Godzilla's Monsterpiece Theatre: Romeo & Juliet and Godzilla [Review]
The latest entry in Scioli's Monsterpiece Theatre universe is proof that there's no medium quite like comics
Tom Scioli created something genuinely strange and wonderful when he launched the Monsterpiece Theatre concept, and the best evidence that the idea has legs beyond his own involvement is this first issue. Romeo & Juliet and Godzilla is written by Adam Tierney with art by Sean Peacock, and the fact that it fits so comfortably inside the world Scioli built says everything about how well both creators understood the assignment.
Tierney's script does something that sounds easy but isn't: it plays the Shakespeare completely straight. The Shakespearean text isn't being winking at you, it's being staged, just with Mothra hovering above the Capulet ball and Mechagodzilla lumbering through the streets as a stand-in for whatever feudal grievance Shakespeare originally had in mind. When Tybalt draws his sword, there's a mech dropping a building in the background. When Romeo pines for Rosaline, Godzilla is literally stomping through the scene behind him. The joke is built into the premise, and Tierney is smart enough to let it breathe rather than oversell it. The violence and passion and fate baked into this story map onto kaiju destruction with more coherence than you'd expect, because these monsters have always been metaphors. Tierney just makes that explicit.
Peacock's art is where the book really finds its footing. The palette pulls hard from Silver Age sensibility, warm pinks, flat purples, saturated golds and fiery reds that feel like they were printed on newsprint by a machine having a good day. But the paneling is bolder than anything you'd have found on a spinner rack in 1964. Peacock plays with scale and composition in ways that feel genuinely theatrical, which is exactly right for Shakespeare. Wide establishing shots of Verona mid-kaiju-rampage give way to intimate exchanges where Romeo and Juliet are working through the play's actual dialogue, and neither element undercuts the other. It's a tricky visual balancing act and Peacock sticks the landing consistently.
The back-up strip, Scioli's own Godzilla Meets Robin Hood and His Merry Band of Outlaws, carries the maestro's unmistakable fingerprints. The limited color palette of greens and warm browns gives it the feel of something pulled from a very specific era of adventure comics, and the action sequences on the ship are kinetic and confident in a way that only Scioli can pull off. Robin Hood fighting off a small army while Godzilla lurks in the water below is exactly as fun as it sounds, and the strip closes with a promise that the next installment will tackle the Odyssey. If the idea of Godzilla lumbering through ancient Greece alongside Odysseus doesn't put a smile on your face, this might not be the book for you.
If you've never read Shakespeare and you picked this up, you'd encounter some of the most beautiful language in the English literary tradition right alongside a panel of Godzilla crushing a mouthy Capulet with his tail.
Comics can do things no other medium can, and this book is a good reminder of that.
Godzilla Monsterpiece Theatre: Romeo & Juliet and Godzilla
With a stunning retro style, alongside a fantastic adaptation of the classic Shakesperean tale, Tierney and Peacock do Scioli proud with the mainline narrative.
