Hello friends and intrepid travelers of the Internet! This is a guest-blogger series that spends entirely too much time theorizing who'd win in a fight: Godzilla or The Incredible Hulk. Our first participant is the obscenely talented actor/writer/comedian Graham Skipper, star of Almost Human and Re-Animator: The Musical. Take it away, Graham!
We nerds love to see our heroes battle each other. Batman vs. Superman, Freddy vs. Jason, Joe vs. The Volcano...all classics, and they’re just the tip of the iceberg. But when Berbs asked me to write this article, I was a bit baffled. What? I thought...Surely Hulk and Godzilla have fought each other at some point...
Alas, dear readers...they have not. A meeting between the two would make sense, too: they’re both green, they’re both fueled and born of radiation, they’re both equal parts destroyer and savior of mankind...
Before we begin, a little background on both of our fighters:
GODZILLA
Godzilla - for clarity’s sake I’ll use the western spelling instead of the original Gojira - has appeared in many forms and with many different powers throughout his long life on screens both big and small. A few statistics:
HEIGHT: 164ft - 350ft
WEIGHT: 20,000 tons - 120,000 tons
ABILITIES:
- Massive Size
- Impenetrable Hide
- Regeneration
- Absorption of Nuclear Radiation
- “Atomic Breath”
- Various other more eccentric powers from different incarnations, such as Precognition, Eye Beams, and Flight
Godzilla’s origins vary from film to film, but most often he is depicted as an ancient, primordial beast that lives (or sleeps) at the bottom of the ocean and is awoken and/or empowered by the blast of a nuclear weapon. He then comes to wreak havoc on Tokyo and other cities around the globe, as well as occasionally protect mankind from other gigantic monsters.
Needless to say, he’s a formidable foe.
In the original film, it’s said that nothing can defeat Godzilla that has anything less than the force of a nuclear blast. However, in several instances Big Green has survived cataclysms far more powerful than a nuclear bomb. In Final Wars he survives a meteor strike. In Godzilla vs Megaguirus he survives a goddamned Black Hole! So I think it’s safe to say that even something with the power of a nuclear bomb may not be enough to take him down for good.
One of the problems with a mash-up of these sorts is to figure out which mythology one should use for each character, as the powers can vary wildly. For the sake of simplicity, and “realism” (ha!) I’m going to do my best to use Godzilla’s most oft-used abilities, mostly the ones established in the early films (and mostly echoed in the 2014 remake) and discard some of the sillier ones (such as, you know, flight and Eye Beams). Atomic Breath is staying, though!
THE INCREDIBLE HULK
The Hulk! Despite his dodgy cinematic history, The Hulk - aka The Incredible Hulk - is one of the most popular heroes of the Marvel Comics Universe. The alter-ego of mild-mannered Dr. Bruce Banner, The Hulk is the embodiment of Banner’s subconscious rage, born of a Gamma Ray Blast, and virtually indestructible. If any one hero could defeat Godzilla, it’d be The Hulk.
HEIGHT: 6’6” - 8’+
WEIGHT: 900 lbs - 1,150 lbs
ABILITIES:
- Limitless Strength
- Bulletproof Skin
- Gets more powerful the angrier he gets
- Can absorb radiation
- Super Leap
- Shock Wave Clap
- Impervious to nuclear explosions
- Regeneration of limbs and tissue
- Superhuman endurance
The Hulk is known in the Marvel Universe as an “Omega Level Threat,” which is comic-speak for “nothing is more powerful.” He’s essentially indestructible, and any damage you do to him only makes him angrier, which makes him more powerful, which in turn makes him more impossible to destroy.
Another important aspect to Hulk lore is his various personalities - Hulk suffers from Dissociative Identity Disorder. In the past, when “Savage Hulk” hasn’t been making headway, he has been able to “pass the buck” to his other personalities. Among them are Joe Fixit, who is sort of a brawler-meets-problem-solver, and The Professor, who, while still being a fighter of heroic proportions, contains immense intellect and scientific genius. And of course, his alter-ego Dr. Bruce Banner - one of the greatest minds to ever walk the earth - is always in there somewhere...
Like Godzilla, The Hulk has alternatively been a savior and a threat to mankind. He’s both fought and been a member of The Avengers, The Fantastic Four, and even led an extraterrestrial army in a march to destroy the earth. He’s neither good nor bad, but a force of nature itself.
Like with Godzilla, for the purposes of this challenge we’ll stick with the most usual powers attributed to Hulk, and ignore some of the stranger additions, like his ability to see ghosts or mystically be able to always find his way back to New Mexico.
BUILD-UP TO THE BATTLE
As with any such fight, it’s important to decide on an arena in which our warriors will duke it out. For the sake of fairness - and familiarity - I’ll suggest good ole’ Tokyo. We’ll also assume that the authorities have adequately evacuated the city prior to this meeting so we don’t have unfortunate civilian casualties.
Why Tokyo? It’s also a major metropolis, so there’s both weapons to be used (you know, like building antennae, or vehicles, or boats in Tokyo Harbor), as well as obstacles for both fighters to have to contend with. It’s also likely unfamiliar to Hulk or Bruce Banner (NYC or New Mexico might provide an unfair advantage to him), and while Godzilla has ravaged Tokyo many times, it’s unlikely he’d display enough intelligence to use the city against Hulk in a battle. All in all, it seems like a fairly level playing field.
One last note:
My strategy here is to write the battle out narratively, letting the blows come as they will, and do my best to reach a conclusion organically. You have my word that from this point on I have no idea what’s going to happen. The battle will rage as naturally as I can make it, and we’ll see who’s still standing when the dust settles...
JOIN US HERE TOMORROW FOR THE MOST EPIC BATTLE IN THE HISTORY OF MANKIND.
BRBRCK is a rapper and producer (and blogger, obviously) based in Brooklyn, NY. Check out his musical stylings here.