Kaiju Profile: Showa King Ghidorah

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Monster Planet

The Showa King Ghidorah kaiju profile is the 5th episode of Wikizilla's Kaiju Profiles video series. It was uploaded on February 26, 2017.

A ~Redux~ version of the Kaiju Profile premiered on February 6, 2019; the 42nd overall episode.

Video

Written by Astounding Beyond Belief, Les, Titanollante, The King of the Monsters, Koopa
Edited, voiced by Titanollante

Wikizilla: YouTube Kaiju Profile: Showa King Ghidorah
Wikizilla: YouTube Kaiju Profile: Showa King Ghidorah [OLD]

Transcript

Kaiju Profile King Ghidorah Showa REDUX.png
KP Stats Shin King Ghidorah Showa REDUX.png

Hello kaiju fans, Titano here, and this time we're taking an updated look at the Emperor of the Cosmos: the Showa King Ghidorah!

Intro

King Ghidorah is an extraterrestrial three-headed dragon who first appeared as the villain in 1964's aptly-named "Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster." Having already exterminated life on Venus, he attempted to do the same to Earth, only to be driven off by the combined might of the Earth monsters Godzilla, Rodan, and Mothra. After this defeat, King Ghidorah would return to invade Earth several times, always under the command of a different alien race and always unsuccessful. As J.D. Lees and Marc Cerasini put it in "The Official Godzilla Compendium," "Thanks to the force of its evil personality, Ghidorah never engenders audience sympathy, coming across less as a pawn than merely the logical extension of its masters’ hostile intentions."

The King of Terror proved to be one of Godzilla's most popular and recurring adversaries, even guest-starring in two episodes of Toho's TV series "Zone Fighter." The character is now widely considered Godzilla's arch-enemy and one of Toho's "Big Five" most popular monsters.

Ghidorah's name comes from the Japanese word for "Hydra" (hidora ヒドラ), which is only one character off from Gidora (ギドラ). The addition of "King" may have been influenced by King Dragon, the name given to one of the monster's design inspirations, Zmey Gorynych, in the Japanese version of the 1956 Soviet film "Ilya Muromets." While referred to as Ghidrah in the American English-dubbed version of his debut movie, his name was standardized as Ghidorah thereafter, which has been pronounced several different ways in the dubs recorded since: [dubs saying "Ghidorah" differently].

Design

In the script for "Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster," Shinichi Sekizawa simply described the new monster as having "three heads, two tails, and a voice like a bell." Akira Watanabe designed King Ghidorah from there, inspired by traditional Chinese dragons and the multi-headed serpent Yamata no Orochi from Japanese folklore, which he had already interpreted for Toho's "The Three Treasures" (1959). His other influences included Zmey Gorynych and mythological creatures from around the world including the Hydra, unicorn, pegasus, and qilin.

There are conflicting accounts of King Ghidorah's coloration during the pre-production of "Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster." Eiji Tsuburaya originally favored a crimson design for the creature, but the effects team ultimately decided that gold would look most impressive on-screen. The SFX script for the film reflected this, describing King Ghidorah as gold. Keizo Murase, who was in charge of painting the suit, reportedly always planned on making it gold. However, SFX scriptwriter Keiko Suzuki claimed to have seen a blue King Ghidorah suit during production. Murase believed this may have been the result of baby powder applied to the suit prior to painting, which might have appeared blue when reflecting light. Nonetheless, various photos and promotional materials for the film (including its main theatrical poster) depict King Ghidorah with blue necks and wings that shift from dark blue to yellow to red.

The suit for King Ghidorah was a joint collaboration between modelers Teizo Toshimitsu, responsible for the monster's heads; the Yagi brothers Kanju and Yasuei, who were in charge of its body and created the inner model for the suit's necks; and Keizo Murase, who created its necks and painted the suit. A 3-shaku (approximately 1 meter) prop was additionally created for the monster's flying scenes, manipulated by piano wires. Another larger and more intricately built flying model appeared in scenes such as the aerial battle between King Ghidorah and Rodan.

