Justice League vs. Godzilla vs. Kong - TV Tropes (2024)

Justice League vs. Godzilla vs. Kong is an ongoing comic book series made as a collaboration between DC Comics and Legendary Pictures through their comics wing, Legendary Comics, written by Brian Buccellato with art by Christian Duce and Luis Guerrer. The first issue was released in October of 2023.

As the Justice League continues their heroic quest to safeguard humanity, Clark Kent, known to his comrades as Superman, grapples with the personal anxieties of proposing Lois Lane to marry him with support from his teammates. However, all is not well despite their best efforts.

The Legion of Doom had managed to infiltrate Superman's Fortress of Solitude before the League could stop them, and made off with a projector to the Phantom Zone dimension. However, due to interference, the villains instead accidentally are teleported to a mysterious island ruled by an ape-like titan named Kong. Finding themselves at a MONARCH outpost in a new universe ruled by giant monsters, Toyman decides to make use of the local powerhouses in a bid to rid themselves of the League once and for all. A mysterious gemstone he recovered from the Fortress was all he needed.

Back in Metropolis, as Clark and Lois enjoy their moment, the ground suddenly begins to shake and a towering monstrosity shadows the city. As Superman quickly flies into action to protect the city, the threat he faces is like none he has seen before. Godzilla.

A sequel will be released in 2025.

Justice League vs. Godzilla vs. Kong provides examples of:

