Godzilla's History
Pre-films
In 1954, an American nuclear submarine unknowingly awakened Godzilla when it reached the lower depths of the ocean, drawing him to the surface in search of new sources of radiation. Godzilla attacked and fed on American and Soviet nuclear submarines in the South Pacific Ocean, with each nation believing the other was responsible for the attacks.
When Godzilla's existence became known, the American military began detonating a series of nuclear bombs in the Marshall Islands to try and kill the creature, under the guise of nuclear testing. On March 1st, 1954, Godzilla was lured ashore at Bikini Atoll, where the American military detonated their first-ever dry-fuel hydrogen bomb, code-named Castle Bravo, in an attempt to kill him, but Godzilla survives and vanishes soon afterward, and the United States covers up all evidence of his existence. A scientific organization called Monarch was formed to study Godzilla and any other supersized "hyperfauna" like him, and continued to search for him in the following decades.
Kong: Skull Island
Godzilla was mentioned by Monarch operative William Randa, who stated that the 1954 nuclear tests were not tests, but attempts to kill Godzilla.
Later, in 1973, Houston Brooks and San Lin would brief James Conrad and Mason Weaver on several other monsters who ruled the world alongside Kong. This included Godzilla, along with Mothra, Rodan and Ghidorah, who were all shown to the two via classified Monarch cave paintings.
Godzilla
In 2014, Godzilla detected the mating call of a MUTO, a parasitic life form that lived during his era and laid its eggs in the corpses of his species, believing their call to be a threat. To preserve his existence, Godzilla came ashore in Honolulu to fight the winged male MUTO before it could meet up with its female counterpart and reproduce. Godzilla confronted the MUTO at the Honolulu airport, engaging in a brief clash before it flew back out over the ocean. Godzilla returned underwater and continued pursuing his enemy. The United States military believed Godzilla to be just as big a threat as the MUTO, although Ishiro Serizawa, now a scientist working at Monarch, stated that Godzilla was only present to hunt the MUTO and that he should be allowed to do so, but was ignored.
When the female MUTO emerged in Nevada and began heading to California to meet up with the male, the military formed a plan to lure Godzilla and both MUTOs out to a remote island and kill them all with a nuclear warhead several times more powerful than Castle Bravo. Serizawa believed the detonation would fail to kill any of the creatures and warned William Stenz, the Navy admiral in charge of the operation, to call off the attack. Stenz regretfully told Serizawa they had no choice and allowed the warhead to be armed and carried by boat over San Francisco Bay.
The male MUTO used its electromagnetic pulse ability to disable the military's vehicles and steal the warhead to be used as a food source for the nest in which the female would lay its eggs. Godzilla emerged from the Bay shortly afterward, surfacing near the Golden Gate Bridge. Tanks were deployed onto the bridge and opened fire on Godzilla while civilians were attempting to cross it. Godzilla withstood the artillery fire until a blast hit him in the gills, causing him to accidentally smash into the bridge and cleaves it in two. Godzilla shrieked and continued to approach the city, where the MUTOs had constructed their nest. Shortly afterward, Stenz talks with Serizawa, and in the process, he finally has a change of heart. Realizing that Godzilla may be the only one capable of destroying the MUTOs, Stenz and the military finally allowed him to proceed into the city.
When Godzilla entered downtown San Francisco, the male MUTO attacked him while its mate laid her eggs. Meanwhile, Ford Brody and several other soldiers were sent into the heart of the city via HALO jump to recover and disarm the warhead before it could explode. Godzilla finally reached the nest and roared at the female MUTO, who charged at Godzilla and tried to attack him, but Godzilla barged her backward and pinned her to the floor, planting his foot firmly on her throat. Soon, the male re-entered the battle, and Godzilla ended up getting overpowered. The male kept him occupied allowing the female to ram Godzilla into a building. Continuing to distract the challenger, the male eventually pierced Godzilla's skin and was soon aided by the female. While they mercilessly stabbed a downed Godzilla with their claws, the nest was left unguarded. The soldiers recovered the warhead, while Ford Brody opened a gasoline line, causing the entire nest to explode in a fireball.
