Ian Thorne - Godzilla

The author gratefully acknowledges the help of Carl Jones in preparing this book.

Copyright 1977 by Crestwood House, Inc.

Photos by Toho Studios, Forrest J. Ackerman, Vincent Miranda, Jr., & Julian May

ISBN: 0-913-94075-5
First printing: October 1977

ebook conversion by AdventureMaster18 and NinjaDentist

RetroReadingTime.com

He's green! He's scaly! He's as tall as a skyscraper!

He breathes fire! He chews up trains! He stomps whole cities into rubble when he's in a bad mood!

Somehow, in spite of all this, he's very, very lovable. People all over the world have cheered him in movies and on TV. He's Godzilla, King of the Monsters.

Godzilla was created by Japanese film-makers in 1954. He was a great hit. And so he has returned again and again in a whole series of monster movies.

Godzilla has fought with many other monsters. There was Rodan, a winged reptile. There was Mothra, loveliest trouble maker in the world. These two became Godzilla's friends and helped him fight Ghidrah, a three-headed dragon.

Many other monsters inhabit the Godzilla movies. There is Godzilla's cute little son, Minya. There are lesser beasts such as spiky Anzilla, Aspiga and Gamakera the spiders, Manda the serpent, Baragon, Gorosaurus, and many more.

Godzilla has fought the giant ape, King Kong. He has battled Gigan from outer space and Hedorah the smog monster. He has even stood up to a robot version of himself!

In the beginning, Godzilla was not lovable. He was a symbol of atomic war and its horrors.

In the early 1950's, many nations were testing atomic weapons. Some people were afraid that a new war would break out. The people of Japan knew more about the effect of atomic war than any nation on earth. World War II had ended when the United States dropped atomic bombs on two Japanese cities.

A Japanese film company, Toho, made a movie about an atomic monster. The movie was a protest against atomic warfare. Its title in Japanese was Gojira.

When the movie was remade for the English-speaking world, it was called Godzilla

An American newspaperman, Steve Martin, lay hurt in the ruins of Tokyo. The great city, with its six million people, was nearly destroyed.

It had begun with a disaster at sea. A Japanese ship had been sunk by a strange fireball. Then more ships were destroyed.

Japanese officials hurried to Oto Island. Its people had seen fiery flashes. They claimed a long-sleeping monster had risen from the sea. The monster's name was Godzilla!

Godzilla toys with attacking airplanes.

At first, scientists would not believe Godzilla existed. But then the monster appeared on the island. Testing with H-bombs had awakened it from a sleep millions of years long.

Godzilla was 400 feet tall. The monster had radioactive breath it could spout like a flame-thrower. Ships tried to destroy Godzilla with depth bombs, but it was unharmed. It followed ships back to Tokyo Harbor and there it came ashore.

Godzilla stalked Japan's largest city. It crushed buildings like paper boxes and tried to eat a train.

Tanks and guns tried in vain to destroy Godzilla. Not even 300,000 volts of electricity could stop the atomic beast. Tokyo seemed doomed, and after that the world!

The radioactive flame-thrower breath of Godzilla burns the countryside around Tokyo.

There was only one man who had a hope of stopping Godzilla. That man was Dr. Serizawa. He had invented a dreadful new weapon, a device which removed oxygen from sea water. Any living thing within reach of the weapon would be turned to bones.

However, Serizawa had told no one of his invention except his fiancee, Imiko. The scientist was afraid evil powers would gain control of the oxygen-destroyer. It would be more dangerous to the world than the H-bomb!

Imiko begged Serizawa to use the oxygen-destroyer on Godzilla. Maybe it would destroy the monster. Nothing else worked so it was worth a try.

Finally, the scientist said he would. But first, he destroyed all blueprints of his weapon. "It will be used only once," Serizawa said, "on Godzilla."

Godzilla shoots fire as the field workers flee for their lives.

A ship took Dr. Serizawa, Imiko, and reporter Steve Martin to the part of the sea where Godzilla was hidden. Putting on a diving suit, Serizawa took his weapon into the monster's den.

Soon everything was ready. But the scientist refused to return to the surface! Instead, he watched as Godzilla approached the oxygen-destroyer. The beast set off the weapon with its mighty foot.

Those in the boat above tried to haul Serizawa up, but he had chosen to die. He was afraid evil persons would force him to reveal the secret of the oxygen-destroyer.

The gigantic Godzilla walks through buildings as if they were paper.

A geyser of water exploded upward beside the ship. Then Godzilla appeared. A monstrous scream rang out, then the scaly horror sank beneath the waves. When Godzilla reached the bottom, only a pile of bones remained.

Steve Martin radioed the news to the world: "The menace is gone, and so is a great man. But now the world can wake up and live again. Perhaps now, with the example set by Dr. Serizawa, we can do so more wisely."

Gigantis does battle with the fire breathing Armadillo.

And so the great Godzilla died. However, movie monsters that make a lot of money never die and Godzilla was a blockbuster. So the monster returned.

Its head was changed slightly. It did not look so mindless, so primitive, as it had before. The second Japanese monster movie was called Gigantis, the Fire Monster.