Few franchises can claim to be as enduring as Godzilla. For more than 70 years, the King of the Monsters has ruled the big screen, video games, merchandise shelves and comics. In that time, the series has taken on many forms, from the delightfully campy to the Oscar-winning Godzilla Minus One. Now, Starship Godzilla seeks to break more new ground by going full interstellar kaiju.
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Starship Godzilla is part of IDW’s recently launched Kai-Sei Era, an interconnected universe of Godzilla comics that also includes the main Godzilla title, as well as the exceptionally bizarre Godzilla: Escape the Deadzone. The publisher saved the biggest, weirdest swing for last, with this new book taking a ragtag group on a trip through the stars in a spaceship made from the body of Mechagodzilla. The series is boldly going where Godzilla has never gone before and we at Fango are proud to bring an exclusive look at the book your way.
The book centers on a ragtag group who flies through space in Mechagodzilla and takes high-risk, high-reward missions across the galaxy. A kaiju heading toward your planet? Give them a call. A colossal space pest clogging up your trade route? They’ll get rid of it. A galactic civil war utilizing kaiju on both sides? They’ll do their best to stay out of it. But where there’s a galactic war, there’s a galactic conspiracy and this may be one fight our crew doesn’t land on the same side of.
Here, we have an exclusive interview with writer Chris Gooch and artist Oliver Ono, as well as editor Jake Williams all about the book. We also are pleased to reveal several of Gooch’s variant covers for the first issue, which hits stands in October. The final pre-order cutoff for the first issue is Monday, August 25. You can use ComicShopLocator.com to find a shop near you. Now, for our chat with the team.
How did Starship Godzilla come about?
Chris Gooch: I originally pitched Starship Godzilla as a standalone story waaay back in January 2024. I had no idea Jake was developing a new shared universe at the time but when he mentioned the possibility of adapting the original pitch into something that could live in the cosmic side of the new universe, it was a no-brainer.
Jake Williams: The first Starship Godzilla pitch I received from Chris was this incredible and hardcore story about a group of raiders who had turned actual Godzilla into a frankenstein-esque starship. The story followed this dastardly group on one raid that went wrong, and then ended with Godzilla destroying the raiders and imperial forces alike. It was Rad…but it also didn’t fit into Toho guidelines.
After a very brief discussion with Chris about what we could and couldn’t do, he basically sent over the current version of Starship Godzilla fully formed. Rohan and Ayan were both there, as well as the basic structure we’ve still kept. The story followed the crew in the far future flying around on mechagodzilla and interacting with all of the Toho kaiju…but there were two things happening behind the scenes – Toho didn’t want the earth-based kaiju out in space, and I was working with some other creators on a budding connected universe.
Thus, an easy change was made. We could bring Starship Godzilla into the Kai-Sei Era, change it from being the future to the present, and use this book as the home for all of the cosmic kaiju. I asked Oliver to officially join the project during SDCC 2024. Oliver had just done a book called Godzilla: Monster Island Summer camp for IDW and I couldn’t imagine letting such a talented artist leave the Godzilla-verse so soon.
Oliver Ono: I had just finished up drawing Godzilla: Monster Island Summer Camp and was at SDCC shopping story ideas around. One of them was for Jake Williams, a limited series about Mechagodzilla and another kaiju. I had even done a few kaiju illustrations in the lead up. It turned out that Jake already had me in mind for a new project, Starship Godzilla! Everything happened pretty quick from there. After the con, I got a few character descriptions and briefs from Chris and we tweaked them until we were all happy and that was that!
Starship Godzilla was likened to a VHS anime. I get Saturday morning cartoon vibes. Were any animated shows used as an inspiration?
Gooch: Cowboy Bebop and Space Dandy are a huge influence! I also have a huge soft spot for the very first Digimon OVA directed by Mamoru Hosoda (Summer Wars, The Girl Who Leapt Through Time) which is basically E.T. meets Godzilla. In general, so much anime seems like a riff on the original Godzilla concept and its themes – Evangelion, Attack on Titan, Pokemon 2000 – so there’s a lot to pull from.
Ono: I second that from Chris – Shinichiro Watanabe is one of my biggest heroes and specifically I feel like Space Dandy is super underrated. Series like that and Gurren Laggan do this really cool thing where they take really retro sci-fi design ideas and recontextualize them in a more modern, relatable way. That concept is so ripe for a Godzilla story because Toho literally pioneered so much of that aesthetic as a whole.
Aside from that, generally the '80s, '90s Era of sci-fi in Manga and Anime is really important to me. Appleseed, Outlaw Star and Toriyama's tech and aliens come to mind. I think I was just lucky enough to see Otomo's Memories at objectively far too young an age and never looked back!
What Godzilla movies – if any – could you compare this to?
Gooch: Lore-wise, we’re definitely drawing from [Invasion of the] Astro-Monster and Final Wars. I also love everything about Shin Godzilla, but particularly the scale – which we try to build towards as the series goes on. Issue 6 is where everything comes together for something big.
Ono: On a storytelling level, Chris pretty much covered it. One thing I always really liked about the non-kaiju characters in Godzilla movies is that they have so much heart. Noriko and Koichi in Minus One, Akane in Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla, etc. The kind of people that step up in the presence of something as insurmountable as a Kaiju for good, for bad, themselves or others need to be massively passionate and that's what I want to bring to the crew of Starship Godzilla.
How long could you see the book running? Is this a 12 issue concept or a 100 issue concept?
Williams: Starship Godzilla is the sort of concept that could run forever – but that’s entirely dependent on readers and fans discovering this book. If you’re interested in this book and want to see a kaiju space epic go 100 issues, then we really need you to preorder starting with issue 1. Call your local comic shop!
Gooch: Yes, please pre-order issue 1!
Ono: It's a galaxy full of potential stories and I'm having a great time drawing it so I'd love to keep it going for a while! Please pre-order and share with friends, Godzilla fans and otherwise!
Is there some sort of crossover event in mind that you're all building to with the other kai-sei era books? I'm sure you can't dive into specifics but that feels like a no brainer.
Gooch: The 2015 Star Wars crossover Vader Down is a favourite. I'd love to have our characters crash-land into the mainline book or Deadzone at some point in the future.
Ono: I got to draw Kai-Sei Godzilla for the first time at a ComicCon event so I'm warming up for whatever they throw my way! Safe to say it's in the cards down the line.
Starship Godzilla hits shelves on October 1.
