Godzilla’s Gigantic Kingzilla Form, Explained Through a King Kong-Inspired New York Story
A new name and height
Godzilla’s height has varied widely across his appearances. Godzilla Minus One and Godzilla Minus Zero depict him at more than 150 feet, while Godzilla: Planet of the Monsters shows him at about 950 feet.
In the Kingzilla story, he stands more than 1,400 feet tall. The name and scale appear in Godzilla vs America: Godzilla vs New York City #1, from Frank Tieri, Mark Texeira, Tom Napolitano and Brian Kolek.
A King Kong story reversed
The comic reimagines the premise of King Kong, the 1933 film. Filmmaker Carl Denham leads an expedition to an island rumored to hold a giant with a simian nature, but the group finds Godzilla in Kong’s place.
Cultists worship Godzilla as their king. He kills Ann Darrow, pursues the expedition back to New York and devastates the city.
Godzilla towers over New York
At the story’s climax, Godzilla recreates King Kong’s climb up the Empire State Building. But Kingzilla towers over the structure, tears it down with his claws and gnaws on the Chrysler Building.
The biplanes that killed King Kong then arrive, but Kingzilla swats them from the air. The comic uses sepia-tinted black and white to echo King Kong’s look, while taking its plot in a very different direction.
Part of a wider series
The story is one entry in an anthology issue imagining Godzilla attacks on New York. The larger Godzilla vs America series also features locations including Los Angeles, Portland and Texas.
Godzilla Minus Zero’s trailer showed Godzilla crushing the Statue of Liberty, but that image is a brief fantasy scene in the movie. The comic series offers repeated stories of Godzilla running through American settings and drawing on their pop-culture associations. Godzilla vs America: Godzilla vs New York City #1 is available from IDW Publishing.
Key points
- Kingzilla stands more than 1,400 feet tall in the comic.
- Godzilla takes King Kong’s place in a story inspired by the 1933 film.
- The story ends with Kingzilla destroying the Empire State Building and attacking the Chrysler Building.
- The wider Godzilla vs America series features several U.S. locations.