Godzilla and Sonic is the comic book crossover we didn't know we needed — check out an exclusive preview

And why Eggman and Mechagodzilla is a team-up for the ages

Ever since IDW comics acquired the Godzilla license back in 2020, the King of the Monsters has been pretty busy. He’s done battle with the likes of the Power Rangers and the Ninja Turtles, rampaged through cities like Boston and Kansas City, and even been part of a bank heist. This Summer, Godzilla will cross paths with a character he’s definitely got the height advantage on, Sonic the Hedgehog.

Going on sale July 15 with pre-orders due in by June 8, Sonic the Hedgehog X Godzilla is a five-issue limited series by writer Nick Marino, artist Jack Lawrence and colorist Reggie Graham. Besides Sonic and Godzilla, it features characters like Amy, Knuckles, Dr. Eggman, Shadow, Godzilla, Mechagodzilla, Mothra, and others.

But before Godzilla lays waste to Station Square, Polygon caught up with Sonic the Hedgehog X Godzilla writer Nick Marino to ask a few quick — though not quite Sonic quick — questions about the upcoming crossover. Along with that, IDW shared some exclusive pages from the upcoming first issue.

Polygon: To get started, can you please share what the dynamic is between Godzilla and Sonic in this comic? Is it a “vs.”? Is it a team-up?

Nick Marino: People have seen this as a versus, but it's really not. It's about kaiju from Godzilla's world entering Sonic's world. There's a lot less of a versus dynamic here rather than a, "Who wants what?" In particular, Eggman is our most proactive character. Eggman wants things from these monsters.

Sonic really just wants the kaiju to stop destroying things. That's his primary objective. In particular, the dynamic with Godzilla is tricky because Mechagodzilla and Mothra are on the scene first and when Godzilla shows up, Godzilla is angry from the start and he stays relatively angry throughout the story. This whole story takes place in one day, throughout five issues. We start at a non-designated time of daylight and we basically end at the following dawn.

The dynamic is that Sonic is focused on saving the day and Godzilla is irritated. I think that's the best way to say it. And Sonic, who can be very impetuous and impatient, and Godzilla, who can be very easily irritated, are getting into some spats, but I wouldn't call it a versus so much as a coexistence. "How are they coexisting in the same space for one day?" It's not easy.

Sonic has a few key locations, where does this take place?

Sega suggested that I use Station Square from Sonic Adventure, and that ended up becoming really important to our story because that's essentially the main setting now, and we needed a metropolis like that to make the scale feel full. My earliest version had them centered around Angel Island and it was really fun, but I think they felt like it didn't deliver the kind of mayhem and destruction they expected.

Were there any moments that you knew you had to hit to satisfy the fans?

Well, what is it going to be like when Sonic, who's essentially a fly to Godzilla, is moving at super speed around a creature that has nothing like that kind of speed? There were moments I knew I wanted to capture there. In particular, there was one that started out in the outline of our second issue and Sega loved it and my editors loved it and I loved it, so we moved it to be a climatic visual in our final issue

Eggman and Mechagodzilla seem like an irresistible pairing.

Peanut butter and chocolate, baby, they've got to go together. Mechagodzilla is always getting caught up in somebody's schemes and Eggman's always scheming on some tech. They've got to be together.

Eggman is going to see this machine and think, "This is beautiful. I should have made something like this. You know what? Maybe I can! Or maybe I can use this machine. Maybe I can improve this machine." Eggman is being very confident, overconfident, and I love the belief in self.

Did any surprises come out of this book for you?

Amy has really become my favorite character to write in either of these worlds. I didn't go into this anticipating that. Amy wasn't even that much of a big part of my early pitches. I feel bad saying this because it is Sonic X Godzilla, but in my heart of hearts, what I feel like I've been writing, at least when I go back in retrospect and I look at the parts that have been really engaging for me, it's really been Amy X Mothra.