Shoichi Hirose and Haruya Sakamoto are both credited for playing Ghidorah in his debut, though Koichi Kawakita and Teruyoshi Nakano, both members of the special effects team, remembered Koji Uruki (who also portrayed Rodan in the movie) as being in the role. Whoever the actor inside, they would have found countless takes ruined through no fault of their own: King Ghidorah required a whopping ten people to help animate him with piano wires, and those wires were constantly tangling up his necks or getting snared in his scales. Nakajima described his battles with King Ghidorah as "solo performances," since the suit was too unwieldy for the various actors inside to follow any kind of choreography. They even needed to grip a crossbar to keep their balance inside the armless costume.

For "Invasion of Astro-Monster," Ghidorah's necks were repaired and lengthened, and the wings were reinforced at their bases as well as slightly altered in shape. The gold paint used for King Ghidorah's suit also began to corrode it, resulting in the shape of its heads beginning to wear. Ghidorah's flying props would continue to be reused, though an additional mechanical puppet of the monster was built for long shots. This time, he was definitely played by Shoichi Hirose.

Changes for "Destroy All Monsters" three years later included new wings, die-cut scales for the upper body, lower body scales from cut-up rubber bicycle tires, and a new paint job. With Hirose no longer in the monster business, Susumu Utsumi played Ghidorah.

By "Godzilla vs. Gigan" in 1972, the suit sported new heads, sculpted by Nobuyuki Yasumaru. Yet another suit actor, Kanta Ina, stepped inside this time. The next year, the costume made its final appearances on episodes 5 and 6 of the television series "Zone Fighter." Isao Zushi, who played many of the show's other Terror-Beasts as well as Godzilla in certain episodes, was the final actor to wear the original King Ghidorah suit.

History

Showa Continuity Alert! Since at least 1992, Japanese books have offered conflicting information about the number of King Ghidorahs in the Showa Godzilla universe. While some state that only one Ghidorah appeared throughout the series, others treat the Ghidorah from “Godzilla vs. Gigan” and “Zone Fighter” as a separate monster. The latter are seemingly trying to explain Ghidorah's appearance in media following his death in “DAM,” erroneously assuming that film takes place before “vs. Gigan” and “Zone Fighter.” We know this is not the case because "Godzilla vs. Megalon" is set in the 70's, and its human characters already know who Gigan is, so "vs. Gigan" definitely precedes it. "DAM" takes place in the futuristic "end of the 20th century," specifically 1999 in the film's English dubs. No dialogue in any of the films suggests the existence of a second Ghidorah.

"Right! We're safe enough. No human being could understand that."

Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster (1964): Thousands of years ago, King Ghidorah attacked the planet Venus, eradicating the planet's advanced civilization in just 3 days and rendering it an uninhabitable wasteland. The few Venusians that survived the monster's attacks fled to Earth, where they interbred with the native humans. In the present day, UFO enthusiasts witnessed a meteor shower in the skies above Japan, with one crashing down in the Kurobe Valley. A scientific team led by Professor Murai traveled to the valley to examine the meteor, which exuded a strange glow and even produced its own magnetic field that fluctuated in strength. After several days, Murai and his colleagues observed that the meteor was growing in size. It began producing an extremely powerful magnetic field before splitting open and launching a ball of fire into the sky above, which took the form of King Ghidorah. The cosmic terror flew over Japan, laying waste to Tokyo with his gravity beams. As he approached the Mount Fuji area, Mothra tried to convince her fellow Earth monsters Godzilla and Rodan to cease their fighting and join forces against him. The monsters initially refused, forcing Mothra to take on the space dragon by herself, but they entered the battle soon after. While King Ghidorah was more powerful than the three monsters individually, he was no match for their combined might, and they beat him into submission and covered him in a silken cocoon. As Godzilla pelted King Ghidorah with boulders and threw him off a cliff, the three-headed monster finally retreated back into outer space.

