We’re at an interesting crossroads with Van Jensen and Kelsey Ramsay’s Godzilla: Heist #3. Check out our review below.
Godzilla: Heist #3
Written by Van Jensen
Art: Kelsey Ramsay
Main Cover: Bob Eggleton
Variant Cover: Pablo Tunica
Page Count: 32 pages
Release Date: May 7, 2025
This review contains spoilers
We’re at an interesting crossroads with Van Jensen and Kelsey Ramsay’s Godzilla: Heist #3. If I were to be employing the “three episode” test that defines how a modern audience tests if new content is worth keeping up with, I don’t know if this book would pass. The highs are high, but the lows are pretty lackluster. While I remain engaged with the book, I have to admit I’m not nearly as excited about what this team have to offer after the reveals laid bare here.
Godzilla: Heist #3 opens with a flashback to a kaiju battle between Godzilla and Anguirus in India. A young girl is devastated as she loses her father among the chaos. She swears revenge against the atomic-beast. Back in the present, the British defense ministry is in a heated standoff with the King of the Monsters. Our protagonists are able to slip into the science base among the chaos. In a bit of unexpected violence, Beta decapitates a pair of guards in order to get a sample for the retinal scan locks. Things get intense as both Godzilla and the crew are met by military opposition.
As the team weaves their way deeper into the bowels of the science base, Jaion reveals a gadget that can trigger Godzilla’s atomic breath, which they can aim through the base into the sublevels. When Jai’s perceived usefulness runs out, Beta pushes him down his own hole. Alpha jumps in after him on a bungee and saves him from a splattery-doom. The pair is followed by the remaining trio of mercs, but not before Big Green eats Kappa during their descent.
It’s revealed in captions that even before the heist, Alpha and Jaion have been on the same page. As they go retrieve their prize, it’s revealed the scientist from from the previous issues was the one who hired them to steal his MechaGodzilla. He has double-crossed Jai and Alpha again.
As the series reaches its mid-point hump, the plotting of Godzilla Heist starts to get a little convoluted. The turn-double-turn of loyalties between characters, while intrinsic to the genre, feels rather sudden. I’m sure the flashback sequence that started this book will loop back into the motivations of at least one of the crew in the main plot, but as of yet it is still nebulous. The “shocking reveal” in Godzilla: Heist #3 that the lead scientist behind Mechagodzilla is “in” on the job feels obvious. There’s still two issues to go, so it’s yet to be seen if Jensen has any other tricks up their sleeves.
My complaints of Ramsay’s art remain in Godzilla: Heist #3 as last. Figurework and props get a little melty and lopsided during action sequences. While her heavy black inking gives her work lots of energy, she shouldn’t be leaning on colorist Heather Breckel to fill out her gaps.
The pair do a terrific job once again depicting Godzilla’s atomic breath in new and exciting ways, this time being shown blasting underground through a cross-section of the secret military base. We’re also given hints of a kaiju fight in the flashback fight between G-Unit and Anguirus. The debris and destruction is appropriately scaled to the colossal beasts.
Lettering in Godzilla: Heist #3 continues to be distracting, albeit with what feels like some improvements. Sound effects have gained a certain distressing effect inside the shapes that makes it feel closer in look to the art. That being said, the saturation of the colors and the cleanliness of the letter exteriors continue to be distracting and out of place. Moreover, the colored word balloons that I praised last issue come across far more inconsistent this issue. Nothing thematically ties the colors together with the text.
My initial enthusiasm for Godzilla Heist has grown a little weary with Godzilla: Heist #3. While a lot of the art is spectacular, the exciting stuff suffers from some amateurish linework. The fast pacing and adherence to “heist-genre” tropes aren’t nearly as enthusing this issue as they were the past two, more confusing if anything. If this book didn’t have Godzilla as a set piece, I wouldn’t feel compelled to continue. But it does have Godzilla. And the Godzilla stuff is excellent. Godzilla Heist #3 is a mixed bag, but I’ll lean towards the positive for the fact that it is at least trying something new.
