Mokele-Mbembe
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Mokele-Mbembe is a Titan alluded to in the 2019 Monsterverse film Godzilla: King of the Monsters, and featured more prominently in the film's novelization by Greg Keyes.
Name
Mokele-Mbembe is named after a cryptid allegedly dwelling in the Congo River Basin, reputed to resemble or be a sauropod; however, the cryptid's name is not capitalized. Its name is Lingala for "the one who stops the flow of the river." Monarch gave Mokele-Mbembe the Titan classification Titanus Mokele-Mbembe. In Godzilla: King of the Monsters - The Official Movie Novelization, agents working in Outpost 75 also call him "Mokele" and "M&M,"[1] the latter presumably a reference to the candy.
Design
Mokele-Mbembe is never clearly seen in Godzilla: King of the Monsters. In the film's novelization, he is described as having a "massive, snake-like tail"[2] two-thirds of his total body length,[3] "four thick legs" with five claws each,[3] a curved horn on his head "pulsing with a very faint green light,"[2] a head that looks "something like an earless elephant, except that its tusks turned down, rather than up,"[3] a mouth that "open[s] like a crocodile's, revealing thousands of teeth,"[3] and a gray and pebbled back.[3]
History
- Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019) [name]
Godzilla: King of the Monsters
Residing at Monarch Outpost 75 in Jebel Barkal, Sudan, Mokele-Mbembe was one of the many Titans who began to attack humanity under the direction of the alien alpha Titan King Ghidorah, sending Monarch agents scattering as he broke out of the outpost. He was later pacified when Madison Russell activated the sonic device Orca at Fenway Park.
Books
Godzilla: King of the Monsters - The Official Movie Novelization
Shortly after Alan Jonah's ecoterrorist group attacked Monarch Outpost 61 in China, Master Sergeant Margaret Nez reported to Outpost 75 in Jebel Barkal, Sudan, driven there by the zoologist Esmail. He noted that the cylindrical pit and cavern within the site are believed to be 15,000 to 20,000 years old, more ancient than any recorded civilization, and took her to see Mokele-Mbembe inside the cavern's containment rigging. The next day, Nez met with Colonel Freer, who informed her the Titan was to be terminated if he made any unexpected moves, an order to be kept secret from the civilians in Monarch. Following the release of King Ghidorah by Jonah's group and Dr. Emma Russell voicing to Monarch her intentions to help them release more, Nez advised Dr. Kearns, head of the outpost, to kill the Titan. He refused, even after learning the group had also unleashed Rodan, believing that the U.S. government was just looking for an excuse to dispatch the creatures. King Ghidorah's alpha call awakened dormant Titans around the world, including Mokele-Mbembe, and drove them into a frenzy. He pushed against his containment field, quickly overloading it and upending the nearby control room before Nez could press the kill switch, killing Kearns and many other agents. Nez, Esmail, Keller, and Freer watched Mokele-Mbembe surface beneath a pyramid. He grabbed several agents with his trunk and ate them, starting with Keller, as two Ospreys engaged him, their weapons having little effect. He used his tail to cut one of the planes in half. Nez rallied the remaining soldiers at the outpost, joined up with the Egyptian army as the Titan traveled north along the Nile River, and laid a trap for him in a canyon with high-tension lines and explosive charges. Neither fazed him, and he overran their defenses easily, stepping on tanks, slashing through high-tension lines with his tail, and throwing a Humvee at a fighter jet. Nez fired on Mokele-Mbembe with her sidearm as he approached, but he paused just before delivering a fatal blow, having been calmed by the distant activation of the Orca by Madison Russell.
Abilities
Physical abilities
Mokele-Mbembe possessed enough strength to overload the containment field in Monarch Outpost 75 before the agents in the control room could decide on a course of action. Upon reaching the surface, he swiftly grabbed Monarch agents with his prehensile trunk to eat them, and sliced through a pyramid and an Osprey with his tail. He displayed startling aim, knocking a fighter jet out of the sky by throwing a Humvee at it.
Durability
Mokele-Mbembe proved impervious to the weapons deployed by Monarch and the Egyptian military, including Ospreys, tanks, a fighter jet, explosive charges, and high-tension lines.
Trivia
- In the Dark Horse comic "Godzilla: The Origins of a Species," published in A Decade of Dark Horse #4, Dr. Kazushi Kagaku briefly references the cryptid mokele-mbembe in the context of a debate on how Godzilla came to be.
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References
This is a list of references for Mokele-Mbembe. These citations are used to identify the reliable sources on which this article is based. These references appear inside articles in the form of superscript numbers, which look like this: [1]
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Bibliography
- Keyes, Greg (29 May 2019). Godzilla: King of the Monsters - The Official Movie Novelization. Titan Books. ISBN 978-1789090925.
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