The Creators – Grant Putore and Ryan Engle – Writers, Jay Martin – Artist, Frank Cvetkovic – Letters

The Players – Sara (Aspiring Chef), Manny (Mechanic, Friend), Kaiju (Big, Mysterious)

The Story – A giant monster has risen from the depths to cause untold chaos while making a meal of numerous people, including a woman named Sara, who wakes up inside its stomach.

The Take – What is most surprising about the first issue of Behemoth is that writers Grant Putore and Ryan Engle have discovered a way to tell a different kind of story about a kaiju. It all begins fairly similarly to many other tales and films about giant monsters, which appear as if out of the blue and start destroying things. It then ends quite differently, making the reader want to see more immediately. Monsters and horror are good and all but Engle and Putore realize that there needs to be some kind of narrative to carry this all along and so this is where Sara and the human element comes in. Sara is a woman with more than one job who wants to be more than she is, to live out her dreams and from what the authors have hinted at, make her father proud. Things are not easy for her though and when the monster attacks, it is merely the icing on the cake as she loses her food truck and narrowly escapes from being killed by the monster. That being said, the creature is not done with her or the rest of the city and it swallows her and the bus she is on, waking up in its stomach and realizing that her real troubles have only just begun. There was a lot to love with this book as the human characters are relatable and the monster is just that. It is gigantic, menacing and destructive and that is all it needs to be with no backstory to make it less so. Putore and Engle understand what makes a story flow and set it all at a good pace with Sara moving through the ongoing events with dramatic flare. The story would be nothing though without a good artist and Jay Martin is the man who brings it all to exciting life. Without a doubt though, it is that ending that really puts this book over the top and guarantees that readers will be back for more. One can guess where it might go, at least a little bit, but this is fairly new territory for a kaiju tale and it should be more than interesting to see just what it is the creators of this book have in store.

Worth It? – Yes.