The female MUTO witnessed the explosion and stopped pummeling Godzilla to rush towards the nest, while her mate continued to pummel Godzilla for a few more moments before realizing what happened and flying off with her. The female roared in anguish and sadness over her dead offspring but became enraged upon seeing Brody near the nest. Before she could kill him, Godzilla emerged from behind her, and attacked with a sudden blast of his atomic breath, buying time for Brody to escape and for the other soldiers to carry the warhead to the docks. The male flew behind Godzilla and pulled him out of the way, allowing the female to recuperate and chase after the soldiers. As the male flew behind Godzilla to try and grab him again, Godzilla anticipates his next move and, with a mighty swing of his tail, slammed the male MUTO into the side of a skyscraper, which impales the male MUTO, and killing him. Godzilla stopped for a moment to catch his breath, only for the skyscraper to collapse onto him and bury him in debris. As Godzilla laid on the ground being buried in debris, he suddenly caught a glimpse of Brody, who was running to the docks. As he briefly stares down at Brody and identifies him as the one who saved him from the two MUTOs, Godzilla is then consumed by smoke.
Brody continued onward and reached the docks, only to witness the female MUTO kill all of his companions. Brody approached the warhead attempted to try and disarm it, but it was clamped shut, so he switched on the boat instead of preparing to send it out to the sea where it could detonate safely. Suddenly, the boat's engine deactivated as the female MUTO approached, her EMP field disabling all nearby electronics. Brody drew his pistol and aimed it at her, fully expecting to be killed. Just then, out of nowhere, Godzilla came up behind the MUTO and clamped his jaws down on her neck, pulling her away from the boat and saving Ford. Godzilla grabbed the MUTO's jaws, pried them open, and finished her off in a "Kiss of Death" fatality by firing his atomic breath down her throat until her neck blew open and her head tore off, killing her instantly. After decapitating the female MUTO, Godzilla roared victoriously before dropping her head and collapsing to the ground due to exhaustion. The boat reactivated and began heading out of the bay, while Brody was rescued by a helicopter and the boat exploded with the warhead far from the city.
The next morning, San Francisco was in ruins, while military and emergency personnel surrounded Godzilla's unconscious body. Serizawa and his assistant, Vivienne Graham looked at Godzilla, believing him to be dead. Suddenly, Godzilla's nostrils flared and he began to stir. Everyone looked at him, wondering what was going on and Godzilla's eye opened, confirming that he is still alive. Shortly afterward, Ford, Sam, Elle, and other families were finally reunited. Meanwhile, as Godzilla stood up and began walking back out to the ocean, the media hailed him as the "King of the Monsters" and a hero who saved San Francisco. As a result of that, the city's residents began cheering for him. When he finally reached the shoreline, Godzilla let out one last victorious roar before sinking back into the sea and disappearing beneath the waves.
Godzilla: Aftershock
In the prequel graphic comic to King of the Monsters, Godzilla's quest in stopping the MUTO threat revealed to be far from over, as the greatest of the MUTOs, MUTO Prime, emerged and set out to continue what its fallen progenies started. Godzilla soon faces the new threat in multiple confrontations starting from an American military base in Guam. The two Titans soon bring their battle to the Barents Sea and later, Athena II Nuclear Power Plant in France at which Godzilla came close to death's door with MUTO Prime nearly infecting him with its eggs. The fight soon ends in a stalemate with both enemies exchanging roars before the latter retreated underground. Godzilla returned to the sea but is visibly injured from the encounter.
Around this time, Monarch had determined that the ultimate MUTO was the same one who had slain a member of Godzilla's species that was known to the ancients as "Dagon", by infecting him with its parasitic eggs using its ovipositors. The deceased Dagon was later entombed in a cavern in the Philippines, the same cavern which was unearthed in 1999 and confirming that the two MUTOs were none other than MUTO Prime's children. As if that wasn't bad enough, MUTO Prime now sought to kill Godzilla in the same manner as his predecessor. Fearing this, Monarch developed a plan to replicate the sonic pulses given off by the MUTO eggs (to pacify MUTO Prime) in hopes of aiding their Titan ally.
