Comic Book Review: Kaijumax, Season One: Terror and Respect by Zander Cannon
Electrogor just wanted to feed his family. His children were the only things in the world he cared about. Unfortunately, what Electrogor’s children eat is gigawatts of electrical power and he got caught trying to tap one of the humans’ power cables. There is no trial for kaiju (giant monsters) so it’s off to prison he goes!
Once the kaiju were powerful, effectively rulers of the Earth who laughed at the puny humans’ attempts to fend them off. But those days are over. The humans have the technology to fight the monsters and imprison those that break human law in an island facility in the South Pacific referred to as “Kaijumax.”
This Oni Press miniseries by Zander Cannon combines giant monster action with prison drama. It’s an odd combination that works about eighty percent of the time. Mr. Cannon has mentioned that while anti-kaiju prejudice has echoes of real world bigotry, kaiju should not be read as any specific race or religious group; it’s whatever works for the story.
While Electrogor is sympathetic ala Jean Valjean, many of his fellow prisoners are on the island for good reason. Drug dealers, murderers, organized crime types, and some who are just plain evil. There’s a lot more of them than the ones who just made a mistake or had an accident. (Or in the case of Whoofy, son of Ape-Whale, just related to a criminal.)
To be honest, it’s not as though most of the guards are much better. The Warden is brutal and has little sympathy for his charges, guard Gupta is openly corrupt, and the prison doctor has compromised her ethics for a prisoner she’s emotionally attached to. Any guard who comes in with idealism will soon find much of it crushed.
In the tradition of prison soap operas (I used to be a big fan of Australia’s Prisoner, aka Prisoner in Cell Block H) we follow multiple characters in their own subplots. Electrogor, the new meat, learns how the prison works and who he can and cannot trust. Whoofy, abused by his father, meets a mysterious human boy who suggests how to get even. Gupta wheels and deals, but may have gotten in over his head. Mecha-Zonn, a pacifist built to destroy the monster Zonn (but who refused to destroy anyone), has family issues with his creator/father and little sister.
This volume has an explosive (literally) climax that leads into the events of the second volume. (Watch for my review of that one!)
One of the nice things about having kaiju as the main characters is that each can be a unique design and thus easy to tell apart, making it easy to follow the story. The humans are a bit harder to differentiate, especially as most of them in this volume are wearing uniforms. The art is a good kind of cartoony, and doesn’t skimp on the backgrounds.
On the less good side, every so often there’s a moment that doesn’t quite nail the combination of goofy and dramatic, and that took me out of the story multiple times.
Content note: Rape and abortion happen, as well as a lot of monster gore. This is a “Mature Readers” title, despite the usual obscenities and ethnic slurs being substituted with other words. As a movie, maybe a hard “R”?
Overall, I have already purchased the second volume, and recommend this to grown-up kaiju fans and prison drama fans who can accept the bizarre premise.
