King Ghidorah

King Ghidorah (キングギドラ Kingu Gidora?), also dubbed Monster Zero, Titanus Ghidorah or just simply Ghidorah, is a giant extraterrestrial three-headed dragon daikaiju created by Legendary Pictures that first appeared in the 2019 film, Godzilla: King of the Monsters, as one of the two primary antagonists.
== History ==
Ghidorah is lured to Fight by Sonic, who broadcasts the Friends signal from battle. Godzilla appears to challenge his rival once more, with Mothra joining by his side. However, Ghidorah calls upon Rodan to distract Mothra while he takes on Godzilla himself. The battle is at first a stalemate, both Titans being evenly matched. Ghidorah manages to absorb massive amounts of electrical energy by biting down on a nearby transformer and proceeds to incapacitate Godzilla. He carries Godzilla into the sky and drops him down thousands of feet, mortally wounding him. After slamming into the ground, Godzilla lies defenseless. Mothra, who is grievously injured from her fight with Rodan, attempts to defend him but is killed by Ghidorah's gravity beams. As she dies, however, she releases a cloud of energy, which Godzilla absorbs. Godzilla begins to glow fiery orange.
Seemingly realizing the threat posed by this energy, Ghidorah grapples Godzilla and begins draining it through his bite. However, a repentant Emma Russell uses the ORCA to distract Ghidorah, who then chases her into the city and mortally injures her with his gravity beams, destroying the ORCA.
The few moments were enough for Godzilla to recover, who then enters the scene supercharged and glowing a burning red. Ghidorah manages to shield himself against Godzilla's first thermonuclear pulse, which incinerates his wings in the process. Panicking, Ghidorah tries to stop Godzilla with his gravity beams, which fails as Godzilla incinerates Ghidorah's two side heads with a second pulse.
The remaining middle head struggles vainly, but Godzilla steps on the fallen Ghidorah's chest and releases a final thermonuclear pulse that obliterates Ghidorah's body. After the storm ceased, Godzilla rises from the rubble with Ghidorah's middle head dangling from his mouth, still frantically struggling. Godzilla fires his atomic breath through Ghidorah's neck, incinerating it, seemingly leaving behind no remains and presumably killing him for good.
== Abilities ==
=== Alpha Call ===
When Ghidorah became the Alpha Titan, he was able to let out a powerful call that can be heard by other Titans all over the world and made them submit to him.
=== Bio-electrical Nature ===
Ghidorah's skin was covered with traces of gold that acted as a conductor that carried bioelectrical currents throughout his body. He had electro-receptor molecular biology and could conduct electrical currents, make water vapor heat up to extreme levels, and create localized storm systems, otherworldly tempests of thunder and lightning.
=== Durability ===
Ghidorah's golden scales made him highly impervious to any form of weaponry. He was also able to withstand a full-force charge from both Rodan and Godzilla. Even the sheer power of a powered-up Godzilla's atomic breath couldn't cause any noticeable damage to him. Furthermore, after the destruction of his entire body, Ghidorah's middle head continued to struggle while in Godzilla's jaws, only to be destroyed when Godzilla fired his atomic breath through Ghidorah’s neck.
=== Energy Drain ===
Ghidorah could bite down onto power lines and absorb the power to himself, significantly boosting his strength. He was also able to siphon the life force of his opponents through his bite, attempting to do so to Godzilla during their fight in Boston.
=== Flight ===
Ghidorah's massive and powerful wings enabled him to fly with great speed over long distances.
=== Gravity Beams ===
Ghidorah could shoot golden gravity beams (concentrated beams of electricity) from his mouths, much like how Godzilla's dorsal plates glow whenever he is about to release his atomic breath, Ghidorah's throats glowed before he fired his gravity beams. When Ghidorah had absorbed enough amount of power, he could project gravity beams from the tips of his wings. The beams were extremely powerful, as they could easily obliterate humans and buildings, singe Godzilla's scales and incinerate a weakened Mothra within seconds during their battle in Boston. They were also able to generate a great amount of static electricity that shorted out the circuits of all electronics around Ghidorah.
=== Hurricane Winds ===
Ghidorah had hyper-tensile muscle tendons in his wings that were capable of generating hurricane-force winds while in flight.
=== Intelligence ===
Cranial scans indicate each of Ghidorah's heads possessed different levels of cognitive function and independent thought. The middle head was the most intelligent, acting as the leader while the left and right heads were more akin to its lackeys, or trained dogs. The right head, however, was somewhat smarter than the left head, as he recognized an electrical transformer as a power source.
=== Oxygen Independency ===
As an extraterrestrial Titan, Ghidorah did not require oxygen to survive, which made him completely immune to the Oxygen Destroyer.
=== Rattling ===
The spikes on Ghidorah's tails could be used to create a rattling sound as a form of intimidation, similar to a rattlesnake.
=== Regeneration ===
Using the radiation from Rodan's volcano, Ghidorah was able to regenerate the head that was decapitated by Godzilla almost instantaneously.[7] During the battle in Boston, Ghidorah was able to regenerate holes in his wing membranes that had been torn or burnt during his fight with Godzilla within seconds.
