Justice League vs. Godzilla vs. Kong team teases the epic scale of new comic crossover
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The superheroes of the Justice League have faced many massive threats in their time, but they're about to face their biggest enemy — literally. DC Comics and Legendary Comics kicked off this year's San Diego Comic-Con on Thursday by announcing a new crossover called Justice League vs. Godzilla vs. Kong.
The miniseries — from writer Brian Buccellato (The Flash), artist Christian Duce (Batman/Fortnite: Zero Point), and colorist Luis Guerrero — will pit DC's pantheon heroes against the iconic inhabitants of the Monsterverse. EW is happy to present an exclusive piece of Duce's interior art below, in which even Superman is dwarfed by the size of Godzilla.
As an artist himself, DC publisher Jim Lee — who exclusively spoke with EW about the crossover on Saturday alongside Buccellato and Legendary publisher Robert Napton — took a particular interest in the visuals of this series, which obviously takes place on a huge scale.
"When you have a story where the characters are this big, there's a size disparity," Lee tells EW. "From an artist's point of view, it is a challenge to compose the shots in a way that you're able to show the drama through the faces, while at the same time clearly conveying what's happening in terms of the action. But Christian just brought it home and has done a fabulous job."
DC Comics/Legendary Comics The Man of Steel faces the King of the Monsters in 'Justice League vs. Godzilla vs. Kong'
After all, the most recent Godzilla movies — beginning with the 2014 film directed by Gareth Edwards — have made a point of emphasizing the monster's hugeness. Often, the human characters in these films can only glimpse Godzilla's shin from street level. Superman may be mighty, but he's still the size of regular humans.
Batman, though, thinks of clever solutions, as you can see in Lee's variant cover below.
"One of my jobs was trying to keep the scale real to the movies," Napton says. "That's a challenge because even superheroes are very small in relation to these creatures. But I think Jim came up with the most brilliant solutions, like with his variant cover where he put Batman in a giant Bat-Mech. When I saw that, I emailed Jim and I was like, 'This is awesome!' There's been a lot of creativity and cleverness about how to show the heroes with these giant monsters and make it work."
Lee adds that at one point he considered showing Batman piloting the mech in a cockpit at the top, but then "they sent me the height mock-up of Godzilla vs. humans, and I realized he would be a tiny little guy in comparison, so I eliminated that element. So we just want you to know there was a lot of quality control on this project to make sure we're really being authentic to the characters and presenting them in the right way."
DC Comics/Legendary Comics Variant cover for 'Justice League vs. Godzilla vs. Kong' by Jim Lee
Readers who are caught up on DC comics know that the Justice League is currently dead following last year's Dark Crisis event, but they shouldn't worry — as with many intercompany crossovers, Justice League vs. Godzilla vs. Kong is separate from current continuity.
Buccellato, whose bona fides include writing past comics for both DC and Legendary as well as a tattoo of the Flash on one arm and a tattoo of King Kong on the other, had a blast bringing a wide cast of DC heroes into the story.
"It's definitely the classic characters. You've got a Green Lantern, Green Arrow, Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Hawkgirl — and also Supergirl!" Buccellato exclaims. "A conceit from the beginning of the first issue is that Superman is about to go on his first vacation ever, so to make sure that they have their resident superpowered Kryptonian, Supergirl steps in to temporarily join the Justice League. She was probably my favorite add out of all of them. But you're gonna see people from Gotham, you'll see some Titans, you'll see auxiliary Justice League members. The cast is pretty big."
The other side of the battlefield will be crowded as well, Buccellato teases: "There will be more monsters. I'm not allowed to say which, but Kong and Godzilla are not the only two giant monsters that the Justice League is going to have to face. Things are going to get crazy."
DC Comics/Legendary Comics Variant cover for 'Justice League vs. Godzilla vs. Kong' by Dan Mora
Battle lines may not be drawn exactly as it seems, though.
"One great thing about Godzilla is that Godzilla is obviously not a villain, but not quite a hero either," Buccellato says. "Godzilla is about restoring balance and the order of nature. So when Godzilla ends up in this world with metahumans and superheroes and supervillains, things are upset. So that's going to make Godzilla want to do what Godzilla does, which is create order."
Justice League vs. Godzilla vs. Kong #1 is set to hit stores on Oct. 17.
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