Monsterverse Declassified (2024)
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Monsterverse Declassified is a Monsterverse anthology graphic novel published by Legendary Comics. It includes four separate stories, each from a different creative team and focusing on a different Titan: "Behemoth", "Abaddon", "Doug", and "Tiamat". The comic was crowdfunded through Kickstarter, with a PDF edition sent out to backers on December 5, 2024, and a physical edition to ship thereafter. A retail paperback will be made available on March 11, 2025.
Description
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Explore the great uncharted corners of the Monsterverse in this thrilling graphic anthology that delves into the previously classified myths and origins of the towering monsters we know as Titans! Bear witness to the eight-legged horror that is ABADDON, who may or may not be the forebearer of all arachnids. Walk in the monolithic footsteps of BEHEMOTH, the lumbering protector of vulnerable biomes the world over. Discover the legacy of TIAMAT that lives on through ancient fables and futuristic technology. And live a day in the life of the tiniest Titan of them all, TITANUS... DOUG. All this and much more revealed thanks to newly unsealed documents straight from the secured vaults of MONARCH, the mysterious agency of discoverers and defenders in a time of monsters. Let myth be your compass in this journey through the MONSTERVERSE...
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— Back cover |
Plot
"Behemoth"
A legend of the Amazon speaks of a tree that once contained all that was good in the world. Men seeking its riches evaded its guardian and chopped it down. The waters inside it, now the Amazon River, spilled out and spread all goodness thin throughout the world. The grieving guardian became a wanderer.
In the present, more men with axes have come to the Amazon to finish the job. In a clear-cut section of the forest, two men on ATVs pursue a man and woman. They fire at the man, killing him; the woman stops and holds out a phone through which she is livestreaming. Before they can reach her, Behemoth's paw comes down to crush them. The Titan, dismayed at the damage inflicted to the Amazon by humans, wanders the plain, trees springing up in his wake. He lays down to rest - and awakens to find the forest fully regrown around him. A group of forest defenders, including the woman he saved, have built a bed for him. Rising, he comes across a dam and smashes it. Amhuluk, seeking to spread floods and toxins, arrives in the Amazon and is displeased to see Behemoth healing the land. He challenges the mammal Titan, extending an arm which Behemoth leaps over. Amhuluk's next punch breaks off Behemoth's left tusk, and a second blow knocks him unconscious. When Behemoth regains consciousness, Amhuluk is gone. Smelling Godzilla, he understands that the King of the Monsters spared him and drove away his opponent. He steps into his bed and rests, his tusk beginning to heal.
Behemoth watches as the forest defenders build a village nearby, but soon senses something amiss. Three helicopters and two gunboats arrive to attack him, and a dark fog that arrives with them saps his strength. The forest defenders try to fight back, but retaliation is swift, and his home is soon in flames. Moved by their sacrifice, he smashes a helicopter with his tusk and stomps gunmen, then cracks one of the ships in half and throws the pieces into another ship and a helicopter. The final helicopter quickly retreats. He gazes at the forest defenders, seeming to meet the woman's eye.
Their alliance fully forged, the forest defenders rebuild his home. Behemoth's tusk fully regenerates, the forest around him continues to prosper, and he provides the humans with fertilizing dung which they load onto barges, spreading his gift elsewhere. He comes upon his broken tusk, planted in the ground with trees growing on; beneath it a placard reads "O Santuário da Arvore de Marfim" ("The Ivory Tree Sanctuary"). As newcomers to the sanctuary work the fields, he bellows to the sky.
"Abaddon"
In an episode of Titan Truth Podcast, Bernie Hayes proposes that the common human fear of spiders stems from collective memory of something far more terrifying. He tells the story of how the spider Titan Abaddon arrived on Earth through a Hollow Earth portal and became the common ancestor of all spiders. He highlights mythical figures associated with spiders from around the world - Arachne of Greece, Jorōgumo of Japan, Anansi of West Africa - and declares that Abaddon's more monstrous children inspired each of them. He also ponders how terrifying the Titan must have been when they attacked settlements in the ancient world themself. He questions whether Abaddon avoided other alpha Titans as they traveled the world or the other way around. Either way, humans must have resisted Abaddon's children, and so future generations of spiders became smaller and smaller. Abaddon themself returned to Hollow Earth, and he believes they will return when they realize their progeny failed to conquer the surface. They could potentially command all modern-day spiders - and for that reason, he recommends his viewers spare any spiders they encounter, lest they learn one day that the arachnids have been keeping score. As Jae Jørgensen, a young Monarch agent, listens to the podcast, she thinks better of stepping on a nearby spider.
