Hulk vs Godzilla Review

Well, this is a surprise. Last time we were here I said that this review would be delayed since I was going to be away when it dropped. Only to witness the episode itself getting delayed, so I ended getting this review out on time anyway. Lucky me.

I’d say I was happy about this, and in some ways, I am, but I’m not. Because if there was one episode that absolutely should not have been delayed it was Hulk vs Godzilla. Not because I couldn’t wait for it or because I see no reason for why it shouldn’t be, production issues happen I get that, but because FUCK ME THIS WAITING PERIOD WAS BAD!

It wasn’t even the toxic fanboy stuff, I didn’t even see most of that, it was just the sheer bafflement of the debate. I don’t think I’ve seen a vs debate as stupidly complicated as this since Simon vs Kyle, which admittedly wasn’t that long ago but still.

You’d think it would be simple. Two big radioactive monsters that smash stuff, that’s it right? That’s all these two are, but no. No, they had to just make these two the most overpowered characters of all time. I knew Hulk was stupid strong with Marvel comic scaling, but I never knew anything about the absurdity of Godzilla. Oh sure Toho, make Godzilla an eldritch horror, that makes total sense.

The more I learned about this debate, the less interested I became. It’s the opposite of how it usually is for me. Most times I get more interested in a debate the more I look into it, but here I tapped out as soon as I could.

There is a point where power scaling stops being fun, and this kind of cosmic malarky is it for me. And I hate that I feel this way because I like both characters. Godzilla is cool and I’m glad to see him back, and Hulk has been a favourite of mine since I was a kid. It’s a shame he’s staring down the barrel of an 0-3, but at least we can all agree one of his losses was BS.

But hey, that doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy this one. So, let’s go in with an open mind and see how the episode stacks up.

Analysis

Right off the bat I love the quotes they gave for both characters. It really drives home the kinds of monsters they are. Hulk a representation of the beast within us all, and Godzilla the destruction that can be wrought by man. Gets a bit philosophical, but thankfully they don’t go too far with that.

Now, Hulk has appeared a few times on the show before, so they’ve already gone over a lot of his feats and scaling in the past. A lot of what they covered should be familiar to long time fans of the show, but there were plenty of new things here too from more recent, and older comics. So it didn’t feel too much like a re-tread.

The angle they took was interesting too. Focusing more on the different facets of the Hulk and the various versions of Hulk there were. Serving as a nice contrast/compliment to the angle they took with Godzilla. Sort of like how the angle they took with Hulk vs Broly focused on his abusive childhood to match Broly’s story.

Godzilla’s analysis also focused on the different versions of Godzilla. Which makes sense since this is a composite Godzilla. A nice change from previous Godzilla fights which mainly focused on the Heisei era with some Showa and Millennium stuff thrown in.

We get to see a lot of different stuff from Monsterverse to Shin to that godawful anime trilogy. Even though the debate is centred mostly on Ultima, I’m glad they didn’t focus solely on him. Only bringing him up at the end. Speaking of which, I’m glad that they saved all the confusing cosmic stuff for the end of the analysis. For both characters I should stress.

If I’m being perfectly honest, the cosmic stuff wasn’t nearly as confusing as I thought it would be. They kept it simple, well as simple as it could be, and saved most of the details for the results which makes sense. I was shocked at how easy it was to follow along, especially after previous episodes with confusing debates often had me rewind the episode just so I could follow along. Kudos to them for that.

I also greatly appreciated that Banner was actually brought up too, and not just in a passing mention but as a part of the fight. Past Hulk episodes only focused on Hulk himself, which is fine, but Banner is a very important part of Hulk’s character. Not including him felt wrong. I’m glad to see them do so here.

Though one thing that wasn’t brought up was the various Godzilla crossovers. I can see why that would be irritating to some, but crossovers are screwy when it comes to power scaling. I mean Sonic is hanging with DC at the moment, and that messes with his scaling a lot.

