The Fate of Las Vegas

GODZILLA, KING OF THE MONSTERS — Issue no. 9, January 1978

Book: Godzilla, King of the Monsters

Issue No.: 9

Published: January 3, 1978

Title: “The Fate of Las Vegas”

Cover Price: 35¢

Format: Original paper copy

Last week I celebrated the publication of my 200th Marvel Time Warp post. And today I’m celebrating the one-year anniversary of Marvel Time Warp! That’s right, I made my first Marvel Time Warp post one year ago, on May 23, 2022. In hindsight, I should have probably timed it out so the 200th post hit on the one-year anniversary and celebrated both milestones at once. But then again, these days I’ll take all the celebrating I can get. So yay for Marvel Time Warp, and an extra yay for all of you nice folks who read Marvel Time Warp.

In that 200th post, I mentioned that I’ve been collecting some 1978 Marvel comic books, and The Human Fly is one of the ones I’ve had a relatively easy time finding in back-issue bins at comic shops and conventions. One of the most difficult 1978 Marvel books to find is Godzilla, King of the Monsters. I suspect this is because (1) it’s awesome and (2) it has rarely been reprinted (either digitally or in trade paperbacks). Why are Godzilla, King of the Monsters reprints so rare? The rights to the book are messy, because it prominently features both Godzilla (not currently owned or licensed by Marvel) and a bunch of Marvel characters (still owned by Marvel). I’d guess there are similar issues with other books that feature characters like Rom and the Micronauts. (Breaking news as I prep this post for Substack — Marvel just announced a deal with toymaker Hasbro to reprint Rom comic books! So maybe one day we’ll get Marvel Micronauts reprints and even Marvel Godzilla reprints.)

So far, I have bought one Marvel Godzilla book, and it’s the one I’m writing about today, issue number 9. I paid twelve bucks for it, which is really breaking the bank for me — I’m not looking to invest in comic books, I’m just trying to find affordable copies to read. I usually try to stick to the five-buck price range, but I splurged here because (1) Marvel’s Godzilla is awesome and (2) I wanted to own at least one issue.

Did I get my money’s worth on this issue of Godzilla, King of the Monsters? Yeah, I think I did. Like a lot of great Godzilla stories, this one is an epic disaster tale that also has some good small-scale human drama at its center. The disaster aspect involves Godzilla destroying the Boulder Dam (AKA Hoover Dam) which eventually floods Las Vegas. The human drama revolves around an inveterate gambler named Winslow Beddit who puts his last dime in a slot machine, wins, bets the winnings on roulette and wins again… and then watches the casino around him get destroyed by Godzilla and flood waters before he can claim his prize money. And the page before Winslow’s casino gets destroyed is an amazing mid-issue splash, showing Godzilla being carried, tail-over-head, into Las Vegas by a giant tidal wave.

There’s some nice thematic stuff about how Godzilla and the gambler are both subject to their own urges, urges they don’t always understand, and about the way modest humans and gigantic monsters are subject to the whims of random luck.

This particular issue is also nice to own because it is basically a one-and-done. Even though there are plot threads continued from the previous issue and plot threads that will remain unresolved till later issues (most of those involve S.H.I.E.L.D. agents and young Rob Takiguchi and Rob’s giant robot Red Ronin), the main story about Godzilla wrecking the dam and the gambler winning big but still losing begins and ends here. It’s another solid issue of one of my favorite 1978 Marvel books.

Next time — Kull the Destroyer visits the world-within-a-world!