Invasion of Astro-Monster (1965): When astronauts Fuji and Glenn arrived on the newly-discovered Planet X, they encountered an intelligent and technologically advanced alien race called the Xiliens. The Controller of Planet X explained that his people lived in constant terror due to the attacks of a horrific space monster known as Monster Zero - their name for King Ghidorah. The Controller revealed that he knew Godzilla and Rodan drove off King Ghidorah when the monster attacked Earth, and asked that his people be allowed to "borrow" the two monsters to fight off King Ghidorah on Planet X. When the two astronauts returned to Earth and received the support of the world's leaders, the Xiliens transported Godzilla and Rodan to Planet X, with Glenn, Fuji and their superior Dr. Sakurai accompanying them to oversee the mission. As hoped, Godzilla and Rodan again joined forces and forced the space monster to retreat. The Controller then provided Glenn and Fuji with a tape he claimed contained the cure for cancer, and sent the astronauts on their way, keeping Godzilla and Rodan on Planet X.

When they returned to Earth, they found the tape was actually an ultimatum demanding that Earth surrender to Planet X and become its colony. King Ghidorah had actually been under the Xiliens' control the entire time, and now both Godzilla and Rodan had become their pawns as well. When humanity refused to surrender, the Xiliens released the three mind-controlled kaiju on Earth to destroy its major cities, with King Ghidorah attacking the United States before joining Godzilla and Rodan in Japan. Thankfully, Fuji and several other Earth scientists converted a noisemaker by the inventor Tetsuo Torii into a weapon capable of breaking the aliens' control over the monsters. Rather than surrender, the Xiliens self-destructed their saucers, with all three monsters collapsing as they regained their senses. When Godzilla revived, he woke up Rodan and the two attacked King Ghidorah once again. During the battle, Rodan used Godzilla as a battering ram, sending all three monsters plummeting into the sea below. After a few moments, King Ghidorah flew out of the water and retreated back to outer space, while Godzilla and Rodan disappeared beneath the waves.

Godzilla vs. Gigan (1972): As part of their plan to conquer the Earth, the M Space Hunter Nebula Aliens took control of King Ghidorah and partnered him with their own cybernetic monster, Gigan. From their base in the Godzilla Tower located in World Children's Land, the Nebulans unleashed the duo on Tokyo. The space monsters razed the city and withstood all of the JSDF's attempts to stop them. Thankfully, Godzilla and Anguirus became aware of the invaders' scheme, and arrived in Tokyo, ready to fight. Godzilla was badly wounded by Gigan's hook-tipped appendages and the Godzilla Tower's laser beam, leaving Anguirus at the mercy of both space monsters. Fortunately, a group of humans managed to destroy the Godzilla Tower, severing the Nebulans' control over Gigan and King Ghidorah. While at first the two space monsters were able to maintain their onslaught, they soon became disorganized in the absence of their masters' commands and began to bicker amongst themselves. Godzilla and Anguirus used this opportunity to regroup and quickly gained the upper hand. After he shot Gigan out of the sky, Godzilla held King Ghidorah in place as Anguirus rammed him with his spiky carapace. Ghidorah and Gigan retreated soon after, leaving Godzilla and Anguirus victorious and the Earth safe once again.

