Behemoth #1

Recap
When a giant monster attacks a city and swallows a bus full of civilians, one woman must fight for her life. Trapped inside the enormous beast, Sara and her fellow bus passengers soon find out that they're not alone. But what dangers lie within the belly of this beast? And who-or what-will they have to contend with in order to survive?
Review
New York City is under attack from a giant monster. Again. Behemoth #1 looks to set up a story that takes place inside the giant monster. But will the journey to get to that story be as creative?
Two finishing boats narrowly avoid a collision in the Atlantic Ocean southeast of Nova Scotia. That’s when Behemoth #1’s titular creature makes its first appearance, leaping out of the water and breaking the larger of the two ships in half. The issue cuts to daytime in New York. Sara serves food from her food truck before her shift at a fulfillment warehouse begins. By the time she gets off work, the city is flooding and something is rumbling down its streets.
Behemoth #1 plays out like the beginning of a generic kaiju story. The monster is hinted at in the opening pages before its full introduction roughly two thirds of the way through the issue. None of the monster’s behavior here makes it stand out particularly.
Sara, the most developed of Behemoth #1’s three consequential characters, carries the narrative. Sputore and Engle primarily track her, and when the monster is finally seen in the city, the reader experiences it via Sara. Sara feels very much of our time. She has a food truck and she is about to participate in a food truck battle. But her primary employment comes from a thankless warehouse job. For as much as this backstory creates the potential to make Sara relatable, it also starts her out as a bit of a cliché.
The best part of Behemoth #1 is the issue’s technical construction. It’s well-paced. The issue kicks off with a classic inciting incident of a monster attack at sea in the dark. After that bit of action, the extended sequences that follow Sara builds anticipation for the monster’s inevitable return, this time in full glory.
Behemoth #1 shines in the art. The monster’s initial attack at sea is especially successful because Martin strikes a good balance between detail and shadow. The monster’s mouth looks more like a wide, toothy maw. The spikiness of the skin looks less reptilian and almost like bone or rock. But so much of the monster is thrown to shadow (and set against a dark night sky) that it’s not until much later in the issue that some details become clear–for instance, the monster has four arms.
Seen fully, the monster possesses a refreshing design. The blue/green coloring opens the door to a reptile-esque creature, but the overall design makes it look less organic overall. If Behemoth #1’s narrative feels generically kaiju, the monster’s design does give it distinctiveness. This isn’t a Godzilla knock-off.
Surprisingly, the best visual moment in the issue is a two page spread of Sara’s workplace. Martin spares no detail in creating a warehouse interior that appears to believably stretch toward infinity. Eventually the long perspective hits a black vanishing point, but Martin maintains a surprisingly high level of detail until then. Tiny working conveyors with tiny boxes atop them are easily distinguishable. This spread elevates Sara’s job to an all encompassing, soul sucking experience.
Cvetkovic uses a transparent font design for the monster-related sound effects late in the issue. Because the sound effects don’t obscure the art, they feel more a part of it. As the monster rumbles through the city, the transparent font makes the sounds come across as a part of the environment rather than just loud noise.
Final Thoughts
Behemoth #1 is a very standard fare first issue. The bulk of it doesn’t create a sense of demand for the next one. It’s really only in the final two to three pages that a compelling sense of curiosity for the second issue is created. The art elevates the issue, but the narrative feels like a story that began too early.
Behemoth #1: Another Monster Attack
- Writing - 6/106/10
- Storyline - 6/106/10
- Art - 8/108/10
- Color - 8/108/10
- Cover Art - 7.5/107.5/10