By the time two of Monarch's agents, Dr. Emma Russell and Tarkan Cavusgolu, arrived at a decommissioned nuclear submarine power cores in Nevada with the prototype ORCA sonar device developed by the latter, Godzilla and MUTO Prime were already locked in combat. The two then join the fight by activating the device just as MUTO Prime is about to deliver a killing blow on Godzilla with its ovipositor, causing it to hesitate. Seeing an opening, Godzilla quickly grabs his foe and lifts it onto his back before employing a thermonuclear pulse at a point-blank range through his damaged dorsal plates, launching the beast into the air and shattering its additional limbs in the process. With the greatest of MUTOs weakened, Godzilla delivered a final blow by stomping on the beast's skull, killing it. After the fight, the exhausted Godzilla roared victoriously before weakly walking off into the sunset.
Monarch: Legacy of Monsters to pre-Godzilla: King of the Monsters
Godzilla appears in a flashback when the United States Military attempted to kill him with the Castle Bravo bomb at the Bikini Atoll in 1954. His footprints were also discovered in a muddy field in Indonesia. In 1955, Godzilla swims to Hateruma Island upon sensing the Gamma Radiation Simulator. Godzilla destroys the device before swimming back into the ocean.
In 2014, prior to the showdown in San Francisco, footage of the battle between Godzilla and the male MUTO at Honolulu became viral across the internet. A group of students in school teacher Cate Randa's class watched footage of the battle on a cellphone, with one of the children mentioning how his father speculated that the battle was a calculated hoax in order to burst the real estate market.
Godzilla appears in another flashback when he accidentally destroyed the Golden Gate Bridge, which resulted in the deaths of several children who were in the same bus as Cate Randa.
In 2015, Godzilla is sleeping in the middle of the Algerian Desert when Hiroshi Randa's Gamma Radiation Simulator awakens him from his slumber. He briefly observes Cate Randa and stands on his hind legs, which results in him accidentally knocking away a Monarch helicopter with one of his regrown dorsal plates. Godzilla then lets out a roar before walking away from Cate and her group.
Godzilla responds to the Gamma Radiation Simulator that Lee Shaw activated and enters Axis Mundi to battle the Ion Dragon. The Ion Dragon seizes Godzilla's head with its thagomizers and starts biting his throat, only for Godzilla to retaliate by tearing off one of the thagomizers before he throws the Ion Dragon onto a nearby mountain. Godzilla is about to use his atomic breath when the Ion Dragon intends to blind him with its nacre attack. Godzilla then body slams the Ion Dragon and briefly burns the smaller Titan with his atomic breath before he rips its right wing off and hurls its body into a nearby Vile Vortex. With his victory secured, Godzilla drops the torn Ion Dragon wing he is holding and watch as the reconnaissance pod carrying Cate Randa, May Olowe-Hewitt, and Keiko Randa hovers toward the surface.
Monarch then tracked Godzilla as he swam through the Pacific Ocean, passing Skull Island in the process. He eventually disappeared for some time into the Mariana Trench before resurfacing and headed down south where he arrived at the Antarctic, near Outpost 32, where Ghidorah was contained in ice and being monitored by Monarch, presumably to check on him.
Godzilla: King of the Monsters
Five years after the battle of San Francisco, Monarch and a recently-reawakened Godzilla travel to Antarctica where the team realizes Alan Jonah's intentions to free a Titan encased in the ice called "Monster Zero". Once there, Jonah's team ambushes the Monarch soldiers while Mark is unable to rescue Emma and Madison. In desperation, Emma frees and awakens the Titan herself. Monster Zero begins rampaging until Godzilla emerges through the ice, engaging in a fight that ends with Monster Zero flying away, but Graham is killed in the ensuing mayhem.
