Not all giant monsters are created equal in the Godzilla universe. Some, like the adorable Baragon, exist to get their ass kicked; others, like Biollante, give Goji a run for his money. But out of all of Godzilla’s foes, King Ghidorah always winds up near the top of the list of Godzilla’s coolest opps. I, however, think he sucks.
I didn’t always not like King Ghidorah. My first encounter with him was spurred by my best friend—who later in life I’d serve as the best man in his wedding—during a college sleepover filled with Malibu rum where we watched Kaiju movies all night. I cheered when Goji killed Roland Emmerich’s “Zilla” with extreme prejudice in Godzilla: Final Wars, guffawed at the chicanery of King Kong vs Godzilla, and bowed down to the sheer body horror of Hideaki Anno’s Shin Godzilla.
But the pièce de résistance of our sleepover was my friend introducing me to King Ghidorah, his favorite kaiju.
The films my friend showed me to introduce me to King Ghidorah were Godzilla vs King Ghidorah and Godzilla, Mothra, King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack—films, in hindsight, didn’t help my disposition toward the kaiju. My main takeaways from watching both films were as follows: King Ghidorah is a golden space dragon kaiju. He has three heads befitting his Hydra-inspired design. He’s on a sick-ass poster. And his powers are whatever the fuck they need to be. In the years since that fateful sleepover, I’ve playfully given my friend shit for liking the kaiju equivalent of Dragon Ball Z’s Broly.
Now, with more knowledge, I can safely say that I do not care for King Ghidorah. He insists upon himself. He’s a hat on a hat kaiju; the stuff of “This is my OC. Please do not steal” energy wrapped in the most “yes, and” powerset I’ve ever witnessed from a mainstay Godzilla monster. Whenever I see or hear his name, it doesn’t elicit rage or anything that deep. He compels me to shake my head and do a jerk-off hand motion every time his three-headed ass is in my line of sight. The cortisol spike one experiences reading the names Jimmy Fallon, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, or Drake is tantamount to my “get a load of this fucking guy” feelings toward King Ghidorah.
Kaiju cinema, like anime and tokusatsu shows, runs on professional wrestling rules. There’s a good guy babyface, a bad guy heel, an undercard of lesser threats, and the need to build good “heat” or build up their big marquee faceoffs. As such, kaiju have one quirk that makes them formidable matchups against each other. Let’s call it a signature move. Godzilla has his patented atomic breath; Mothra has reincarnation; Rodan has black Air Force One’s energy.
King Ghidorah’s signature move is that he can conjure electricity. All things considered, that’s a pretty powerful feat, given any and all ensuing beam struggles against him would have other kaiju’s singular gaping maw contend with his three. But being an extraterrestrial wyvern with three heads and bending lightning to his will isn’t enough for King Ghidorah. Throughout the entire pantheon of monster cinema, King Ghidorah collects newer and newer absurd signature moves to the point where dude is the Gary Lu of kaiju, and I resent him for it.
Here’s a list of powers King Ghidorah also gains across kaiju cinema that make my eyes roll at the audacity of him with every Godzilla anything I’ve watched:
- Gravity manipulation and “gravity beams”
- Magneto levels of magnetism
- Goddamn invincibility
- Pre-Jujutsu Kaisen domain expansions
- Regeneration and energy siphoning bites
- Spirit projection
- Poison gas, because why not?
- Fucking mind control
King Ghidorah has a Roman Reigns booking problem. He’s a kaiju with a huge push that can, “um, actually” his way into a new overpowered ability to add to his Swiss army knife of bullshit. What, pray tell, does a kaiju with a lion’s share of powers hailing from outer fucking space have as his modus operandi for tussling with Godzilla? Well, if it isn’t a simplistic “I’m the alpha” reasoning, King Ghidorah’s mostly being used by aliens and humans to get what they want. It happened when he got rinsed by Godzilla only to come back as Mecha King Ghidorah and MechaGodzilla not once, but twice, both in the Heisei and Legendary iterations of the character. That’s right. He’s a fucking tool.
So you can imagine why I got a big laugh at Godzilla playing heel in GMK Giant Monsters All Out Attack. King Ghidorah had a grand opening and grand closing in the movie’s final act after watching Godzilla catch bodies the entire film, virtually no-selling the space alien’s sanctimoniously overpowered bullshit, in a handicap battle, no less, which is what King Ghidorah deserves. His chain fake, and Godzilla should expose him for the fraud he is.
That’s not to say I’m above enjoying seeing King Ghidorah do his thing. I’m especially partial to his inspired iteration in the Legendary Monsterverse, where each head had its own distinct personality. But outside that one clever twist in an otherwise beige kaiju résumé, King Ghidorah is a bum with way too much going on under the hood and nowhere near enough to actually wow me without feeling needlessly over-specced at every turn.
He’s all style, no substance—my favorite kind of kaiju to hate for looking cool on paper and collapsing the moment he’s asked to rise to the occasion and be interesting. Fuck him, and the asteroid he came in on.
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Isaiah Colbert
It's Hater Week here on Aftermath. This week we’re letting the hate flow through us by examining what it means to be a hater (and… a lover?), venting about some of our biggest pet peeves in games and life, and giving others a space to do the same.