It’s also consistent with Death Battle to not use crossovers. They didn’t do it for Omni-Man or Transformers so it’s understandable why they wouldn’t here. I know technically the Marvel comics version of Godzilla is canon to Marvel, so he should get Marvel comics scaling, but then that version became a different character due to rights issues, and Ultima isn’t canon to Marvel nor was it addressed in Singular point, see this is why you shouldn’t use this stuff. It just get too convoluted.

I think it’s best to keep crossovers out of this since it raises too many questions. Except the Charles Barkley one because that’s too funny not to bring up. I actually love that they brought up a lot of Godzilla’s weirder material. Like the ads or the chibi versions of him. They clearly knew Godzilla was a deep franchise with many faces and wanted to show it off.

There’s a great amount of respect for both characters shown here. They make fun of some stuff like Minilla, fucking Minilla, or the infamous panel of baby Bruce being slapped, but it never comes off as disrespectful. It’s all in good fun. You can tell the writers and researchers really like both these characters and wanted to show how cool and goofy they could get.

The editing was solid as usual. It goes really hard with some of the effects resembling an old monster movie. which perfectly fit the theme of the fight. The music was great and fit both characters perfectly, and I always love how dynamic they made the comic panels look.

It’s a good solid job. I also liked how much media they pulled from both. From the old movies, comics, videogames, and even TV shows. Made for better visual variety in the footage and better showed off the legacy these guys have.

It was a solid analysis. It had a healthy amount of character stuff to go along with the typical power scaling. Always like seeing them do that. It did go by a bit quick though. While I appreciate not being bogged down by the details, it did feel a bit lacking in them. If you’re a calc guy prepare for disappointment since there aren’t any here. Not that calcs would change the result, but still.

Obviously with a fight as complicated as this skimming details will probably rub people the wrong way, but I think they did a good job of focusing on the important elements. You have to keep in mind that Death Battle isn’t just for power scaling nerds on Reddit, it’s for everyone.

Not every person who watches a Death Battle is going to be that familiar with power scaling or the weird cosmic level feats. A lot of them would probably check out if you tried to explain a lot of the wilder shit in power scaling.

The analysis does a good job of making sure the casuals can understand what’s going on. It’s still a bit convoluted, but if I can follow along, I’m sure others can. The black boxes did help provide some context, and thankfully it felt like the black boxes were there for supplementary info and nothing too important.

Good analysis overall. A bit short, it could have used a little breathing room to let the information sink in, but it was sweet. It covered everything it needed, the jokes flowed naturally and didn’t distract too much, and it kept things visually interesting. Not much to complain about. But now we move on to the main event.

Fight Animation

Before going too deep into this, I want to talk about how this animation stacks up to previous Hulk and Godzilla fights. It’s obviously better than Hulk vs Doomsday and Godzilla vs Gamera. Not that those fights were bad, I like the Gamera fight a lot, but they are older episodes that are starting to show their age.

I do not think it’s as good as Hulk vs Broly though. Regardless of the result, that fight is goated. It’s one of the best 3D fights in the show’s history. Perhaps it’s unfair to compare the two, but I do so early on for a reason. The Broly fight was pretty much a traditional Death Battle fight, but Hulk vs Godzilla is trying something a bit different.

Comparing it to the Broly fight is like comparing apples and oranges. They are two completely different kinds of fights, and when taken on its own, Hulk vs Godzilla is a damned fun battle.

It starts off like a typical Death Battle fight. Just a nice big brawl between our mean green combatants. One thing that makes the fight so interesting is the size difference between the two. Hulk is a big guy, but Godzilla is in another league. You can see that sense of scale plays out in the fight.

Hulk is animated as much more acrobatic and nimble compared to the lumbering Godzilla. Climbing all over him but also being swatted away by Godzilla’s tail and being crushed under foot at the same time. You really feel the size difference between the two. I think the fight could have been a bit slower to give it a bit more weight, but you still feel the weight of both, so it’s not too bad.

The animation is solid. There’s not much jank, at least not much that I noticed, and since they used the Marvel Rivals model for Hulk he wound up being more expressive than in previous episodes. The use of colour is great. The fight takes place at night, and the dark blue night sky helps serve as a contrast between the gamma green of Hulk and the red Archetype of Ultima.

