The King Ghidorah (キングギドラ Kingu Gidora?), also known as Grand King Ghidorah, of the Rebirth of Mothra continuity is a three-headed dragon kaiju created by Toho that appeared during the events of the 1998 film, Rebirth of Mothra III as the main antagonist of the film.
Name[]
King Ghidorah's name is composed of "King" (キング Kingu?) and "Ghidorah." The "Ghidorah" part of King Ghidorah's name comes from the Japanese word for "hydra" (ヒドラ Hidora?), which is spelled very similarly to the Japanese katakana for Ghidorah.
The creature's younger form is known as Cretaceous King Ghidorah (白亜紀キングギドラHaku Aki Kingu Gidora?), while its more mature form is known as Modern Type King Ghidorah (現代型キングギドラ Gendai-Gata Kingu Gidora?) or "Grand King Ghidorah".
Design[]
Appearance[]
Grand King Ghidorah's appearance during the events of Rebirth of Mothra III remains very similar to other incarnations of the King Ghidorah character, but features a more muscular build. The horn arrangement on the left and right heads have straight antlers, while the central head possesses forked ones. It also features somewhat shorter and thicker necks than previous incarnations, as well as more detailed wings.
Cretaceous King Ghidorah features a much more saurian appearance, while being a duller beige-gold in color, in comparison to Ghidorah's primary form. His legs are also more pronounced than his modern form, as well as being digitigrade.
Personality[]
During the events of Rebirth of Mothra III, King Ghidorah caused the extinction of the dinosaurs at the end of the Cretaceous period instead of other theories, then returned to Earth in the modern day to feed on humanity. This displays a malevolent nature for the creature.
Origins[]
King Ghidorah is a more powerful relative of Desghidorah. 130 million years ago in the Cretaceous period, King Ghidorah arrived at Earth as the immature Cretaceous King Ghidorah. Cretaceous King Ghidorah quickly caused the KT extinction event, exterminating the dinosaurs and almost every other life form on the planet and feeding on their life forces. In the original timeline, Cretaceous King Ghidorah then encased himself within a meteor and left the Earth, using the life-essence of the creatures he had destroyed to live as he traveled through space. After millions of years passed, Ghidorah returned to Earth in the present in order to resume feeding off of humans.
History[]
Rebirth of Mothra III[]
King Ghidorah in Rebirth of Mothra III
130 million years after his attack on Earth, Cretaceous King Ghidorah arose again as Modern Type King Ghidorah (現代型キングギドラ Gendai-Gata Kingu Gidora?). King Ghidorah came to Japan in a meteor to feed on humans, mainly children, but he soon started to eat adults. King Ghidorah built a dome in the Mount Fuji area, where he kept his victims and absorbed their life forces. Rainbow Mothra heard of this monster, and he quickly took action to defeat it. Even with all of Rainbow Mothra's power, King Ghidorah quickly defeated him. Rainbow Mothra touched down nearby, but was healed and transformed into Light Speed Mothra by his priestess Moll and traveled back to the Cretaceous period to defeat King Ghidorah's younger form.
Light Speed Mothra then arrived in the Cretaceous era at the exact moment Cretaceous King Ghidorah had wiped out the dinosaurs and preparing to hibernate before his impending return to Earth. Leo interfered with its chrysalis-formation and attacked Cretaceous Ling Ghidorah. Even though he was weaker in his younger form, King Ghidorah was still more than a match for Leo, shredding both of the moth's wings and mortally wounding Leo. However, Leo incapacitated King Ghidorah long enough for him to drop the dragon kaiju into a volcano, where King Ghidorah seemingly perished. Unbeknownst to Leo, one of King Ghidorah's tails, severed during their fight, burrowed underground to hide and started to regenerate.
When Leo returned to the present day, King Ghidorah had vanished, and it appeared he had been victorious. However, King Ghidorah reappeared in the sky and resumed his reign of terror, having regenerated from the tail Leo had left behind millions of years ago. Leo was reborn as Armor Mothra and engaged King Ghidorah in battle again, this time proving to be the more powerful combatant. Armor Mothra sliced off King Ghidorah's wing with his own razor-sharp wing, then completely destroyed him with a powerful laser beam.
Abilities[]
Barrier[]
King Ghidorah's scales can manipulate the light from projectiles to form a protective barrier.
Dome[]
King Ghidorah and his dome in Rebirth of Mothra III
King Ghidorah is able to create a dome that allows objects to pass through, yet has a corrosive effect when they try to leave. The dome's exterior is laced with tentacles that pull outside victims inside. Living creatures inside the dome slowly have their life-force drained and transferred to King Ghidorah.
Durability[]
In his mature form, King Ghidorah cannot be damaged at all by Mothra Leo's attacks until the latter transforms into Armor Mothra.
Electric Bolts[]
King Ghidorah fires electric bolts from his wings in Rebirth of Mothra III
King Ghidorah can shoot six bolts of electricity from each of his wings.
Flight[]
King Ghidorah is able to fly up to speeds of mach 3 (2,301.81) in the Earth's atmosphere. He exceeds this speed while flying through space. In Rebirth of Mothra III, King Ghidorah can encase himself within a meteorite while traveling from planet to planet. King Ghidorah is also able to fly even with the loss of one of his wings using a zero gravity field.
Gravity Beams[]
Grand King Ghidorah unleashing devastation
King Ghidorah retains his most famous ability: the golden lightning bolt-like gravity beams he launches from his three mouths. These beams capable of causing large-scale explosions when fired. Individually, these beams can cause serious damage, but combined into a single beam when fired together, they can cause devastating attacks to other monsters. Additionally, King Ghidorah's younger form from Rebirth of Mothra III, Cretaceous King Ghidorah, can launch highly explosive blasts of fire from his mouths instead of gravity beams.
Hurricane winds[]
King Ghidorah can produce hurricane-force winds by flapping his wings, which are capable of blowing away buildings and knocking other kaiju off their feet.
Mind control[]
King Ghidorah can install a weak mind control on other beings susceptible to it.
Regeneration[]
King Ghidorah is shown to have regenerated his entire body from a severed tail that was cut off by Rainbow Mothra in the past.
Teleportation[]
King Ghidorah can teleport smaller beings inside his dome.
Weaknesses[]
Relative durability[]
King Ghidorah's younger form, Cretaceous King Ghidorah, is considerably weaker than his mature form, allowing Mothra Leo to eventually defeat him by throwing him into an active volcano.
His mature form was also susceptible to Armor Mothra's attacks, which severed one of his wings and eventually caused him to completely explode.
Trivia[]
- Cretaceous King Ghidorah's affinity to fire corresponds with the monster from the 1956 Soviet film Zmey Gorynych, an inspiration source of King Ghidorah.
- King Ghidorah arrived at Earth before Desghidorah.
- The suit that was used for this King Ghidorah appears in a single shot in Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack, where it is substituted for the SokogekiGhido when the Satsuma uses thermal imaging.
- In the 2014 Godzilla video game, King Ghidorah was originally meant to be portrayed as the Rebirth of Mothra version, but time constraints due to the complexity of his attacks caused the developers to include his 1991 incarnation instead.
List of appearances[]
- Rebirth of Mothra III (First appearance)
References[]
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 <ref name="GodzillaCompendium"/Toho Special Effects All Monster Encyclopedia. Rebirth of Mothra III; Page 104
