The Godzilla Legends series doesn’t focus on Godzilla, but that’s not a bad thing. Periphery monsters get their own stories. In this issue, the underused kaiju Titanosaurus gets the spotlight. The United Nations enlists Tristan, a young man gifted with amazing mind-reading abilities. The young lady responsible for the recruitment is Miki Saegusa. G-Fans will recognize her as the mentalist who had a connection with Godzilla in the Heisei series of films.

Tristan seems to have a psychic connection to Titanosaurus, the aquatic menace from The Terror of Mechagodzilla. During the training, Tristan brings forth the monster from the ocean’s floor. And then aliens abduct the boy and the monster.

The Problems:

1) There’s too much dialogue. Kaiju don’t talk in Godzilla films (except for the American dub of 1972’s Godzilla on Monster Island). With the monsters having nothing to say, the writers overcompensate by having the humans say way too much.

2) Titanosaurus barely appears in this comic. Here’s a tip for writers of the Godzilla comics: watch the films and learn the formula. The monster shows up, the humans react, then the monster stomps model buildings and fights mecha and other monsters. Godzilla Legends suffers from an under use of that formula and the monsters. That’s a shame because Godzilla: Kingdom of Monsters works so well.

The Cool:

1) There’s an awesome two-page spread of the aliens constructing an army of Mechagodzillas. Additionally, they are gathering troops and space tanks. On top of all that, Titanosaurus fights his shackles in a pool prison. The pages took my breath away with the war that the images imply.

There’s a promise of something amazing building up in the storylines of this comic. The main problem is that the storytelling in this particular Godzilla books needs polishing.

Score: 2/5

Writer: Mike Raicht Artist: Tony Parker Publisher: IDW Publishing Price: $3.99