Writer: Julio Anta / Illustrator: Jacob Salcedo / Colors: Francesco Segala with color assistance by Agnese Pozza / Letterer: Becca Carey
Back in high school English class (or maybe middle school English class even? Both are several lifetimes away at this point), I was taught about all of the different forms of conflict in a story. Character vs. Character. Character vs. Self. Character vs. Society. There are more, but rather than continue to list them out, I will skip to the most pertinent one: Character vs. Nature.
Kaiju stories are the platonic ideal of a Character vs. Nature story. I spend an unreasonable amount of time thinking about the opening narration of Pacific Rim, and how the giant monsters get categorized as the scale of storms and natural disasters. It speaks so clearly to the resiliency and endurance inherent to the story.
And while kaiju stories have traditionally focused on the direct combat of towering behemoths, a lot of modern kaiju fiction has begun to interrogate the smaller scale stuff, whether that be Love and Monsters, Godzilla Minus One, and very, very briefly in Kaiju No. 8 before it dovetailed into more conventional kaiju combat affairs. But the point stands, there is a lot of interesting ground when it comes to the individuals on the ground floor when the monsters come. Survival looks very different when you don’t have the armory or armor to back it up.
Enter No Gods, No Masters. From the minds of Julio Anta and Jacoby Salcedo comes the latest entry of kaiju tale, which I’m going to liken to what if Cloverfield starred the racially diverse cast of teenagers. That feels a little strange to say now, but it does capture both the scrappy teen energy and the general deconstructed premise of a group of teens trying to survive in an inhospitable environment.
From the opening page turn, Anta and Salcedo immediately toss in media where aforementioned scrappy teens are dealing with a smaller kaiju, and my god, does Salcedo absolutely capture everything I want in a kaiju: alien physiology, a sense of frightening scale, and aura of menace.
It is glorious.
What follows is Anta doing a masterclass in world building and character development. In a handful of pages, we are properly introduced to Felipe, Malik, and Jeanie, the ominous “Emergence,” and the start of a brutal journey through a city under siege by monsters.
What really distinguishes the story of No Gods, No Masters for me is Felipe’s immigration due to this type of natural disaster. It’s clear that Felipe did not want to relocate but didn’t really have a choice in the matter, and the systems in the US do not provide enough support. It’s subtle (or not so subtle honestly) commentary like that that elevates the story from a typical kaiju affair. As much as the central conflict is “character vs. nature,” there is very much an undertone of “character versus society,” and I’m almost certain we’re going to see humans be just as much as a threat to our trio as the kaiju that have put them into the situation.
No Gods, No Masters releases in stores on September 2nd. You can (and you absolutely should) go talk to your local comic book store ahead of the final order cutoff on July 27 so that way you can read the issue yourself as soon as possible. This is shaping up to be one of my favorite comics of 2026, and I can’t wait to see what happens next.
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