  • Bat Out of Hell: Camazotz sets his eyes on Gotham City, leading to a desperate battle between the Bat Family and the bat Titan.
  • Beam-O-War: In #2 between Superman's Eye Beams and Godzilla's atomic breath. They're evenly matched, so Shazam tries to tip the scales in Superman’s favor by hitting Godzilla with his magic lightning.
  • Be Careful What You Wish For: The entire plot starts because a petulant Toyman makes wishes on the Dreamstone. He meets his end when he wishes to be closer to a fight Godzilla is having and ends up so close he gets Trampled Underfoot.
  • Behemoth Battle: A three way battle takes place at the end of Issue 4 and for most of Issue 5 between Tiamat, Godzilla and Kraken. At first, it's only Godzilla and Tiamat fighting each other, but Aquaman releases the Kraken as a last defense for Atlantis, and the kaiju joins the fight immediately.
  • Big Bad: Lex Luthor. While much of the conflict of the comic is the Justice League fighting the Titans, Luthor’s plan to defeat the Justice League by breaking into the Fortress of Solitude is what kicks off the plot. Eventually he plots to take control of the Kaiju using a rebuilt Mechagodzilla, setting Luthor up as the main threat for the heroes and the Titans in issue 6.
  • Broad Strokes: Both the DC universe and MonsterVerse are slightly different from their typical canon. The DC universe resembles the Superfriends cartoon with more mature sensibilities, with very similar team compositions for the Justice League and Legion of Doom and the former operating out of the Hall of Justice. The Monsterverse closely resembles the films.
  • C-List Fodder: When Superman is struck down, Atom-Smasher, a member of the Justice Society, steps up to protect him and Billy from Godzilla; bravely engaging the kaiju in a brawl. Sadly, Godzilla eventually overpowers and kills him, being just a normal human with growing powers.
  • Cool Versus Awesome:
    • The comic features a fight between Superman, the iconic superhero, and Godzilla, the iconic kaiju.
    • Issue #6 ramps up the coolness factor by setting up a mecha battle between Luthor's mecha-Godzilla, Batman's giant robot, and the Green Lanterns' Megazord-like Green Latern Robo.
  • Combining Mecha: In issue #6, five Green Lanterns (Jessica Cruz, John Stewart, Guy Gardner, Simon Baz and Kyle Rayner) each control a member of their Megazord.
  • Composite Character: The Dreamstone is depicted with its comic appearance as a large ruby, but grants any wish made while holding it, like in Wonder Woman 1984.
  • Crossover: It's a crossover between DC comics and Godzilla and King Kong.
  • Empowered Badass Normal: For a given value of "Normal", when Guy Gardner's ring finds its way to Kong's finger.
  • Even Evil Has Standards:
    • Penguin seems somewhat concerned when Giganta seemingly kills Blockbuster while punching Shazam in Issue 5. Scarecrow, not so much.
    • Toyman sees the giant creatures of the Monsterverse and wants to bring them back to the DC universe to kill the Justice League. The rest of the Legion of Doom hates the idea, as they consider giant monsters to be too dangerous to have around. Luthor changes his mind when he realizes he can control the Titans using Mechagodzilla.
  • Expy Coexistence: Titano the Super-Ape, DC's notorious Expy of King Kong, shows up in the first issue. Later, Kong himself appears and gets transported to the DC universe as well.
  • The Friend Nobody Likes: Guy Gardner is this towards his fellow Green Lanterns. Even after he dies and Superman tries to say something nice about him, the other Green Lanterns make it clear they won't miss him.
  • From Bad to Worse: Just when the Justice League have Godzilla chained within an ocean trench at tremendous cost to themselves, Lex Luthor activates a newly built Mecha-Godzilla to fight the other kaiju while Ra's al Ghul is about to drop the skull of The Skulldevil into a large Lazarus Pit. With one of Godzilla's deadliest foes about to appear, it's only a matter of time before an actual Godzilla Threshold is crossed.
  • Gentle Giant:
    • Behemoth. It does not try to hurt anyone, and once Wonder Woman successfully communicates with it, she is able to redirect it from populated areas.
    • Kong does not attack any humans and ironically gets into a fight with Supergirl because she makes a hasty decision and throws the first punch.
  • Godzilla Threshold:
    • One caused by Godzilla. When he and Tiamat being fighting dangerously close to Atlantis, Aquaman has no choice but to release the kingdom's last and most dangerous line of defense: the Kraken.
    • Naturally, it gets played straight when an imprisoned Godzilla is released by a revived Superman for the final battle.
  • Humans Are the Real Monsters: While Godzilla and the other Kaiju cause damage to the DC universe, the Legion of Doom are the true villains, only showing concern about the presence of the Kaiju due to concerns about them being uncontrollable. Once Luthor discovers Mechagodzilla, he plots to rebuild it, then use it to control the Titans and Take Over the World.
  • Humongous Mecha: Not only does Batman haul out his own Bat-Mecha, but the Green Lanterns use their powers to create their own willpower-formed machine to battle the threats.
  • It's All My Fault: Billy's devastated that Superman is possibly killed and blames himself since his actions lead to it.
