Issue(s): Godzilla #3
Cover Date: Oct 77
Title: "A tale of two saviors"
Credits:
Doug Moench - Writer
Herb Trimpe - Penciler
Tony DeZuniga - Inker

Review/plot:
Godzilla shows up in San Francisco.

Hercules has been putting the moves on the Black Widow...

...but when the news reports show Godzilla about to smash the Golden Gate Bridge, he has to stop.

Angel and Iceman are around as well, but Ghost Rider and Darkstar are not.

Hercules is able to flip Godzilla over and throw some giant chunks of highway at him, but that's about it.

The other Champions just aren't very effective against him. To be fair, fighting giant monsters isn't really the Black Widow's area, and Angel is pretty much useless, but I expected a little more from Iceman.

Dum Dum isn't happy about a bunch of super-heroes getting involved.

He doesn't even recognize this group, which is a bit odd. You'd think he'd at least recognize the Black Widow. SHIELD and the Champions end up spending more time squabbling with each other than fighting Godzilla...

...and in the end Godzilla gets away and the Helicarrier is destroyed.

It will be shown in Hulk #219, however, that this isn't the real Helicarrier. It's just a mini-carrier. No one in these Godzilla issues seems to know that, though. Poor Dugan thinks he gets to be in command of the real thing.

Meanwhile, Tony Stark helps Dr. Takiguchi start creating the device he thinks can defeat Godzilla while Jimmy Woo starts putting the moves on Takiguchi's assistant,Tamara Hashioka.

This issue got my hopes up a bit with the prospect of Godzilla vs. Super-heroes, but in the end the heroes ended up just fighting among themselves. Of course that was the point of the story but it wasn't really what i was looking for. The problem is that this incarnation of Godzilla has so little personality that Moench has to look for other conflicts to make it interesting.

Quality Rating: C

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: N/A

References: N/A

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

These early issues of Godzilla caused the first blowup between Doug Moench and then-assistant editor(proofreader, really) Jim Shooter. Jim tried to lecture Doug about Dum Dum's poor grammar, but Doug called Jim on his lack of real power immediately and informed him Dum Dum had always spoken like that. Jim then supposedly revealed ignorance of the character's history, and Doug proceeded to rip him a new one over him being unable to recognize a Lee & Kirby creation,and for being dictatorial in general. This butting of heads between the two continued until Doug quit Marvel in 1982.

Curious why you've placed this issue so late in the Champions chronology when it was published (in Oct '77) between The Champions #15 (Sept '77) & 16 (Nov '77). The Marvel Chronology Project places it between The Champions #15 and Iron Man Annual #4 though personally, I'd place it between their appearances in Avengers #163 (Sept '77) and Super-Villain Team-Up #14 (Oct '77). Is it possible the MCP's placement may have something to do with S.H.I.E.L.D.'s appearances?

This is just where this issue happened to fall. I didn't see any dependencies. Issue #16 was pushed back in publication time due to the crossover with SVTU #14 (which has a number of dependencies). I've got this issue placed at publication time. It looks like this could get pushed back to where you're suggesting with no problem (and i don't think it would affect the SHIELD guys' chronologies) but it seems to work just as well here.