Skull Island

**Skull Island**, officially known as **Isla De Craneo**, is a location that was discovered in the 2017 film *Kong: Skull Island*. Surrounded by perpetual storms, it has remained uncharted and is one of the openings where the underground monsters can emerge to the surface from the Hollow Earth.

## History

### MonsterVerse

#### *Kong: Skull Island*

In 1944, American fighter pilot Hank Marlow and Japanese fighter pilot Gunpei Ikari crash-landed on Skull Island following a dogfight. The two men began to viciously fight to the death, only to be confronted by a gigantic ape.

In the closing days of the Vietnam War, Monarch members William Randa and Houston Brooks approached U.S. Senator Al Willis to secure approval for an expedition to Skull Island. Randa believed that the island was an emergence point for huge hollow pockets he believed existed underground, where an ecosystem of Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organisms thrived. After some convincing, Willis approved the expedition and granted Monarch a military escort. Tagging along with a NASA surveying expedition aboard the ship *Athena*, the Monarch team arrived at the colossal storm cell surrounding the island. The expedition members boarded helicopters and pierced the storm, reaching the island itself. Seismic charges were dropped from the choppers to survey the terrain, but only served to draw creatures known as Skullcrawlers to the surface, as well as enrage King Kong, the island's gigantic guardian. Kong destroyed the helicopters, leaving the survivors stranded on the island. Some of the survivors met Hank Marlow, who was living among the native Iwi tribe, and brought them on his boat the *Grey Fox* to try and reach the extraction point on the north side of the island. Another group of survivors, led by Preston Packard, fought their way through some of the island's creatures until they reunited with the others. The survivors then passed through a huge pit full of skeletons, where they were ambushed by a Skullcrawler. They defeated the monster at the cost of several lives and escaped the pit. Packard and his men split with the others and attempted to bring down Kong, but were stopped by Marlow, James Conrad and Mason Weaver. A huge Skullcrawler appeared and attacked Kong, who had just killed Packard, forcing Marlow, Conrad, Weaver, and the remainder of Packard's men to retreat. The Skullcrawler chased them to the edge of the island, but Kong arrived and battled the creature. After a long battle, Kong killed the Skullcrawler, allowing the surviving members of the expedition to be rescued from the island and return to civilization.

#### *Godzilla: King of the Monsters*

By 2019, Monarch had established Outpost 33 on Skull Island to monitor Kong. When King Ghidorah awakened the Titans across the globe, contact with this Outpost was lost. After Godzilla killed King Ghidorah and became the new alpha of the Titans, many of the Titans began to converge on Skull Island, which had begun to experience seismic instability. Monarch was reported to have funneled additional resources and manpower into monitoring Skull Island, as well as organizing an expedition into the Hollow Earth beneath the island.

#### *Godzilla vs. Kong*

At some point prior to 2024, Skull Island became enveloped in a gigantic storm which wiped out the majority of the Iwi, leaving a single survivor, Jia. Outpost 33 was expanded, and had a containment facility built by Monarch to house Kong, but Kong was aware the preserved habitat inside the containment facility was not his home, and attempted to breach containment on a regular basis.