Mothra's History
Mothra (モスラ Mosura?), also dubbed Titanus Mosura, is a giant lepidopteran Titan in the MonsterVerse created by Legendary Pictures who was introduced in the 2019 film, Godzilla: King of the Monsters. She returned in the sequel, Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire.
Origins
From erased Nazca lines to the hidden Temple of The Moth, the name "Mothra" is woven throughout the most secret mythologies of our planet. The folklore and fairy tales tell of a winged creature of blinding light, an angel of the clouds whose god-like luminescence has the power to shatter the sky.
Ancient spirit tablets discovered in the mountain jungles of the Yunnan Province portray a giant winged alpha of the Lepidoptera order. In all of our findings, human civilization is pictographically shown in poses that imply deification of the so-called "Queen of the Monsters", suggesting that the creature was once a benign part of the natural order.
When Monarch containment crews discovered the live Titan chrysalis within the Chinese myth site, Dr. Emma Russell was quickly dispatched to closely monitor the creature that lay dormant within it. A quickening sonar pulse suggests the creature is awakening. If she ever emerges from her ancient slumber, a superspecies that once illuminated the sky will be reborn as Mothra.
Pupal DNA samples suggest a remarkable, multi-stage evolution. On reaching adulthood, Mothra's gigantic thorax is capable of emitting beta-wave bioluminescence which can be projected through the intricate patterns on its wings and weaponized into blinding "god rays".
As one of the deadliest and most beautiful natural phenomena in Earth's history, no wonder this devastating guardian angel was worshipped as a goddess by the ancient human civilizations blessed to witness her.
― Monarch Creature Profile
The MonsterVerse incarnation of Mothra returns the character to her Toho incarnations' roots as a mystical being of resurrection; being capable of returning from death by laying an egg, from which she is reborn as a larva when her previous form dies - she has conquered death many times this way, to the point that she does not fear it.[6] She is an insect-like superspecies which evolved in a highly vicious prehistoric environment that was full of predators, leading to her developing equally-harsh methods of self-defense in the form of her stinger and her sharp legs. Godzilla's species lived alongside Mothra, and Mothra and Godzilla had a warm, symbiotic relationship. At some point in the past, Mothra participated in an "ancient war," where she fought alongside Godzilla against one of Titanus Kong's ancestors and an adult Skullcrawler, as evidenced by one of the cave paintings found by explorers.
In a nod to the original Japanese films, Mothra was worshipped as a deity by the Iwi living in the Hollow Earth city of Malenka, along by another primitive culture living in the Yunnan Province more than 10,000 years ago, possessing a mutual symbiotic relationship with them - Mothra's human worshippers used a temple to protect her egg, and Mothra in return would protect them from predatory Titans after hatching. Her last egg before the 21st century went unhatched for millennia deep in the rainforest, at a remote temple surrounded by jungle-covered ruins, during which time her religion largely died off, albeit still surviving in some form.
Kong: Skull Island
In 1973, Houston Brooks and San Lin would brief James Conrad and Mason Weaver on multiple other monsters who ruled the world alongside Kong. This included Mothra, along with Godzilla, Rodan, and Ghidorah, who were all shown to the two via classified Monarch cave paintings.
2009
In 2009, a team led by Monarch scientist Dr. Emma Russell followed a strange bio-acoustic signature to a previously undiscovered megalithic temple in the high-altitude jungles of China's Yunnan province. A giant cocoon was found within the temple, with a rapid heartbeat detected inside.
Godzilla
Before the meltdown at Janjira in 1999, the Brody family had an aquarium that had a creature dubbed "Mothra" in it.
Godzilla: King of the Monsters
Mothra is first seen as a larva hatching from her egg after being closely monitored by Monarch for years. She becomes agitated when Monarch operatives fire electrical pulses at her and spits silk at them in defense, as well as flattening them with her massive bulk and using her mandibles to throw one of them into a giant spiderweb. The Monarch scientists almost attempt to terminate her before she can destroy the facility, but Dr. Emma Russell manages to calm Mothra down using the ORCA device (after some trial and error with the device which briefly enrages Mothra further). Now more relaxed, Mothra leans close towards Dr. Russell and her daughter, Madison, and almost allows them to touch her. Seconds later, Alan Jonah and his eco-terrorist mercenaries attack the facility, killing all the Monarch personnel in sight except for Emma and Madison, who depart with them. Mothra meanwhile escapes the facility and travels to a waterfall, where she cocoons herself.
