The MonsterVerse is widely successful, but it killed off one of Godzilla’s most terrifying villains too early, which is impacting the franchise.
The MonsterVerse by Legendary Pictures has remained a resounding success, and it’s one of the few examples of a successful shared movie universe beyond the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Its 2024 entry, Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, is roaring to new box office heights, showcasing that there’s still a lot of juice left in the MonsterVerse’s tank. At the same time, there is one major issue from a previous film that the newer movies have yet to correct.
King Ghidorah is perhaps Godzilla’s most notorious and iconic villain, with the three-headed dragon appearing across various continuities. Despite this, he’s had only one appearance in the MonsterVerse, with this movie also killing him off. Since then, the MonsterVerse hasn’t been as successful with foes, especially when it comes to adapting Godzilla’s classic enemies.
King Ghidorah Has a Long History With Godzilla
King Ghidorah debuted in the 1965 movie Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster, which was part of Godzilla’s Showa-era films. An alien dragon from another world, his appearance on Earth is heralded by an equally extraterrestrial prophetess. Laying waste to everything in his path, the creature came into conflict against Godzilla, Rodan and Mothra. It was only by combining their efforts that they finally ended his reign of terror, though this was far from the end of Ghidorah.
The triumvirate threat wouldn’t be dealt with once and for all until the movie Destroy All Monsters, which was chronologically the final Showa-era movie. Nevertheless, once the series rebooted in the 1980s, King Ghidorah made his triumphant return. In the Heisei-era movies, his extraterrestrial origins were done away with. Instead, Ghidorah was the result of three diminutive genetically-engineered creatures called Dorats, which are exposed to atomic power and become King Ghidorah. His function there was to be a human-controlled foil for Godzilla, though his creators soon lost said control over him.
After one of his heads is damaged, he’s refitted to become Mecha-King Ghidorah. The Millennium-era movies were almost all set in their own individual continuities, with one of the series’ best films (Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack) actually making him a good guy against a completely evil Godzilla. Through these movies, King Ghidorah has remained Godzilla’s most persistent foe, though this sadly didn’t give him much in the way of longevity in the MonsterVerse.
The MonsterVerse Made a Mistake By Killing Ghidorah Too Soon
In the MonsterVerse, King Ghidorah officially debuted in Godzilla: King of the Monsters, which was the second solo Godzilla movie in the shared universe. This film adapted several elements of his Showa-era mythos, namely the fact that Ghidorah was an alien that’s also referred to as “Monster Zero.” In the past, he had fought Godzilla and was seen as an invasive species, naturally facing him for dominance throughout time. When he’s freed from his icy prison, he reasserts himself as the ruler of the Titans, thus establishing his status as “King” Ghidorah. After being revived through atomic power, however, Godzilla takes the invader down, using his atomic breath to destroy the last of his heads.
This was sadly the end for King Ghidorah proper in the MonsterVerse, with there being no indication that he’ll return in any way. His genetic schematics were used to map the biometrics for Mechagodzilla, but Ghidorah himself is seemingly gone for good. This robs Godzilla of perhaps his greatest foe, especially since Mechagodzilla, his other most iconic enemy,is also gone. Too much of the character’s handling in King of the Monsters felt rushed and like an info dump, which was perhaps the biggest criticism of the movie. So many narrative elements felt like poor attempts at world building or setting up other movies, to the point where Ghidorah himself didn’t make the impact that he should’ve.
Some have argued that the MonsterVerse has somewhat gone downhill in quality since King of the Monsters, though this was actually the critical and financial nadir of the franchise so far. The movies since then have certainly taken on a more bombastic tone, with the seriousness of King Ghidorah being one of the last bastions of the tone of the 2014 Godzilla movie. He was also admittedly far more epic and threatening than Mechagodzilla, who felt like a more “localized” threat of technology gone awry than anything else.
Despite that movie taking place in several major cities, there was a notable loss of any sense of scale and weight to the Titans’ fights amid human civilization. Thus, Ghidorah’s death can be seen in some ways as the point where the series got a bit sillier, which is ironic given that Ghidorah’s introduction marked the same thing in the Showa-era movies after the somber 1954 original Godzilla. While he might currently be dead in the MonsterVerse, there are still ways to bring the villain for another showdown.
Ghidorah Can Return to the MonsterVerse Through These Divergent Forms
This take on Desghidorah might keep the creature as an alien or even make it into a human-devised recreation of the original King Ghidorah. Doing the latter might be the best way to bring back both the legacy of Ghidorah and the human villain, Alan Jonah, who was perhaps the best human character in Godzila: King of the Monsters. Another deadly variant of King Ghidorah was Keizer Ghidorah, who appeared in the film Godzilla: Final Wars. Initially appearing in the movie as the bipedal and somewhat humanoid “Monster X,” it later mutates into Keizer Ghidorah, which combines the designs of the classic King Ghidorah with the quadripedal body of Desghidorah.
This was meant to be the ultimate showdown between Ghidorah and Godzilla, with the version of Godzilla in Final Wars arguably acting as a modernized version of the Showa-era incarnation. A monster that mutates into a recreation of King Ghidorah after coming into contact with the deceased monster’s DNA might be the best and most organic way to bring him back, even if it’s only for another movie. Likewise, building up to the revelation behind “Monster X” would bring back the tension and terror that King Ghidorah had in King of the Monsters, making the MonsterVerse movies regain their gravitas and fear factor. This will please fans of the MonsterVerse and the older Godzilla movies, as it would cement King Ghidorah and not Kong or Mechagodzilla as the true threat to Godzilla’s throne.
Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire is now playing in theaters.