Much later over the oceans, Godzilla emerges and engages Monster Zero again, successfully tearing off one of his heads. During the battle, the military launches a missile known as the Oxygen Destroyer towards them, seemingly killing Godzilla, who sinks into the ocean. Monster Zero survives the missile unscathed and regenerates its missing head with a recovered Rodan, which becomes submissive to its rule, later. Eventually, Monarch discovers that Monster Zero's real name is Ghidorah, an alien who has usurped Godzilla's position as the alpha.
Following Ghidorah's ascension and the awakening of Titans around the world, Mothra emerges from her cocoon underneath the waterfall and flies to Castle Bravo to communicate with Godzilla, who had survived the detonation and is recuperating in a chamber inside an underwater city. Monarch uses the communication frequency to locate the pair. There, Mark and a Monarch team board a submarine to revive Godzilla, as they realize the natural process could take years. Ultimately, the team decides to detonate a nuclear weapon, allowing Godzilla to feed on the radiation, but due to earlier damages the submarine suffered from a vortex, the weapon system is offline. Serizawa volunteers to sacrifice himself to manually detonate the weapon, which will revive Godzilla. As the weapon counts down to detonation, Godzilla awakens and stares at Serizawa, who touches Godzilla's snout and bids goodbye to him, who Serizawa calls his old friend. After the detonation, Godzilla emerges from the ocean and hovers menacingly in front of the sub. However, Mark Russell orders the crew to remain perfectly still as Godzilla starts to sniff them. Although not seeing them as a threat at first, Godzilla suddenly realized that the group actually helped by healing him upon catching the scent of Serizawa on them before he swims away without harming them.
At Fenway Park, Madison broadcasts a frequency that attracts all the Titans to its location. Ghidorah arrives at Boston and attempts to kill Madison, only for Godzilla to appear with Monarch's assistance to engage it. Mark leads a Monarch team to rescue Madison and escape the city before Godzilla overloads and emits a thermonuclear explosion. Mothra and Rodan arrive and fight each other while Godzilla battles Ghidorah. Mothra defeats Rodan after a long fight in which she was nearly defeated. Although Godzilla proved to be stronger than Ghidorah due to his body overloading with radiation, Ghidorah absorbed electricity from a power grid and blinded him and, with his increased strength, picked Godzilla up and lifted him up in the sky. Once he reached the troposphere, he dropped him, heavily wounding the Titan. Mothra attempted to fight Ghidorah but is disintegrated by one of his blasts; meanwhile, Mark, Emma, and Madison reunited and attempt to restart the damaged ORCA to lure Ghidorah away from Godzilla.
As they are evacuated, Emma drives away with the ORCA to continue luring Ghidorah so Mark and Madison can escape, sacrificing herself in the process. Godzilla recovers and unleashes a series of thermonuclear blasts, bombarding Ghidorah with atomic pulses that destroy his wings and two of his heads. He then proceeds to pin the wounded alien Titan to the ground and stomp his foot through Ghidorah's chest. After grasping Ghidorah's middle head in his mouth, Godzilla destroys him permanently by incinerating it with his atomic breath, avenging the deaths of Mothra, Graham, Emma and countless other humans. Rodan and the other Titans then converge on Godzilla, bowing to him as their new alpha.
Following the Titan outbreak, Monarch has divulged its information on the Titans to the public. News clippings reveal Godzilla's swimming path having a restorative effect on coral reefs and fish populations, as well as him keeping the other Titans in check and making a surprise visit to the cruise ship Carnival Breeze. Another article elaborates on the discovery of ancient paintings displaying Godzilla battling Kong.
