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“Awakening” seems to exist for the sole purpose of setting the ground work for a lot of exposition the movie may lack down the line. Which is not to say “Awakening” is a bad graphic novel, it just feels like every other movie tie in that’s ever existed. It’s there to provide a major back story. While it lacks the feel of a stand alone story, it’s still a damn good graphic novel that sets the foundation for the 2014 movie very well.
Main character Dr. Serizawa is presumably the father of Ken Watanabe’s character in the 2014 movie, and we follow him along in his quest to bring down Godzilla and the creature that’s begun springing up to fight the king of the monsters once again. Centered on Serizawa, he is brought along to help confront M.U.T.O. (Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organisms). He along with a covert team studies the monsters and then assure that they never reach civilization to impact it any further. Serizawa is forced to help a ship that’s been overtaken by an unknown giant monster, and Serizawa learns the origin of the parasitic flying being.
We also garner a great back story of Godzilla and the beast as something of forces of nature that inevitably burst from their seams, like dormant volcanoes. Beasts that existed before prehistory, they fought one another and survived by the massive radiation left by the comet that hit Earth. They were once again re-awakened by the Nuclear radiation from the bombing at Peal Harbor, thus sticking true to Godzilla’s origins and giving the rival beast a reason to exist. The art work from by Eric Battle, Yvel Guichet, Alan Quah, and Lee Loughridge are very sharp, and never hold back on the beast action.
There are some wonderful splashes of Godzilla lurking in the water and making its way to land, while the narrative for “Awakening” is thankfully very interesting and entertaining in its own right. This is a definite entertaining installment for Godzilla fans, or for anyone anxious to see the 2014 reboot, and I quite enjoyed the grim science fiction approach toward Godzilla and his foe, and how the story is given a very dire tone. It should be a great set up for the movie. And I really love the cover art from Arthur Adams.