Zone Fighter (1973): The evil Garogas sent King Ghidorah to Earth to destroy a new invention called the Blue-Green Device meant to reduce carbon monoxide pollution. After he tore through a squadron of fighter jets, the Garogas armed him with a Dark Prism which blocked out the sun. Zone Fighter rose up to stop him, alongside Zone Angel and Junior in Smokey, but they were unable to replenish his energy as the battle raged on. Zone Great was able to sever Ghidorah's control over the Dark Prism, allowing Zone Fighter to turn the tide and goad the three-headed monster into following him to Venus. Just before he arrived, however, he realized that King Ghidorah had broken off his pursuit. He targeted the research institute where the Blue-Green Device was developed, making several cars float in the air. Zone Fighter set them down one by one before facing Ghidorah once more. Though he bought enough time for his allies to whisk away the Blue-Green Device, one of Ghidorah's gravity beams temporarily blinded him. Now unopposed, Ghidorah obliterated the institute before returning to space. This time, Zone Fighter successfully lured him to Venus. After he battered Ghidorah with a relentless flurry of attacks, the Garogas' leader implored the space monster to retreat.

Destroy All Monsters (1968): Once the crew of the Moonlight SY-3 destroyed the device the Kilaaks were using to control Earth's monsters, Godzilla and the other kaiju assembled near the Kilaaks' base at Mount Fuji, forcing the aliens to unleash their trump card, King Ghidorah. The space monster descended and engaged the Earth monsters in a decisive battle. As Ghidorah fought Godzilla and his allies, Gorosaurus landed a devastating kangaroo-kick to his back, knocking him to the ground. Unable to get back up, he was left open to repeated stomps from Godzilla and bites from Anguirus. Minilla fired a smoke ring that choked King Ghidorah's remaining head and caused it to fall limp to the ground. The kaiju roared and celebrated. After Godzilla destroyed the Kilaak base, a huge fissure opened in the ground, and Ghidorah's lifeless body fell into it.

Abilities

King Ghidorah's signature weapons are the golden Gravity Beams he spits from his three mouths, also called Lightning Beams or Zero Gravity Beams. Though he sometimes fires them wildly, the beams allow him to rain down destruction upon a city or target multiple monsters at once. Single beams were strong enough to send the 8,000-ton Mothra larvae flying through the air.

Flight: King Ghidorah can fly at speeds of up to Mach 3 in the Earth's atmosphere, which allows him to generate destructive shockwaves, and Mach 400 while traveling through space. He encased himself within a meteorite while traveling from planet to planet in both his original appearance and in "Godzilla vs. Gigan."

Hurricane Winds: By simply flapping his wings, King Ghidorah can produce gale-force winds. He used this ability to direct Godzilla towards the Godzilla Tower and knock Zone Fighter off his feet.

Magnetic Powers: While encased in the meteorite in his debut film, King Ghidorah generated magnetic fields of variable strength. In "Zone Fighter," he seemed to harness the same forces to suspend several cars in midair.

Physical Strength: Though he lacks arms, King Ghidorah is still dangerous in close quarters. His preferred melee attacks are stomping and bludgeoning opponents with his necks. In "Godzilla vs. Gigan," he even used his necks to launch Godzilla into the Godzilla Tower.

Durability: King Ghidorah is extremely resistant to damage. Naturally, he's unfazed by the JSDF's weapons, including Maser Cannons, and shrugged off repeated blasts of Godzilla's atomic breath in "Invasion of Astro-Monster." He also holds the distinction of being the only one of the Garogas' Terror-Beasts to live through his battles with Zone Fighter, something not even his former ally Gigan can claim.

Weaknesses: Though his hardiness usually allowed him to survive combat with multiple monsters, in "Destroy All Monsters" he was laid low by a series of severe blows. Once released from his mind control in "Invasion of Astro-Monster" and "Godzilla vs. Gigan," Ghidorah was left dazed and confused. In the latter case, he could no longer work as a team with Gigan, which Godzilla and Anguirus were eventually able to exploit.

Trivia

The biggest Showa monster

Officially, King Ghidorah is the tallest monster in the Showa Godzilla series, twice Godzilla's height at a whopping 100 meters. Though comparisons of the actual suits show this to be an exaggeration, his size is still formidable.

