Romeo and Juliet Meets Godzilla in Monsterpiece Theatre

Forget Godzilla vs. King Kong. How many times can audiences watch that monster mash before it feels overdone? A fresher twist is letting Godzilla loose on the classics. Enter Romeo & Juliet and Godzilla, where doomed romance, feuding families, and Shakespearean drama collide with kaiju-scale destruction, leaving Verona in ruins.

Godzilla stomps back into high culture with Godzilla’s Monsterpiece Theatre Presents, a new four-issue line of oversized one-shot comics that drops the King of the Monsters directly into famous works of literature. The series follows the strong reception of Tom Scioli’s original Godzilla’s Monsterpiece Theatre limited run, now available in a collected edition. Scioli has long said the core idea is that Godzilla has existed alongside humanity for centuries, maybe millennia, lurking at the edges of history and literature like an uncredited co-author. That concept has already proven its range, especially when compared to Godzilla’s strangest official crossovers, which include everything from a bizarre 1969 short where he stomps Bambi, to his roar appearing in Pokémon, and even an appearance in Sonic X. The Godzilla x Evangelion collaborations pushed things further by blending kaiju chaos with giant mecha and existential dread, but the strangest detour may still be the obscure 1993 short Godzilla vs. Hedorah (Remix), a psychedelic oddity best remembered for featuring a giant, dancing Hedorah.

The upcoming Romeo & Juliet and Godzilla take Shakespeare’s tragedy and scale it up to epic proportions. Feuding families become collateral damage, star-crossed lovers struggle beneath towering destruction, and the Montagues and Capulets face problems far bigger than swords. Artist Sean Peacock says it was a joy to put his own spin on both the King of the Monsters and one of Shakespeare’s most famous plays. Reading Romeo and Juliet in ninth-grade English class, he admits, never suggested a future where fair Verona would be flattened by a giant radioactive lizard. A fan of the original Monsterpiece Theatre, Peacock promises truly wild moments and calls working on the follow-up an honor.

That sense of reinvention fits a play already full of surprising details. Juliet is only 13 when she meets Romeo, a typical marriageable age for the era, while Romeo himself begins the story pining for another woman, Rosaline. The play opens with a sonnet that reveals the tragic ending upfront, and nearly 90 percent of the text is written in verse, showcasing some of Shakespeare’s finest poetry alongside relentless wordplay and puns. Even iconic moments are often misunderstood. “Wherefore art thou, Romeo?” means “Why are you Romeo?” not “Where are you?” and the famous balcony scene likely took place at a window, since the text only describes Juliet as being “above.”

The story was not entirely original even in Shakespeare’s time, drawing heavily from older Italian tales such as Mariotto and Gianozza, and Shakespeare later poked fun at tragic romance in A Midsummer Night’s Dream through the play of Pyramus and Thisbe. Verona has fully embraced the legacy, with the so-called Juliet’s House receiving thousands of love letters each year and remaining a major tourist attraction. The play’s influence continues to echo through pop culture, inspiring adaptations like West Side Story, The Lion King II, and countless modern retellings.

The comic is written by Adam Tierney, who credits Scioli with defining the tone and proving that classic literature and kaiju chaos can coexist. Scioli’s take on Godzilla, Tierney says, is unique, and reimagining one of Shakespeare’s greatest plays within that framework is a dream project. Tierney notes that the book may be the first IDW comic written in iambic pentameter, showing that even Godzilla can respect the Bard’s rhythm while tearing through Verona.

Each one-shot also includes a five-page backup story by Scioli. The debut issue pairs Godzilla with another literary icon in Robin Hood and the Monster of Nottingham, giving Sherwood Forest the full Monsterpiece Theatre treatment. Scioli describes these backups as the dessert and coffee at the end of each issue, with Godzilla Meets Robin Hood and His Merry Band of Outlaws unfolding through self-contained minisodes that build into a larger epic.

Editor Jake Williams says the original Godzilla’s Monsterpiece Theatre made an immediate impression. Reading the script left him grinning, and he calls the series a monsterpiece of cartooning, comedy, and heart. Comedy comics are often overlooked, Williams notes, but Scioli proved Godzilla could be just as effective as a force for parody and laughs as he is for destruction. That same reaction returned when Williams read Tierney’s Romeo & Juliet and Godzilla script and saw Peacock’s art, confirming that Shakespeare never stood a chance against a kaiju with perfect timing.