Godzilla Dominion
Now cemented as the true Alpha Titan since his victory over Ghidorah, Godzilla spends his time keeping the natural balance between man and Titans. On his patrol, he comes across Scylla, who hungers for sustenance from an inert nuclear warhead. However, Godzilla cannot allow this as her consumption of it will result in a nuclear explosion that will kill numerous humans and affect the land and sea in a negative way. Godzilla attempts to use his authority over her to get her to stand down, but she refuses: forcing Godzilla to battle her. After a brief battle, Godzilla manages to drive her a way with a powerful strike of his tail, causing her to flee back into the ocean.
Godzilla moves on, where he interrupts a battle for control over the area between Amhuluk and Behemoth. Behemoth has already appropriated the land and Amhuluk is trying to take it from him. Godzilla subdues Amhuluk just as the latter has overpowered Behemoth. Conceding to Godzilla's authority, Amhuluk moves on.
Swimming through the ocean, Godzilla reflects on how things have changed on the planet. He comes across his former resting place built for him by the humans, which was destroyed when he was healed by Ishiro Serizawa. As he reflects, he notices numerous aquatics creatures unfamiliar to him and is attacked shortly thereafter by a giant fish-like Titan. The bomb that was used to heal him not only destroyed his former resting place, but also opened a breach in the Hollow Earth where these creatures can enter. Godzilla uses his atomic breath to extinguish the creature, driving the others away as well. Moving on to find a new place to rest, Godzilla thinks about the time he returned to the Island his lair was located under, and how later on after his encounter with the natives he was defeated and driven off by a member of Kong's species, who he considered his rival. During his journey, he remembers Mothra's sacrifice for him.
Deciding to make his way back to that island (even with sensing his rival's presence albeit something feels weird about it), Godzilla is interrupted when he senses another Titan in pain: Na Kika, who has been captured in a electrified net by a group of humans. Godzilla frees her and proceeds to lay waste to the humans who attacked him afterwards. He then proceeds to the island ready to fight his "rival" for claim of the land. Arriving he calls out to his rival, but his rival does not answer, which confuses Godzilla. He is then attacked by Tiamat, who proceeds to drag him into what seemed to be a new area of Hollow Earth. Godzilla frees himself and defeats Tiamat, prompting her to submit to him and allows her to flee. Just then, he realizes he is at his old lair and finds the remains of his rival who had died ages ago. Realizing he has found a place he can call home, Godzilla prepares to rest. But first, he calls the other Titans to rest as well.
Kingdom Kong
A cave painting on Skull Island depicts Godzilla battling one of Kong's ancestors.
Godzilla vs. Kong
Five years after the battle in Boston, Godzilla has suddenly become more aggressive and violent as he begins to attack major human settlements, specifically facilities belonging to Apex Cybernetics, for unknown reasons, despite the fact that in the past, he has never shown direct aggression towards humans in general. Madison Russell believes there is something that is provoking Godzilla into attacking these said human settlements which proved to be true: he attacked the facilities because they were involved in a shady project revolving salvaged remains of his fallen enemy Ghidorah, creating energy signatures which alarmed the King of Monsters, prompting him to stop Apex Cybernetics before their actions doomed the entire planet like Ghidorah did.
Days after destroying an Apex facility in Florida, Godzilla senses Kong has left the isolation of Skull Island. Knowing that Kong would pose a threat to his status as the Alpha Titan, Godzilla leaves his mission of destroying Apex's secret project to take down his rival. Upon arriving at the convoy, Godzilla destroys a fighter jet and two battleships before he capsizes the aircraft carrier that held Kong, but Nathan Lind manages to free Kong from his shackles, allowing Kong to surface and confront Godzilla on one of the carriers.
Godzilla leaps onto the carrier before Kong punches him in the face, only for Godzilla to knock Kong down with a swipe of his claws. Godzilla's attempt to use his atomic breath on Kong is foiled when jet fighters stun him with missiles, allowing Kong to push Godzilla into the water. Godzilla then uses his atomic breath on the aircraft carrier and manages to drag Kong into depths of the ocean. However, Wilcox manages to rescue Kong by detonating depth charges that disorients Godzilla, which gives Kong the opportunity to return to the aircraft carrier and rest. The convoy then shuts down all of their engines to make Godzilla think that he has won the battle and leave them be. Ilene Andrews knows that the moment they restart the engines, Godzilla will return to hunt them down and resort to transport Kong to Antarctica via helicopters.