Ghidorah stock footage cameos

King Ghidorah's stock footage appearances include the Toho films "Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla," "Terror of Mechagodzilla," and "Bye-Bye Jupiter"; a Crest Sparkle Motion ad; and two episodes of "Courage, the Cowardly Dog." [Courage screams] His iconic cackle also appears in the original "Ultraman" as the SSSP's Control Room alarm, "Evangelion 2.0" as Misato Katsuragi's ringtone, and most recently "GODZILLA: The Planet Eater."

Showa Ghidorah in video games

As the only existing version of the character until 1991, the classic Ghidorah appeared relatively often in early Godzilla video games. He was one of the deadliest kaiju in "Godzilla 2: War of the Monsters," downright invincible in the puzzle games "Gojira-kun" and "Godzilla," and served as the final boss of "Godzilla vs. 3 Giant Monsters" and "Godzilla: Monster of Monsters." Since developers started using the Heisei Ghidorah in the early 90's, his appearances have been limited to the rosters of "Godzilla: Battle Legends," "Great Monster Battle," "Trading Battle" and "Kaiju Collection." He also turns up in the first stage of "Godzilla: Giant Monster March," a 1995 turn-based strategy game for the Game Gear which recently received an unofficial English translation.

"Godzilla
Rulers of Earth" cameo

In the main continuity of IDW's Godzilla comics, King Ghidorah initially resembles his "GMK" design and acts mostly in line with that iteration of the character. In "Godzilla: Rulers of Earth," his appearance is retconned into the Heisei Ghidorah, setting up his conversion into Mecha-King Ghidorah by the Cryogs. When he escapes the aliens' control and flees into space, Rhizon reveals the existence of multiple Ghidorahs. In issue #24, he recalls how another Ghidorah, possessing the design of the Showa incarnation, laid waste to the Cryog homeworld.

The Heisei-Showa Ghidorah

While "Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah" jettisoned King Ghidorah's extraterrestrial origin, an early idea for the film had the three Dorats which mutate into the golden dragon engineered from DNA recovered from the carcass of a different, alien Ghidorah found on Venus. Though this didn't make it into the film, Fumio Tanaka kept it in his novelization. Toho was interested enough in this idea to consider a sequel titled "The Return of King Ghidorah," in which the alien Ghidorah turned out to be quite alive and faced off against Godzilla. Ultimately, the studio decided to bring back Mothra instead, who its polling showed was the most popular monster among women. An early concept for the sixth Heisei G-film also featured an alien named Emperor Ghidorah as the villain. Since Orochi was already starring in "Yamato Takeru" the same year, Emperor Ghidorah gave way to SpaceGodzilla, who retained his gravity-manipulating beams.

That's all we have for the Showa King Ghidorah. Thanks for watching!

Kaiju Profile King Ghidorah Showa.png
KP Stats King Ghidorah Showa.png
Hey kaiju fans, Titano here, and today we're taking a look at the Showa King Ghidorah!

King Ghidorah (キングギドラ)

The villainous King Ghidorah was created by Shinichi Sekizawa, Eiji Tsuburaya, Ishiro Honda and Tomoyuki Tanaka to be the antagonist of “Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster.” King Ghidorah was brought to life on the movie screen by a stunt actor inside an elaborate three-piece suit, with a team of puppeteers to control the suit's many appendages.

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.

Appearance

King Ghidorah is a giant dragon monster standing erect with golden scales adorning its body, three heads on long necks, giant bat-like wings, two legs and two tails. King Ghidorah's multiple heads were inspired by the Yamata no Orochi, an eight-headed dragon from Japanese mythology. The heads of this suit have two curved horns on both sides with a crescent in the middle and a mane on each one, much like the appearance of a Chinese or Japanese Dragon. It also has a row of spines running down each neck, while the ventral side sports snakelike, overlapping plates.

