The Godzilla comic book series was likely a headache to write because the awesome might of the "King of Monsters" made finding him worthy adversaries rather difficult. Marvel had already resorted to giant robots, irradiated mutations, and bizzaro aliens, so next up was to make the great and powerful "G" less powerful so other things might better threaten him. Enter the elusive "Pym Particle" first introduced in Tales to Astonish #27 when Hank Pym made himself "The Man in the Ant Hill!".
Dum Dum Dugan and his agents of SHIELD had been pursuing Godzilla across the country and pretty much been merely witnessing one wave of destruction after another, mostly helpless to do much but alleviate the suffering of those who fell in Godzilla's path. So he sends his SHIELD partner Gabe Jones to meet up with Dr. Henry Pym, the famous Ant-Man/Giant-Man/Goliath/Yellowjacket and get from him some of the remarkable stuff which he'd invented so many years before. Applied liberally to a sleeping Godzilla, the monster is shrunk, captured and taken to the "Big Apple", the "City that Never Sleeps" --New York City.
Once there, thanks to incredible bungling, he is dropped into the water at the docks and ends up in the New York City's infamous sewage system. Reduced in stature but not reduced in might Godzilla battles the threats he finds in the underworld of New York's sewers, namely rats -- big fat rats.
Needless to say Godzilla wins the day, though it's a rough and tumble battle for the murky turf.
But Big G wasn't the first of the movie monsters to find himself reduced to fighting vermin as the Konga cover above testifies.
The Pym Particles begin to wear off and Godzilla emerges from the sewers and now aproximately man-size prowls the darkened streets of the city, in disguise no less thanks to his fan the young and exceedingly naive Bob Takiguchi. But SHIELD finds him and a brawl ensues amongst the agents and Godzilla before the monster is herded toward a museum of natural history. The race is on to get him contained since Godzilla continues to grow.
Finally the Fantastic Four are called in and they corral Godzilla who by the story's end is in a tank full of sharks in deadly battle. But his most deadly battle is yet to come.
More to come next time, when the Toho's "King of Monsters" meets Jack "King" Kirby's Devil Dinosaur!
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