Nerding Day: GORGO! (Patreon)

We need to talk about Gorgo, the troubled teenage Godzilla. You might have heard of the 1961 British Gorgo film if you're a true connoisseur of the arts, but did you know there was also a 23 issue Gorgo spinoff comic book? I was somehow miraculously able to pull this from a bargain bin at a used bookstore for only two dollars. Sure, it's a little bit damaged by both fire and water, but neither of those things can kill Gorgo, sucker!

I don't understand why more people aren't battling me for old, weird comics like this one. Gorgo #15 was released in 1961. It's basically a historical document at this point, but unlike the Declaration of Independence, it has rad lizards in it.

The plot of the original Gorgo movie is that Gorgo is discovered by a group of treasure hunters and put on display in London. Unfortunately for those Bozo's, Gorgo is a baby, and his much bigger mother shows up to whoop ass. I'm a big fan of the comedic beat where a big monster shows up, and then an even bigger monster appears and eats the first monster, thus breaking the spooky tension. It makes you laugh about how we are small and the universe is an endless expanse of escalating terror lol.

The ongoing question of the Gorgo comics is, what if Godzilla were a li'l scamp? Gorgo is a nepo baby who is constantly getting himself into trouble and calling on his mother to bail him out. It's adorable now, but in a few years, it'll be sad.

Our story begins with a zoologist named Carl, who's upset that his lame family is preventing him from going deep into the African jungle to search for dinosaurs. Luckily, this man's wife is completely insane, and she thinks a nice little jaunt into territory no man has ever traversed will be pretty chill. Her husband has some concerns about bringing their snack-sized human child into the jungle, but his wife is like, "What, babies love the jungle. There's so many new things for them to shove in their mouths as quickly as possible!"

That baby's face is the scariest thing in this comic. It looks like the artist has never seen a baby before, and he got a note from the publisher that said, "Just do girl head but tiny."

Also, that Benjamin Button ass baby is actually a toddler, which is a baby that can sprint away from you as fast as possible whenever they see something interesting, somehow an even worse age of human to take to the jungle.

So this toddler jungle jaunt works out perfectly for them, right? No, exactly eleven panels later, Alice is super duper dead, and baby Gloria is missing. Carl did find his dinosaurs, though, and honestly, who could have known taking a baby deep into an unexplored jungle full of dinosaurs was a bad idea?

Now is the part in the article where I have to mention there's a bunch of super bummer magical black people stuff in this comic. They strongly imply all black people in Africa have telepathy, and that's how they've avoided the dinosaurs that also live there. A group of native Africans knock Carl out, and it's implied they kill his wife and take his daughter, but it all happens off-panel. To be fair, they might have been trying to protect Carl's daughter from the madman who brought her to The Timelost Jungle of Daughter Eating.

At this point in the story, you're hankering for some Gorgo. I thought this comic was called Gorgo, not Carl The Criminally Negligent Father Who Abandoned His Baby To The Dinosaurs. That would be the worst hero ever. Gorgo doesn't enter the story until years later when he smells the other dinosaurs in Africa and decides to be a lil scamp and sprint away from his mother as fast as he can, like a normal kid.

We rejoin Carl, who's now an aged, angry college professor, reaming out one of his students for being spoiled and bad at zoology. I don't know how someone can be so terrible at zoology. Did the guy mistake an elephant for an aardvark or something? We will never know his crime, but for whatever reason, Jay Conners is getting banished from zoology for life. He sucks at Bird and totally failed Snakes. He's an embarrassment to the craft.

Carl then heads over to the explorers club in town to meet a famous adventurer who recently returned from Africa. The adventurer tells Carl that consistent rumors have come from the jungle about a "white goddess" who lives there because in 1961, white babies left in the jungle only had two career options-- King or Goddess. Suddenly, Carl is like, "Oh dip, should I not have abandoned my baby in the jungle? Am I a bad parent?”

He returns to the jungle to double check the whole baby thing. When he arrives in Africa, he's shocked to find none other than Jay Conners, the world's worst zoologist, getting ready to hunt some animals for sport. Jay decides he will prove to Carl he's not spoiled by killing a goddamn dinosaur. "I'm so good at zoology. Look at all these dead animals!" Jay Conners will triumphantly declare.

Jay Conners, the hero of this story, heads into the jungle alone and runs into Gorgo, also the hero of this story. Fortunately, he manages to restrain himself from ending the Gorgo comic at issue 15 immediately. Gorgo will go on to live for a whole eight issues after he meets with Jay Conners.

Carl has decided that if he finds a blond white woman in the jungle, he will know it's his daughter if she has the gold necklace her mother gave her. I feel like the presence of a teenage white girl in the middle of this jungle is a pretty strong indicator of paternity. No other father was irresponsible enough to lose a child in the jungle, Carl, but call Maury Povich if you really must, my guy.

The natives of the jungle once again attack Carl, and instead of giving him a bonk on the head, they drag him to their white goddess. Surprise, she has the necklace, Carl, you are the father! Thankfully, Gloria grew out of her Benjamin Button phase into a beautiful teen girl who, for some strange reason, does not hate her father.

Gloria is a stronger woman than me. I was fully expecting her to say, "Yep, that's my dad. GET HIM! Arrest him for child endangerment!" Luckily, white men couldn't make mistakes in 1961, so Gloria is just happy to see her dad, happy to be included in this comic at all, frankly. Of course, right as she is forgiving her father, their reunion is rudely interrupted by a Tyrannosaurus rex.

Don't worry, though; because right behind the T-rex is none other than the world's worst zoologist, Jay Conners, and he's got a shotgun. Unfortunately, a shotgun is pretty much useless against a dinosaur. It turns out Jay is as bad at hunting as he is at zoology. Carl was right about Jay all along. He's a real chump.

Luckily, Jay brought an awkward friend to this dinosaur party, and that friend is none other than Gorgo! Gorgo tracked the smell of other dinosaurs all the way from the ocean. He's so excited to make new friends that his energy is too intense. Gorgo is like the weird homeschooled kid you meet at the playground, and none of the other dinosaurs want to try his healthy snacks or learn about Jesus's less forgiving half-brother, Lester. Gorgo's lack of chill causes a multi-dinosaur bar fight.

Everyone wants a piece of Gorgo. The fucking weirdo has come running out of the ocean screaming about how thick the air is with new friend musk and the entire jungle hates it. This poor basement baby is getting his ass handed to him, but when Gorgo's in trouble, we all know his helicopter mom won't be far behind. And sure enough, she rescues her son from this unsuccessful playdate and distracts everyone long enough for the humans (and white goddess) to escape.

Thanks to Gorgo's mother's questionable parenting style, everyone makes it out of the jungle and onto a ship home. Since this comic book could only end one possible way, Jay Conners proposes to Gloria. A seventeen-year-old girl who was raised in the woods will make the perfect bride! It's a happy ending for all, and the moral is that consequences are for losers. Have a big lizard eat all of your problems; it's radical.

What more could you ask for in a comic book? I can't get enough Gorgo. I love my incompetent lizard son.

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