Origins

In the Showa series, King Ghidorah is an inherently evil ancient extraterrestrial dragon said to have wiped out Venus's entire civilization many thousands of years ago for the fun of it. He later attacked Earth, but was repelled by Earth's monsters. At some point, he was taken control of by the Xiliens and used as a pawn in their invasion of Earth. King Ghidorah was destined to be taken control of by different alien races, losing his history on the way. In “Zone Fighter,” the Garogas claimed to have created King Ghidorah, but this is never definitively confirmed.

History

Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster: Thousands of years ago, King Ghidorah attacked the planet Venus, eradicating the planet's advanced civilization and rendering Venus an uninhabitable wasteland. The few Venusians that survived the monster's attacks fled to Earth, where they interbred with the native humans and gradually began to lose their identity.

In the present day, a meteor shower was visible in the skies above Earth, with one meteor crashing down in the Kurobe Valley in Japan. A scientific team led by Professor Murai traveled to the valley to examine the meteor, which exuded a strange glow and even produced its own magnetic field that fluctuated in strength. After several days of study, Murai and his colleagues observed that the meteor was actually growing in size. One day, the meteor began producing an extremely powerful magnetic field before splitting open and launching a ball of fire into the sky above. The fireball exploded several times before finally taking the form of King Ghidorah, having come to do to to Earth what he did to Venus in the past. King Ghidorah flew over Japan, leveling cities effortlessly with his gravity beams. As the cosmic terror approached the Mount Fuji area, Mothra tried to convince her fellow Earth monsters Godzilla and Rodan to cease their fighting and join forces against King Ghidorah. The monsters refused, forcing Mothra to take on King Ghidorah by herself. King Ghidorah blasted the larva with his gravity beams, arousing the anger of Godzilla and Rodan, who finally entered the battle. While King Ghidorah was more powerful than the three monsters individually, he was no match for their combined might, and was beaten into submission and covered in a silken cocoon. As Godzilla pelted King Ghidorah with boulders and threw him off a cliff, King Ghidorah finally retreated and flew back into the void of outer space.

Invasion of Astro-Monster: When astronauts Fuji and Glenn arrived on the newly-discovered Planet X, they encountered an intelligent and technologically advanced alien race called the Xiliens. The Xiliens' leader, the Controller of Planet X, explained that his people lived in constant terror due to the attacks of a horrific space monster known as Monster Zero. The Controller showed the two a video feed of the creature, revealing it to be none other than King Ghidorah. The Controller explained that he knew Godzilla and Rodan drove off King Ghidorah when the monster attacked Earth, and asked that his people be allowed to "borrow" the two monsters to fight off King Ghidorah on Planet X. When the two astronauts returned to Earth and received the support of the world's leaders, the Xiliens revealed themselves, having already been operating on Earth in secret. The Controller apologized for the secrecy, but thanked Earth's leaders and ordered the Xiliens' UFOs to transport Godzilla and Rodan to Planet X, with Glenn, Fuji and their superior Dr. Sakurai accompanying them to oversee the mission. When the monsters were placed on Planet X, King Ghidorah flew overhead and attacked them. Godzilla and Rodan joined forces again, and managed to force the space monster to retreat. The Controller remarked that this was a triumphant day for Planet X, and provided Glenn and Fuji with a tape he claimed contained the cure for cancer. The Controller sent the astronauts on their way, keeping Godzilla and Rodan on Planet X. When the astronauts returned to Earth, they found the tape was actually an ultimatum demanding that Earth surrender to Planet X and become a colony. King Ghidorah had actually been under the Xiliens' control the entire time, and now both Godzilla and Rodan had become their pawns as well. When humanity refused to surrender, the Xiliens released the mind-controlled Godzilla, Rodan and King Ghidorah on Earth to destroy its major cities. Thankfully, Fuji and several Earth scientists discovered a device capable of breaking the aliens' control over the monsters. The device was activated, while the J.S.D.F. assaulted the Xiliens' hidden base. The Xiliens lost their control over the monsters, while their forces were defeated by the J.S.D.F. When Godzilla regained consciousness, he woke up Rodan and the two attacked King Ghidorah once again. During the battle, Rodan grabbed Godzilla and carried him in the air, slamming into King Ghidorah and sending all three monsters plummeting into the sea below. After a few moments, King Ghidorah flew out of the water and retreated back to outer space, while Godzilla and Rodan disappeared beneath the waves.