Speaking of which, Ultima himself doesn’t show up until the halfway point. The first half is basically a traditional Hulk vs Godzilla battle with their standard forms. I like this because it means people like me who prefer their more traditional forms get we want before it gets into the weird cosmic level stuff.

This part is a bit on the short side, but it is sweet. We get to see a lot of their trademark abilities like the Thunderclap and Atomic Breath, Godzilla wrecking buildings and Hulk throwing around cars. No Godzilla drop kick though, but that might have been a bit awkward to animate in this instance.

We sadly also don’t get to see any of Godzilla’s super forms. Sadly the fights short length means we don’t get to see a lot of their werider kit, but they do at least stick to the main stuff people know about. Like World Breaker which is brought out pretty early on. At least compared to previous Hulk fights where he wasn’t brought in until the end.

It looks great too, though that’s largely due to Rivals giving Hulk a World Breaker type form. This doesn’t use that, since Rivals’ version is more monstrous, but the model edits do look great and make it finally feel like a proper World Breaker.

And thanks to using that games models, we now have a Hulk fight that includes Bruce Banner. This was a nice addition, both because he factors into the fight itself, but also because it helps with the banter. Since ol Goji cannot speak, there isn’t much for Hulk to bounce off of, so having Banner around allows for more dialogue.

Speaking of dialogue, it’s fantastic. This is the first time where Hulk felt like he was in character in Death Battle. He was fine in the Broly fight, but this one really felt like Hulk to me. His lines were simple and blunt, but that’s just Hulk. He’s just that kind of guy and the lines were badass, so it all worked perfectly.

We even see some of the disagreements and teamwork that Hulk and Banner have. The charaterisation was great here. Even for Godzilla since he’s rightfully portrayed as an unstoppable force of nature.

There isn’t much dialogue, but what is here is effective. The voice acting is fantastic too. Hulk and Banner are voiced by Blythe Melin who is pitch perfect for both. His Hulk sounds suitably brutish, and I’m glad he does his own thing rather than copy Fred Tatasciore, even though Tatasciore is THE Hulk voice. As Banner though he comes off as strongly intelligent. It’s actually nice to have a voice actor do both sides of him since that very rarely happens, and the fact Melin did it well is commendable.

The only other voice is a reporter played by Dawn Bennet. She doesn’t appear much, but she does help the fight feel like an actual Kaiju attack. Almost like something out of an actual Godzilla movie. Showing a human perspective to the carnage like the best ones do.

The whole fight has plenty of elements from both characters. The city setting is obviously pure Godzilla, but it fits Hulk too given Marvel overuses New York City. The music track is also phenomenal. Madness of the Monster, banger name by the way, is a track that combines the leitmotivs of Godzilla, with the orchestral bombast of an MCU score. It sounds great and perfectly matches the vibe of the fight.

But now we move on to the other side of the coin. While the first half of the fight is the standard knock out brawl, the second half is where things get weird. Once Godzilla Ultima shows up, the whole tone of the fight changes. Going from a pure fight to, basically a battle of wills.

This Death Battle actually has a bit of a time skip. It cuts to a few days later showing how much more powerful Ultima became, but also how Banner and Hulk have prepared for the fight. It’s less a traditional Death Battle scuffle than it is a war between the two.

This is an interesting angle to take, but it works. It emphasises how hard these two are to truly put down for good. Of course it would go for days, weeks even, and this also allows for Banner to put his intelligence to the test.

It is a bit of a weird shift. It almost feels like the episode has two fights. One with classic Hulk and Godzilla and the other with Ultima. This could be why World Breaker was broken out early since it technically was the end of that fight. The tonal shift is jarring, but it works.

Look, Ultima isn’t a traditional Godzilla. A lot of Godzilla fans are torn on him because of how different he is. So splitting the fight up like this makes sense. The first half is for more traditional Godzilla fans, while the second is where the actual debateable match up starts proper.

It felt less like a vs battle and more like an actual crossover between Hulk and Godzilla Singular Point. Honestly, I wish they had the budget for it to go on longer because what we saw was awesome. It was a bit confusing at first since it seemed like there was a lot of flashbacks and time jumping with Godzilla no selling all of Hulks attacks, it’s a bit like Goku Black vs Reverse Flash, but on a second and third watch I was able to follow along just fine.