Upon hearing the signal emitted by Mechagodzilla in an enclosed Apex facility in Hong Kong, Godzilla changes course and swims towards the city before making landfall. He walks through the city, trying to find Mechagodzilla's location.
As Godzilla strides through Hong Kong, he senses the spike of energy hidden in the Hollow Earth and uses his atomic breath to create a hole that stretches all the way to the planet's core. Godzilla then roars out a challenge to Kong, which the latter accepts in response to Godzilla's destruction of his ancestral home before jumping into the hole. Once Kong reaches the surface, he brandishes the axe he acquired from the Hollow Earth as he and Godzilla begin to battle. Kong charges at Godzilla with his axe, which Godzilla manages to dodge. As Kong attempts to free his axe, Godzilla goes on the offensive. However, Kong is now in a environment that allows him to embrace his agility, and manages to dodge and land numerous blows on Godzilla before retrieving his axe. Kong then manages to block and absorb Godzilla's atomic breath with the axe. Taking advantage of Kong's brief astonishment of the axe's capabilities, Godzilla knocks him across the bay and again separates the axe from Kong by throwing it into a building. Godzilla starts firing his atomic breath at Kong, who continues to evade before using a makeshift shield to close the distance long enough to retrieve the axe and leap onto Godzilla who continues firing his atomic breath. Kong succeeds in charging up the axe as he brings it down on Godzilla's head, temporarily stunning the latter and launching Kong backwards due to the explosion emitted from the axe.
Awakening and recovering from the powerful blow, Godzilla searches for Kong among the wreckage, before being ambushed by Kong from a nearby skyscraper. Piggybacking off of Godzilla's back, Kong brutally pummels the Alpha Titan over the head several times before Godzilla manages to throw Kong off him. He then proceeds to viciously maul Kong, dislocating the ape's arm in the process, before pinning him with his foot. With Kong at his mercy, Godzilla stares down at him, before roaring into his face, with Kong roaring back in defiance, refusing to submit. Godzilla, as if impressed by this show of defiance and bravery, spares Kong and withdraws, having achieved victory over his would-be challenger, and further cementing his status as the Alpha Titan.
By morning, Godzilla is confronted by the man-made Titan Mechagodzilla, the product of Apex Cybernetics' activities he attempted to cease and worse, has been subsequently controlled the consciousness of his old enemy Ghidorah. Due to being to exhausted from the fight with Kong; Godzilla is outmatched by Mechagodzilla's abilities and finds himself mercilessly beaten by the mecha. As Mechagodzilla prepares to fire a beam of energy down Godzilla's throat, Kong arrives and jumps on Mechagodzilla's back, redirecting the beam into the air and saving Godzilla's life. Sensing an ally in Kong and realizing that ape titan is not an enemy, Godzilla gets up and attacks Mechagodzilla before he is able to attack the downed Kong. Working together, the two titans manage to turn the tide, but Mechagodzilla still proves to be stronger than the two exhausted titans, knocking Godzilla aside and attempting to use his tail to fatally stab Kong. As Kong struggles to hold off Mechagodzilla's tail, Godzilla notices Kong holding his axe and fires his atomic breath at it. With Godzilla empowering the axe, Kong is able to dismember Mechagodzilla before tearing off his head, ending the threat of the mecha once-and-for all.
After Mechagodzilla's destruction, Godzilla recovers and advances on Kong. The massive ape retrieves his axe and prepares to resume their fight; however, Godzilla shows no interest in fighting and merely stares Kong down. In response, Kong throws his axe aside, marking the end to the eons long feud between their two species. With his position as the Alpha Titan secured, Godzilla roars in acknowledgement and respect for Kong, considering him an equal; before returning to the ocean as Kong and the onlookers watch on.
