It's not just that the artists seem to draw that decade's particular version of Godzilla (the differences in Godzilla's appearances in each issue, for example, seem to owe as much to which Godzilla suit they are using as reference as to their individual styles) or use era-appropriate enemies. The scripts also sometimes refer to specific human characters and plot points from the movies and, in at least one case, the comic is a direct sequel to a particular movie, referring to that film's plot, its unique depiction of Godzilla and picking up where the film left off (In that particular case, I'm not sure certain aspects of the comic make all that much sense if you haven't seen the Godzilla film it references).
Curiously, some of the comics seem to be Marvel continuity (or, at least, like they could be), some are emphatically not. One story refers to the events of the previous story, for example, while characters who we are told are dead in one book appear alive in a later one.
Some of the books refer so directly to the events of other Marvel comics, particularly the 1980s-set Spider-Man issue, that the writer and editor include various asterisks and editorial boxes referring to particular issues of Secret Wars and Peter Parker, The Spectacular Spider-Man.
None of the comics similarly refer to the movies being referenced though, perhaps assuming all of the readers have seen all of the Godzilla films.
Which seems somewhat unlikely, really. So I figured maybe I could help out.
Below then are the various films referenced throughout the Godzilla vs. The Marvel Universe collection. Please note that there will obviously be spoilers for the comics discussed (including some of which are rather delightful surprises) and if you're wondering whether I liked each comic or not, I will of course have a more traditional EDILW review of it in the next installment of A Month of Wednesdays.
Reed has this to say of the events of the film:
Thankfully, the brilliant Dr. Daisuke Serizawa and his oxygen destroyer had managed to defeat the deadly beast--at the cost of his own life.
I would have loved to have collaborated with a mind like his...
Serizawa, played by Akihiko Hirata, was one of the main characters in the original film, a mysterious scientist who was part of the Gojira's love triangle who, as Reed mentions, invented the weapon that killed Godzilla: the oxygen destroyer, a weapon so potent that it completely skeletonized the monster.
(As an aside, because Godzilla was skeletonized at the end of the original film, I always assumed that the Godzilla that appeared in 1955's Godzilla Raids Again and throughout the rest of the Showa cycle* was a second Godzilla. Here Johnny Storm mentions that "it seems that defeat might not have been as permanent as we thought," given that Godzilla is now attacking New York, and, perhaps because I was reading a Marvel comic, it hit me that much later films like 1999's Godzilla 2000: Millennium, 2001's Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack and 2023's Godzilla Minus One would make much of Godzilla's healing factor; could the original Godzilla perhaps have simply re-grew its body around its skeleton between Gojira and Godzilla Raids Again, Wolverine-style...?).
Reed's line kind of elides the events of the film's climax though. Serizawa didn't just die in the process of using the oxygen destroyer against Godzilla, he took his own life. Worried that once his weapon was used, the governments of the world would want to add it to their apocalyptic arsenals, perhaps attempting to force its secrets from him, he agreed to use it against Godzilla only after fist burning his own notes.
Then, he cut the breathing tube providing him with air while he was underwater, drowning himself.
After the FF battle Godzilla, who has appeared in New York City, ultimately KO-ing him with a city's worth of electricity (Godzilla's vulnerability to electricity seemed to vary in the early Showa films, depending on the movie), the city and, indeed, the whole planet, is faced with an even more terrible threat: Galactus' new herald, King Ghidorah!
King Ghidorah was introduced in 1964's Ghidorah, The Three-Headed Monster. The three-headed, two-tailed, winged golden dragon would go on to become Godzilla's most regular foe, appearing in three more Showa films, and appearing in one Heisei film and two Millennium films, as well as Legendary/Warner Bros.' American "Monsterverse" film, 2019's Godzilla: King of the Monsters.
Here, for example, we're told Fin Fang Foom, Tony Stark and Rick Jones are all dead...that last of whom, it is implied, might have involved some uncharacteristic foul play from Bruce Banner. Also, Doctor Demonicus, a character that Doug Moench and Tom Sutton introduced in the short-lived Marvel Godzilla series of the 1970s, plays a major role, suggesting that the events of that series might be honored in this one-shot.
