Mothra's History
Mothra are a species of generally female insectoid kaiju, often considered to be divine.
After shipwreck survivors were reportedly rescued by natives of the seemingly uninhabited nuclear testing site of Infant Island, the Rolisican and Japanese governments organized a joint scientific expedition to the island in order to determine whether it was inhabited. The expedition members encountered a native tribe as well as two miniature women dubbed the Shobijin, prompting the greedy Rolisican entrepreneur Clark Nelson to abduct them and bring them to Japan to perform in a show he organized. The natives called upon their goddess Mothra to rescue the Shobijin, and she hatched from her gigantic egg and began swimming toward Japan. The JSDF attacked Mothra at sea with napalm, but she emerged unscathed and came ashore in Tokyo. Nelson escaped back to Rolisica with the Shobijin while the JSDF attacked Mothra with Atomic Heat Ray Guns loaned by the Rolisican military. Mothra cocooned on the Tokyo Tower and emerged in her imago form before flying to the Rolisican capital of New Kirk City. After Nelson was killed in a gunfight with local police, a group of humans recovered the Shobijin and summoned Mothra to an airport, where she was reunited with them. Mothra then flew back to Infant Island, leaving human civilization in peace.
After a fierce typhoon struck Infant Island, it unearthed Mothra's egg and washed it ashore in Japan. Mothra returned to Japan with the Shobijin to request the egg's return, but the greedy promoters Kumayama and Jiro Torahata had taken ownership of the egg to be used for a tourist attraction and refused to return it. When Godzilla, who had also been washed ashore in Japan by the typhoon, awakened and began rampaging, a trio of humans traveled to Infant Island to request Mothra's help. The natives and Shobijin both refused, but Mothra was moved by their pleas and agreed to travel to Japan and fight Godzilla with the last of her strength. Mothra intercepted Godzilla just before he could reach her egg and the two began a fierce struggle. While Mothra was able to hold her own and keep Godzilla at bay with the winds generated by her wings, her strength quickly began to fail her. Godzilla fatally wounded her with a blast of atomic breath, and she collapsed onto her egg, defending it with her dying breath. The prayers of the Shobijin and Infant Islanders caused the egg to hatch into two twin larvae, who pursued Godzilla to Iwa Island. Working together, the two larvae used hit-and-run tactics to encase Godzilla in a silken cocoon, after which he fell off of the island and into the sea below. The Mothra larvae then returned to Infant Island with the Shobijin.
Shortly after their battle with Godzilla, one of the twin Mothra larvae died, though her surviving sister continued to serve as Infant Island's guardian deity. The Shobijin called Mothra to Japan to recruit Godzilla and Rodan's help in stopping the evil space monster King Ghidorah from destroying the Earth. She interrupted the two monsters' battle at Mount Fuji with her plea, but they stubbornly refused to put aside their differences and expressed no desire to help humanity. Mothra was forced to confront King Ghidorah by herself, and was hopelessly outmatched by the demon. However, Godzilla and Rodan were both inspired by her courage and charged into battle to help her. The three monsters worked together to overpower King Ghidorah, with Mothra encasing him in a silken cocoon while Godzilla threw him off of a cliff and pelted him with boulders before he finally retreated back to outer space. Mothra and the Shobijin bid farewell to Godzilla and Rodan and returned to Infant Island.
Only a few years later, Mothra had metamorphosed into an adult and slept on an altar on Infant Island. A terrorist organization headquartered on the nearby Letchi Island, the Red Bamboo, had begun raiding Infant Island to abduct its natives and use them as slaves. The Shobijin led prayers to awaken Mothra, then traveled with her to Letchi Island to rescue the captives. Godzilla, having just defeated Ebirah in the island's waters, saw Mothra fly overhead and came ashore to challenge her to battle. With the Red Bamboo's nuclear self-destruct system armed, Mothra decided not to waste her time with a fight and used her wing to knock Godzilla down before grabbing a giant net holding the natives and several shipwrecked Japanese citizens and flying back to Infant Island.
By 1972, a larval Mothra was living on the human-monitored Monster Island along with Godzilla, Anguirus, Rodan, Minilla, Kumonga, Gorosaurus, and Kamacuras. The evil M Space Hunter Nebula Aliens planned to destroy the island and its monster inhabitants as part of their invasion of Earth, but Godzilla and Anguirus learned of their plot and defeated them along with their pawns Gigan and King Ghidorah, ensuring the safety of Mothra and the others.
At the close of the 20th century, a larval Mothra was a resident of Monsterland, a facility in the Ogasawara Islands housing the majority of the planet's monsters, far from human civilization where they could cause any damage. When the Kilaak aliens invaded the island and took control of its inhabitants, they sent Mothra to attack a train just outside of Beijing. Mothra was next called to Tokyo to attack the city along with Godzilla, Manda, and Rodan. Fortunately, the United Nations managed to sever the Kilaaks' control over the monsters and give their own commands to them instead, sending them to destroy the aliens' base near Mount Fuji. The Kilaaks unleashed King Ghidorah to intercept the monsters in the nearby Aokigahara forest, but Godzilla and a few of his monster allies managed to kill him once and for all. Mothra encased King Ghidorah's carcass in silk in tandem with Kumonga's webbing, after which it was swallowed by a fissure as the Kilaak's base exploded. Mothra and her comrades then returned to Monsterland to continue to live in peace.