=== Speed and Agility ===
Each of Ghidorah's heads was very nimble and quick, able to lash out and quickly struck their intended targets like snakes. When flying, his top speed could reach up to 550 knots.
=== Strength and Combat ===
Ghidorah's intimidation style was very similar to a king cobra. Much like cobras that raise their heads and spread their necks, Ghidorah raised his heads and spread his wings to make himself appear twice as large as Godzilla.
Ghidorah was able to use his jaws, claws, wings, and tails in battle, As with his previous incarnations, the immense strength of this Ghidorah surpasses that of Godzilla. His prehensile tails are strong enough to wrap around and lift the 99,634-ton Godzilla thousands of feet into the air with little effort before dropping him onto the ground.
Ghidorah's fighting style was similar to that of a snake quickly lashing out and biting onto opponents. Also like that of a snake, Ghidorah was seen coiling around Godzilla several times in an attempt to strangle him.
Ghidorah could also use his massive wings as shields by tucking them over his body.
== Weaknesses ==
Even though Ghidorah is extremely powerful, he has several notable weaknesses.
=== Thermonuclear Pulses ===
Despite Ghidorah's immense durability, he could not withstand the thermonuclear pulses released by Godzilla in his burning form, which incinerated Ghidorah's wings and heads within seconds.
=== Water ===
Since Ghidorah's physical structure was that of an airborne creature, he was not entirely suited to move underwater. When Godzilla pushed him into the ocean, Ghidorah struggled to fight back and got his left head easily decapitated by the former.
== Trivia ==
* In the official Monarch timeline posted on the Facebook page for Kong: Skull Island, the label given to Ghidorah is 'Monster Zero', which was the name given to him by the Xiliens in Invasion of Astro-Monster.
* According to Monarch Sciences, Ghidorah (like his arch-rival Godzilla) has been alive for millennia and influenced the depiction of numerous mythological creatures (such as the Rainbow Serpent and the Hydra), which were in fact sightings of him.
** This trait where monsters had inspired humanity to create mythical creatures from the real world is very similar to the cases seen in Shusuke Kaneko's Gamera Trilogy and his Godzilla. Both incarnations of King Ghidorah have bird-like with three large claws and a smaller fourth digit, and wings with phalanges that can be folded at the side. They also possess electrical abilities along with the traditional gravity beams.
** Shusuke Kaneko pointed multiple similarities between his GMK and King of the Monsters including "King Ghidorah in ice" and "a father in a submarine".[8]
* This is the largest live-action incarnation of Ghidorah as well as the second-largest next to the anime incarnation.
* Monarch Outpost 32, where Ghidorah is contained, functions as a reference to Outpost 31 of the 1982 film The Thing. This is backed up by its location that is set in a tundra environment.
** Additionally, it is a more subtle homage to 1964, the year Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster was released (as 32 is half of 64).
* This is the second incarnation of Ghidorah that can fire lightning from his wings, with the first being his Rebirth of Mothra III incarnation.
* Mike Dougherty has stated that, although King of the Monsters is not a comedy, he likened Ghidorah to Rip Van Winkle, having a sense of curiosity and cruelty.[9]
* In one interview, Mike Dougherty likened Ghidorah's three heads to conjoined siblings. Additionally, when designing Ghidorah, he wanted to create a "unique" design that still resembled Ghidorah and worked closely with Toho to make sure the new design respected past incarnations; he also studied various animals, specifically king cobras, to add a sense of realism to the design.[10] He also told the design team to maintain an eastern dragon influence, and to avoid any western dragon influences, stating "They're not traditional western dragons. So those were marching orders from the beginning... We don't want it to look like Game of Thrones dragons".[11]
* Several features of this King Ghidorah could have been inspired by Smaug the Golden from the live-action Hobbit trilogy, specifically the collapsible wings that can be used as front limbs for walking, similar facial structures, menacing facial expressions, and their throats glow when using breath attacks. Additionally, both Smaug and King Ghidorah were portrayed via motion capture.
** Weta Digital Workshop participated in the CGI effects for both film series. The studio is known for its introduction of motion capture into live-action films, and Andy Serkis, known for his usage of motion capture for Gollum in the Lord of the Ring and the Hobbit trilogies, later played King Kong in the 2005 film.
* The dragons from the 2002 film Reign of Fire share similarities to the facial structures of this King Ghidorah: the male dragon from Reign of Fire and the middle head of this King Ghidorah have more curved horns, and both play the "Alpha" role, while the female dragons from Reign of Fire and the other heads of this King Ghidorah possess more linear horns and their heads are less built than their "Alphas".
* This is the fourth incarnation of King Ghidorah to have an extraterrestrial origin and the third to act solely on his terms much like his debut film and Rebirth of Mothra III.
* The scene where Alan Jonah collects the severed Ghidorah head could be a reference to Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II, where the mechanical head of Ghidorah was salvaged for the creation of Mechagodzilla.