The plot involves General Thaddeus "Thunderbolt" Ross's kaiju-hunting team of super-scientists laying a trap for Godzilla.
The bait is Mothra, who the mind-controlled giant spider Kumonga is webbing to the desert floor in Texas.
"The cries of Mothra will be too much for Godzilla to resist," Demonicus tells Banner. "They have showed some camaraderie in the past."
Mothra was introduced in the 1961 film Mothra, and, with 1964's Mothra vs. Godzilla, she and her lore were subsumed into Toho's growing Godzilla "universe." Though they were enemies in that film, and Godzilla tried to start some shit with her during her brief appearance in 1966's Ebirah, Horror of the Deep, the two monsters were allies in Ghidorah, The Three-Headed Monster and 1968's Destroy All Monsters (which was actually set in the far-flung future of the 1990s, but never mind that).
Kumonga debuted in 1967's Son of Godzilla (and later briefly appeared in Destroy All Monsters and the Millennium Era's 1994 finale, Godzilla: Final Wars).
When Godzilla does arrive, Ross and Banner attack the monster, each of them piloting a Mechagodzilla. Mechagodzilla, a robot duplicate of the monster built by aliens, first appeared in 1974's Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla, and reappeared the following year in Terror of Mechagodzilla. Later versions of the character (in 1993's Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II, 2002's Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla and 2003's Godzilla: Tokyo S.O.S., Mechagodzilla) would be the creation of the Japanese military, intended as a weapon to use against Godzilla, as Ross' versions are here.
Finally, Demonicus reveals his ultimate weapon, created from the genetic material of each and every monster the Thunderbolts had previously defeated: Hedorah. This monster first appeared in 1971's Godzilla vs. Hedorah, one of the franchise's more divisive films (Personally, it's one of my favorites...despite that weird...thing Godzilla does near the climax).
Kelly refers to Godzilla as "an eighty-thousand ton surgeon" who "wakens only to excise the earth of the cancers that plague it."
Bradshaw seems to be drawing his version of the Godzilla from 1984's The Return of Godzilla (which came to the U.S. the following year as Godzilla 1985); note the prominent fangs throughout.
I'm not sure to what extent Kelly's portrayal of the monster as a guardian of Earth's natural order fits at that particular point in the monster's history, although certainly Godzilla spent the later films of the Showa cycle fighting alien monsters and would go on to do so off and on in the films of the Heisei era.
This particular year would be an awkward time for the monster, though.
What's with Godzilla's interest? Well, after the X-Men battle the King of the Monsters in a rather unusual way, we find out, when a three-headed giant robot enters the fray. This, we are told, is Tri-Sentinelmechakaiju, "containing the form and power" of a trio of Godzilla advesaries from the Heisei era: Biollante (from 1989's Godzilla vs. Biollante), Battra (from 1992's Godzilla vs. Mothra) and Fire Rodan (never actually referred to as such in the film, at least not in the English sub-titles, this is a form taken by Rodan in 1993's Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II).
As for the enmity that Tsugunai Robotics has for Godzilla? Well, it is eventually revealed that one of their number is a man named Kaneto, and that his father was part of the newly established Japanese Self-Defense Force in 1955. He died "in the mayhem" that resulted when Godzilla fought "a monster named Anguirus". (These words appear in thought clouds at the top of a panel showing the silhouettes of Anguirus and Godzilla facing off in a burning city; the city and the monster shapes look so film-accurate, I think the image might actually be a manipulated still from the movie, which is, of course, 1955's Godzilla Raids Again).
The story is set-up as a particularly talky, quip-filled debrief of the Avengers team's attempt to break up a fight between Fin Fang Foom and Godzilla, the Marvel monster in the shorts wanting to prove that he is King of the Monsters, rather than the licensed guest-star in the Marvel Universe. Also entering the fray? Jet Jaguar, who Iron Man explains is "a robot designed and built by Goro Ibuki to handle situations involving kaiju, just like this!"