Sometime later, Mothra senses the reawakened Ghidorah's takeover upon Godzilla's departure, and she promptly speeds up her metamorphosis to counter the threat. She hatches from her cocoon in adult form and spreads her wings for the first time as Monarch staff including Drs. Houston Brooks and Ling Chen (the latter being a descendant of Mothra's priestesses) behold her. Mothra takes flight to Castle Bravo, her presence combating and dispelling Ghidorah's spreading stormclouds, and her presence assists Monarch in discovering that Godzilla is regenerating after he was left near death by the Oxygen Destroyer and locating the underwater Vile Vortex that leads to Godzilla's resting place and then she laid her egg off screen then.
Mothra travels to Boston and assists Godzilla in his re-match against Ghidorah. She spits silk at Ghidorah, pinning him to the side of a building and allowing Godzilla to brutally ram him through. Before she can further assist her alpha, Rodan appears and intercepts her, slamming her into a building and keeping her occupied fighting him in a fierce aerial battle so that she can't intervene in Godzilla and Ghidorah's fight.
Rodan, being much larger and, arguably, more powerful than Mothra, has the advantage for most of their fight. Eventually, Rodan pins Mothra to a building and severely burns her, but before he can deliver the killing blow, Mothra stabs him in the sternum with her hidden stinger, incapacitating him and taking him out of the fight.
Severely wounded and weakened, Mothra flies over to Godzilla, who had just been dropped from thousands of feet by Ghidorah. Using the last of her strength, she flies towards Ghidorah, who blasts her with his gravity beams. Mothra burns up and disintegrates, but her ashes fall onto Godzilla as he groans at her passing, transferring her power to him and ultimately enabling him to unlock his Burning Godzilla form.
When Burning Godzilla annihilates Ghidorah with thermonuclear pulses, the first two pulses take the appearance of Mothra's wings, and Mothra's call is audible amid the blast.
Following Ghidorah's death, newspaper articles reveal that an egg suspected to be that of Mothra has been discovered.
Godzilla Dominion
Mothra appears in a vision that Godzilla has as he remembers the sacrifice she made in order to defeat Ghidorah.
Godzilla vs. Kong
Mothra appeared in cameo as a cave painting at the beginning of the film. Mothra is also mentioned in one of Bernie Hayes' Titan Truth Podcast episodes that is titled "Mothra Pregnancy Theory".
Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire
It is revealed that Mothra has an ancient connection to the Iwi people living within the Hollow Earth city of Malenka. An ancient prophecy foretells that Mothra would join Godzilla in order to defeat the Skar King and Shimo once the Skar King is able to resume his war on the surface world. The prophecy also states that she will be reawakened by an Iwi from Skull Island.
Following her sacrifice, Mothra is revealed to be in a deep slumber within the Hollow Earth. The Iwi sense that the Skar King is about to come for them, and send a telepathic signal to Jia, the last Iwi from Skull Island, to summon her to the Hollow Earth so she can awaken Mothra. Jia fulfills the prophecy and successfully reawakens Mothra, who immediately appears in her imago form, and takes off to the surface. She intervenes in the fight between Godzilla and Kong in Egypt, stopping Godzilla from killing Kong, and convinces Godzilla to join forces with his former rival in order to stop the Skar King.
Mothra joins Godzilla, Kong, and Suko in the Hollow Earth to battle the Skar King, his army and Shimo. During the fight, Mothra aids Godzilla after Shimo attempts to freeze him. She also webs up the Skar King's soldiers and rescues Trapper, Bernie Hayes, Ilene Andrews, and the Iwi Queen as their HEAV fell following the anti-gravity shockwave eruption. The fight breaks out of the Hollow Earth to Rio de Janeiro, with Mothra remaining in the Hollow Earth.
After Shimo is freed and the Skar King is killed, Mothra rebuilds the barrier protecting Malenka, before flying deeper into the Hollow Earth.
