilaterally that humanity's freedom is an acceptable price to pay for exacting vengeance against the monster who orphaned him. He then cuts into Sato's broadcast, playing his interview with Kichiro and turning public opinion against him. Kiryu falters, allowing Godzilla to land a staggering punch to it before destroying it with a blast of atomic breath. However, from the wreckage arises another of the aliens' Mechagodzillas, apparently the core of Sato's design. Impatient with Sato's failures, the aliens have Mechagodzilla rain down eye lasers on civilians until Godzilla steps between them, enduring its attacks. Sato is shocked at Godzilla's behavior, and realizes that he's been wrong about the monster. Acknowledging that although he took his family, he did spare his life, he flies the Garuda into Mechagodzilla, destroying them both. Sacks reports on the aftermath of the battle: the aliens' Mechagodzilla is under heavy guard, Sato's associates face trial, and the scientist's legacy now lies in ruins. Humanity can take solace, however, in Godzilla's willingness to protect them from threats both terrestrial and extraterrestrial.
Appearances
Monsters
Characters
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Weapons, vehicles, races, and organizations
Locations
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Gallery
Covers
Cover A by Andrew Lee Griffith
Cover B by James Marsh
Cover RI by Ryan Miller
Online exclusive cover by Elizabeth Beals
Trivia
- Godzilla: Mechagodzilla 50th Anniversary is the first comic in which Mechagodzillas based on the character's Showa, Heisei, and Millennium incarnations all appear.
- This is the first Godzilla story in which a Mechagodzilla bearing the character's Heisei design is disguised as Godzilla, rather than one with the traditional Showa design.
- The issue's plot bears some similarities to IDW Publishing's earlier five-issue miniseries Godzilla: The Half-Century War, which also told a story spanning several decades and featured multiple versions of Mechagodzilla.
- Though Tamotsu Sato's name is ordered correctly, Shimada Kenshin's and Naito Hiroki's are not; "Shimada" and "Naito," in actuality surnames, are treated as the characters' first names, and the first names "Kenshin" and "Hiroki" as their surnames.
- The issue was originally set for release on May 1,[4] before being delayed a month to May 29.
References
This is a list of references for Godzilla: Mechagodzilla 50th Anniversary. These citations are used to identify the reliable sources on which this article is based. These references appear inside articles in the form of superscript numbers, which look like this: [1]
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