ATG Comic Review: Monsters #1

Welcome back, everyone. I want to start off this week by saying I hope everyone out there is doing what’s needed to be safe from Hurricane Dorian, and my prayers go out to all of the people affected by this. The All Things Geek team is located in Florida, so you can be sure we are watching this storm closely just in case we have to evacuate or something. However, until that happens, we will continue to bring you our reviews. This week we have two reviews for you and possibly even the bonus two that I had wanted to get to last week. As usual, these reviews are being brought to you by Vibranium Comics and Games in Ocala Florida. Be sure to keep a lookout on their Facebook page by clicking on the banner below as they have some great events that they are already planning for next year in the works. I am happy to announce that we will be at the local event in January, so be sure to come and say hello!

So the first comic I want to go over is one that’s basically a continuation I guess from another series that was called Monsters Unleashed by Marvel Comics. This one, however, is just called Monsters. The premise is a simple one so far in that there’s a kid named Kid Kaiju who somehow has the power to make monsters or Kaiju come to life by drawing them. This is actually very similar to a storyline from this last season of Legends of Tomorrow, which saw an enchanted book bring a Japanese filmmakers monster to life but seeing as I’m pretty sure Monsters Unleashed came out before that show was filmed I find it funny that this is just another case of the Arrowverse running with a version of what Marvel is doing (which seems to happen more often than you may imagine). So in this issue, Kid Kaiju finds a book that details how certain monsters work biologically and he realizes that in the right hands this could be a monster recipe book. Well, it just so happens that a descendant of Doctor Frankenstein is the one that’s been playing with the book so it seems those wrong hands were found.

I thought this was a good interesting start, but I did have a few problems with this book. For starters in the middle of the story, they waste about 8 to 10 pages for a good art page of a monster and then a page of stats for the same monster that looked like a tech manual you may see for Dungeons and Dragons to help your GM understand how a monster works better. To me, this took away from the story as these weren’t extra pages added in but instead shortened the actual story by taking the place of normal story pages. Another thing that kinda bothered me was when Kid Kaiju called his monster friends forth. It said at the beginning of the book that he can bring to life monsters he draws so in the heat of battle he takes out a sketch pad and by the next art frame, he has summoned like 6 or 7 monsters. I know with comics you have to suspend your disbelief but if he has to fully draw the monsters he wouldn’t be able to get further than stick figures in that time. I guess he can have them mostly drawn except for a line or two or something maybe but this just bothered me.

All in all, I did enjoy it I just wish they had used those middle pages to further the story and develope things a bit more. I’m looking forward to at least get a few more of these and see where they may take this.

Did you guys read this one or the Monsters Unleashed comics that lead into this? If so what did you think of them? If you like what we do here and want to support us then drop by ko-fi.com/thalra. Any donations will be used to make this site better or get more things to review for you like cool geek toys or subscription boxes and such. Catch you all later.