  • "Jaws" Attack Parody: One of the panels of Issue 5 references the cover of Jaws, showing Tiamat rising up from below a swimming Flash with its mouth open in an attempt to eat him.
  • Killed Off for Real: Well, not that it really matters, since its not canon to the normal DC universe, but by the end of the series Atom-Smasher, Blockbuster, Toyman, and Guy Gardner are all dead.
  • Killer Gorilla: Resident giant-ape monster of the DC Universe, Titano, makes an appearance. Gorilla Grodd also features as a member of the Legion of Doom, and is immediately in awe at Kong and tries to communicate with him (which doesn't work). The first time. The second...
  • Kraken and Leviathan: Tiamat, a draconic sea serpent Titan, threatens Atlantis. When Godzilla arrives to battle her, Aquaman releases The Kraken against them both.
  • Locked Out of the Loop: When Shazam tells everyone of Superman's supposed death, Batman refuses to believe it and tells everyone not to tell Lois until he can confirm it.
  • Make a Wish:
    • The crossover is initiated by a disgruntled Toyman wishing on the Dreamstone. This first brings the Legion to the MonsterVerse, and then brings the Titans over to the DC Universe.
    • Shazam says this to Luthor just before he, Supergirl, and the Amazons rip off both of Mechagodzilla's arms.
  • Mech vs. Beast: In Issue 6, Batman uses his giant robot to fight the Titans attacking Metropolis off. He is joined in the fight by the Lantern Green Corps, who construct a giant robot around themselves with the rings.
  • My Significance Sense Is Tingling: When Supergirl attempts to aid Hal and Flash with Iron Heights' breakout/Titan invasion, she suddenly stops when she realizes she can't hear Superman's heartbeat.
  • Mythology Gag:
    • To the Superfriends series:
      • Cheetah derisively calls the Justice League's tight teamwork as them being "Superfriends".
      • The Legion of Dooms lineup are the same core members (with a few absences) from the Challenge of the Superfriends incarnation.
      • The big battle has the fully-gathered League and Legion groups Zerg Rush at each other, reminiscent of the Challenge of... title sequence.
    • From long tradition with King Kong, a blonde woman draws his fascination.
    • Grodd takes mental control of Kong instead of forming a cooperative relation with him. Grodd did the same on Kong-expy Titano one time.
    • Beast Boy becomes a giant-ape copy of Kong and boasts, "This Kong ain't got nothing on me!"
    • Batman takes out Mechagodzilla by breaking it over the knee of the Bat-Mecha.
  • Names The Same: This is the third time a Kraken has appears in the Monsterverse setting, though this one is DC's last line of Atlantis' defense, not to be confused with the Monsterverse's Na Kika or the Titan that tried to usurp Kong's rule over Skull Island.
  • Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
    • Jason Todd shoots Camazotz in the eye with an Anti-Tank rifle. It hurts him, but Camazotz' reprisal against the building he was on nearly kills several people when Batman was trying to keep his attention on the Batwings in the sky.
    • Shazam's lightning trick works, But since Superman has to catch Billy, he's left open to taking a full atomic blast from Godzilla.
  • Poor Communication Kills: Since Godzilla and the other Kaiju cannot speak any words the Justice League understand, a fight breaks out between Godzilla and Superman due to the Man of Steel not understanding why Godzilla is in Metropolis. Supergirl later gets into a brief fight with Kong because she mistakes him for a threat.
  • Staring Contest: Supergirl gets in one with Kong in Issue 4, with neither of them willing to give in. Green Arrow, on the other hand, knows better than to try to do the same.
  • Strong as They Need to Be: One moment, Shazam is powerful enough to topple Godzilla with Supergirl's help. A few issues later, he's knocked flat by a single blow from Giganta, who's not nearly as large or as strong.
  • Thinking Out Loud: Subverted in Issue 5. Green Arrow sneaks onto a League of Assassins boat and thinks he should be able to take down his enemies one by one thanks to the cover of the night, only for him to realize that a large group of League members has spotted him. He wonders if he's been thinking out loud, but a League member tells him he hasn't.
  • Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny: Superman vs Godzilla. They even clash their iconic powers, the atomic breath vs the heat vision, which are shown to nullify each other. Godzilla wins against Superman, fatally injuring him with the atomic breath while Superman was trying to protect Billy from him. Everyone except for Batman believes Superman might be dead.
  • Wham Shot:
    • Issue 3 ends with Lex Luthor discovering the source of the signal summoning the other Titans: Mechagodzilla's eye.
    • Issue 4 ends with the revelation that Luthor has the rest of Mechagodzilla.
  • Worf Effect:
    • Titano, despite being a large monster in his own right, is utterly dwarfed by the Titans and Superman easily handling him shows a huge difference between them.
    • Issue #2 ends with Superman downed after taking a full blast from Godzilla.
  • Worf Had the Flu: Superman loses the fight with Godzilla because he saves Billy from getting hit by Godzilla’s Breath Weapon. Who would have won the fight if this didn't happen is up in the air.
Justice League vs. Godzilla vs. Kong - TV Tropes (2024)

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