Not a great sign where you need to watch it multiple times to follow it, but even on an initial viewing I could understand the basics. It does get a bit repetitive with Hulk punching Ultima and then it just undoing the attack, but that helps show off Ultima’s causality manipulation.

For as confusing as the second half can be, it does showcase these guy’s absurd power. It feels like the end to a Godzilla movie where a scientist comes up with a way to defeat Godzilla with SCIENCE!

This fight was damned good, I just wish it was longer. This is one of those fights that could have greatly benefitted from an increased run time. I know budgeting issues prevent that, but if Devil Artemis and co wanted to expand this into a fan film, I’d be down for that.

Despite the short length, and the second half feeling a bit rushed, I though the fight was good fun. The animation was great, the music was exceptional, and it utilised the characters size differences in fun ways.

While it lacks the energy and hype of Hulk vs Broly, this fight has its own distinct charm and in some ways is better. The characterisation of the Hulk is much better here, and considering how bad Hulk initially was, I hated what they did with him against Doomsday, this finally feels like they got it right.

As a Hulk fan it was what I wanted, I don’t know if Godzilla fans would feel the same way, but as a casual enjoyer of him I liked what I saw. Just some nice big Kaiju stomping action. At the very least they portrayed him as the force of nature he should be.

Good fight. One of the better 3D outings in recent years, and easily the best in the indie era. But now for that result. Hoo-boy, let’s get this over with.

Result

Ok, so as far as I can understand it, Hulk won largely thanks to Banners intelligence. The idea is that their power and immortality were equal due to their cosmic powers. Hulk was physically more powerful, but Godzilla could warp reality. Hulk could resurrect from the Below Pl,ace which was beyond Ultma’s reach due to Marvels cosmology being much bigger, but Ultima couldn’t be killed the traditional way and could only be defeated by severing his connection with the entity controlling him.

Neither could kill the other, except in one way. By turning Archetype against itself like what happened in Singular Point. That required a time traveling supercomputer and a mega genius who understand metaphysics and weird cosmic anomalies, and Banner could do just that.

So basically, it ends like a good Godzilla movie. Man triumphing over impossible odds. There’s something poetic about this, and honestly, I love it. It’s such a perfect way of ending this thing, and it made sense to me given how smart Banner is and how unkillable Hulk and Godzilla are. He had time to think of a plan.

Now, I do think they could have explained how Gamma works a bit more. I get how it’s equivalent it is to Archetype, but they could have gone in a bit more detail there. Not a huge deal, but that could be a sticking point for some.

I thought the argument was solid, but let’s be honest, no argument they made would be good enough. People were always going to be contentious of the result no matter who won given how convoluted this whole thing is. I’m sure the Goji fanbase is making tons of debunks of this as I type this, because this is a fight that is very much down to interpretation.

So as for the result, it’s fine. It’s at least internally consistent and that’s more important. It does kind of debunk Hulk vs Broly, but that was always a bad call. Plus, it wouldn’t be a Death Battle if it didn’t have a contradiction would it.

Conclusion

Hulk vs Godzilla is a very enjoyable episode. It gave me what I wanted as a fan of both characters. The analyses were great and really homed in on what made the characters interesting and iconic, the fight was a ton of fun, and the results weren’t nearly as confusing as I thought they would be.

The one flaw with the episode was its length. With how much was covered this episode could have stood to be a bit longer. Especially given the fight did feel a bit rushed. What we got is really good, but it could have been great if they had developed it a bit more.

I also feel like the result could have been more detailed. With how contentious it was going to be regardless of who won it probably should have been, but that would have bogged down the pacing and I think casuals would have been completely lost if they did that, so I can see why they didn’t.

This was a good solid episode. Not a top ten, but one I can see myself returning to a lot. But now we move on to the big one. Episode 200, a huge milestone that most shows never see. And to celebrate we have… Ruby vs Maka? Well, that’s disappointing.

Score: 8/10