Jet Jaguar appeared in the not-very-good 1973 Godzilla vs. Megalon (How not very good? Well, it was one of the two Godzilla films to have an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 built around it). He hasn't appeared on film since but has appeared in some of the IDW comics. Goro Ibuki was one of the film's human characters and was played by Katsuhiko Sasaki.
Though this version of Jet Jaguar looks exactly like that from the film, he is here built by Bonnie Ibuki, the niece of Goro Ibuki, and her friends.
Aaron makes multiple references to the film. Narration refers to Godzilla as "a monster fueled by the restless souls of those lost in war," which is specific to GMK, wherein Godzilla's metaphor for World War II is made literal, a mysterious old man telling one of the human characters that Godzilla was attacking Japan because they have forgotten the dead of the war.
Like the Godzilla of the film, this one has cloudy white, pupil-less eyes, giving him a particularly sinister appearance.
A high priestess of the Hand, who has here resurrected Godzilla, watches ecstatically as Thor and Godzilla fight, exclaiming:
Yes...Godzilla is even stronger than before!
Stronger than when it slew Mothra and King Ghidorah, the last of the Guardian Monsters!
This too refers to the plot of GMK, as in that particular film, Godzilla is quite unequivocally the bad guy, and a trio of ancient guardian monsters of Japanese myth rise up to oppose him. These are, as the priestess says, Mothra and King Ghidorah (in his only film appearance as a "good guy" monster), as well as Baragon from the very weird 1965 Frankenstein Conquers the World, also known as Frankenstein vs. Baragon. The poor, goofy-looking monster is neither namechecked by the Hand priestess nor included in the title of GMK...
In the film, Godzilla is ultimately destroyed by a human opponent, when an admiral in the Japanese Self-Defense Forces played by Ryudo Uzaki pilots a submarine into Godzilla's open mouth, fires a powerful missile into a wound in the monster's throat which, when Godzilla attempts to use his atomic breath, ends up blowing him up and incinerating his body.
But since Toho never actually seems to let the viewers think Godzilla is ever really dead, not even in standalone films like GMK, the film ends with an image of Godzilla's disembodied heart on the ocean floor...a heart that then resumes beating before the credits roll.
When this comic opens, the Hand has apparently recovered that heart and the priestess has it bathed in a shower of blood from the world's worst killers, which apparently jump-starts it and resurrects Godzilla off-panel.
While I think a comics reader can make it through this volume without much familiarity with various Godzilla films okay, and probably even stumble through the Thor issue, these specific references will probably stick out as confusing if one hasn't seen GMK. And you should see it because, as I said, it's one of the better Godzilla movies.
*If you're not terribly familiar with Godzilla films, I will here note that the 71-year-old, 35-feature film franchise is divided into cycles or eras, some of which are named for the Japanese emperor at the time of their release. The Showa cycle spanned 15 films between 1954's Gojira and 1975's Terror of Mechagodzilla and, a few glitches aside, can basically be viewed as a single, continuing, multi-film saga. It received a reboot in 1984 with The Return of Godzilla, which kicked off the Heisei cycle, which constituted seven films, and has a rather tight film-to-film continuity. It ended with 1995's Godzilla vs. Destoroyah, which killed off the Heisei Godzilla, making room on the world stage for the new, American Godzilla (Which ended up not needing the stage for long, as that Godzilla only starred in a single, 1998 film). The franchise was rebooted again in 1999 with Godzilla Millennium: 2000, the first film of the six-film Millennium cycle, each film of which was meant to be standalone, with a single exception, and ended with 2004's Godzilla: Final Wars. We're currently evolving Reiwa Era, which so far consists only of 2016's Shin Godzilla and 2023's Godzilla Minus One (Unless you count the trio of made-for-Netflix animated films, which I don't). And, of course, the Legendary/Warner Bros "Monsterverse" franchise that kicked off with 2014's Godzilla is still going strong, with Godzilla starring or co-starring in five of its six films, another of which is slated for 2027 release.
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