"Doug"
Doug awakens inside a Hollow Earth cave and begins to roam outside. He spots two Rockclaws and gives pursuit, snatching up one in his jaws and crushing the other. A roar in the distance pulls his attention to a duel between a Wart Dog and a Leafwing. The Leafwing evades the Wart Dog's jaws, then throws sand in its eyes. Doug breaks off to explore a forest, but falls into a pit after the tree roots grown over it fail to support his weight. He climbs out, but sneezes just as he reaches the top. He recovers by clamping onto a vine and escapes. He again spots the Wart Dog and Leafwing and tries to throw a rock at them, but overshoots. Hollow Earth's gravitational inversion causes the rock to rebound back at him. Next he tries launching himself and a rock at the monsters; the rock misses and he slams into the fallen branch they are battling on. He falls to the river below, with the Wart Dog following when the weakened branch breaks. Doug attempts to follow the two monsters, but the Wart Dog tramples him and he scampers away. Next, he climbs to a mouth of the volcano. The Wart Dog, still chasing the Leafwing, follows, then decides to target Doug. He dodges its first lunge, then becomes distracted by a giant dragonfly and wanders away just as it leaps again. The Wart Dog stumbles into the volcano and is consumed by the lava as Doug, oblivious, watches the dragonfly perched on his nose.
"Tiamat"
A Monarch submarine brings Jae Jørgensen to Kvitøya, the final resting place of Tiamat, where she takes a sample of the Titan's blood.
On a Titan Truth Podcast episode on Tiamat, Bernie Hayes traces her history from prehistoric times to the present, finding depictions or allusions to her in cave paintings, papyrus drawings in Mesopotamia, tales of the Kraken in Scandanavia, a stained-glass window in medieval Europe, and warnings of sea serpents on maps from the Golden Age of Piracy. He believes that more recent Tiamat attacks on ships were covered up, with accompanying visuals showing her ambushing a Russian submarine before it can fire on a target. Monarch, he asserts, is not telling the full story about Kvitøya either. Rather than simply researching how the intersection of solar winds there could have powered up first Tiamat and then Godzilla, they're trying to figure out what else the winds can do.
In a flashback, Tiamat comes upon an underwater cave in Kvitøya from which the same pink substance emanates. When she approaches, she is attacked by the cave's inhabitant, the starfish-like monster Abzu. After it grapples her and shoots pink goop, she wriggles free and disorients it by whipping up a whirlpool. Constricting and biting it, she finishes it off by tearing it in half, then enters the cave to rest amidst the pink substance, where crystals encase her.
Classified files obtained by Hayes reveal that Monarch first discovered Tiamat's lair four years ago and suspected it was a Hollow Earth entrance. The submarine they sent found Abzu's remains and confirmed a Hollow Earth connection, but was quickly destroyed by Tiamat. He has also received intelligence about the composition of the slain Tiamat's blood, which Monarch has been collecting: wholly unique among Titans, its most notable property is its seemingly nonexistent rate of decay. He muses how many other Titans may have lived and died before they could be documented, and theorizes that Monarch will use Tiamat's blood to enhance and potentially even resurrect other Titans.
Jørgensen's submarine travels through a portal in the Kvitøya cave, surfacing near a Monarch outpost in Hollow Earth. She analyzes the vial of Tiamat blood, which indeed possesses a 0% decay rate, then gazes at Tiamat's severed head, preserved in a giant tube filled with liquid.
Staff
Staff role on the left, staff member's name on the right.
- "Behemoth"
- Writer Greg Keyes
- Artist David Ferracci
- Colorist Rebecca Good
- "Abaddon"
- Writer Daniel J. Park
- Artist Marco Roblin
- "Doug"
- Writer Rosie Knight
- Artist Oliver Ono
- "Tiamat"
- Writer David M. Booher
- Artist Drew Zucker
- Colorist Vittorio Astone
- Lettering & design Richard Starkings, Tyler Smith, Jimmy Betancourt
- Editor Nikita Kannekanti
- Special thanks Legendary Marketing, Legendary Publicity
Appearances
"Behemoth"
TitansCharacters
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Weapons, vehicles, and races
Locations
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"Abaddon"
Titans and superspecies
Other monsters
Characters
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Weapons, vehicles, races, and organizations
Locations
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"Doug"
Titans and superspeciesOther monsters |
Locations |
"Tiamat"
TitansOther monsters
Characters
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Weapons, vehicles, races, and organizations
Locations
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Development
Monsterverse Declassified was announced during Legendary Comics' panel at San Diego Comic-Con International on July 22, 2023.[1] Legendary Comics announced a Kickstarter campaign for hardcover editions of it and another graphic novel, Godzilla x Kong: The Hunted, on October 4, 2023, with a goal of $79,000.[2]
Gallery
Kickstarter page
Godzilla vs. Kong giclée print by Christian Ward (Kickstarter backer reward)
Trivia
- The comic's Kickstarter page advertised four crew members who are not credited on the final product: writer Umar Ditta, artist Francesco Biagini, and colorists Jurek Malottke and Francesca Vivaldi.[2]
- Two page previews were also included which do not appear in the comic, involving a team of humans encountering Doug among monstrous skeletons. Doug's story ultimately did not involve any human characters.
- The episode of Titan Truth Podcast featured in "Abaddon", "Planet of the Spiders", shares a name with a Doctor Who serial in which a race of giant alien spiders attempt to conquer Earth.
- The "protector" listing in Behemoth's profile is erroneously written in yellow on a brown rectangle, the same as the "destroyer" in other profiles, instead of in light green on a dark green rectangle like in other Monsterverse media.
- Doug's profile is almost completely redacted, with only his designation and classification visible. The redacted text can be highlighted and copied on the PDF version, but it consists only of passages from Abaddon's profile.
References
This is a list of references for Monsterverse Declassified. 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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