Godzilla vs. Gigan: As part of their plan to conquer the Earth, the M Space Hunter Nebula Aliens took control of King Ghidorah and allied him with their own cybernetic monster, Gigan. Controlling the two monsters from the Godzilla Tower located in World Children's Land, the Nebulans unleashed Gigan and King Ghidorah in Tokyo. The space monsters razed the city and withstood all of the J.S.D.F.'s attempts to stop them, leaving humanity helpless. Thankfully, Godzilla and Anguirus became aware of the invaders' scheme, and swam to Tokyo to battle Gigan and King Ghidorah. However, King Ghidorah and his cybernetic ally proved to be more than a match for the Earth monsters. Godzilla was badly wounded by Gigan's hook-tipped appendages and the Godzilla Tower's laser beam, leaving Anguirus at the mercy of both space monsters. Fortunately, a group of humans managed to destroy the Godzilla Tower, severing the Nebulans' control over Gigan and King Ghidorah and leaving them confused. Godzilla and Anguirus regrouped and assaulted their foes once more, seizing the upper hand. Gigan eventually retreated, allowing Godzilla and Anguirus to double-team King Ghidorah. Godzilla held King Ghidorah still from behind while Anguirus rammed him with his spiky carapace. King Ghidorah soon retreated as well, leaving Godzilla and Anguirus victorious and the Earth safe once again.

Zone Fighter: King Ghidorah was taken control of by an evil race of aliens called the Garogas, who claimed to also be his creators, and was deployed to Earth. While on Earth, King Ghidorah was confronted by Zone Fighter, who defeated the space demon after a vicious struggle. King Ghidorah managed to escape with his life, something few of Zone Fighter's enemies, not even Gigan, managed to do.

Destroy All Monsters: When the crew of the Moonlight SY-3 destroyed the device the Kilaaks were using to control Earth's monsters, Godzilla and his fellow monsters assembled near the Kilaaks' base at Mount Fuji, preparing to assault it. The Kilaaks proceeded to unleash their trump card, King Ghidorah, to defend their base. King Ghidorah descended and attacked the Earth monsters, managing to hold his own against several opponents. Anguirus bit down on King Ghidorah's neck, causing him to take flight and send Anguirus falling to the Earth. King Ghidorah landed and stomped Anguirus into the dust, then reentered battle against Godzilla and his allies. Anguirus, undeterred, got back up and attacked King Ghidorah again. As King Ghidorah battled Godzilla and his allies, Gorosaurus landed a devastating kangaroo-kick on his back, knocking him to the ground. Godzilla proceeded to stomp on King Ghidorah's necks, causing him to cough up blood. Minilla fired a smoke ring that choked King Ghidorah's remaining head and caused it to fall limp to the ground. When Godzilla found the Kilaaks' base and destroyed it, it caused a huge fissure to open in the ground, with King Ghidorah's lifeless body falling into it. With King Ghidorah defeated for good and the alien invasion thwarted, Godzilla and the other monsters returned to Monsterland to live out their days in peace.

Abilities

Flight: King Ghidorah is able to fly up to speeds of mach 3 in the Earth's atmosphere. He exceeds this speed while flying through space. In "Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster," King Ghidorah can encase himself within a meteorite while traveling from planet to planet. In Godzilla vs. Gigan he encases himself in a large diamond-like structure while traveling through space.

Gravity Beams: King Ghidorah's most famous ability is the golden lightning bolt-like gravity beams he spits from his three mouths. These beams are roughly equal in power to Godzilla's atomic breath, and are capable of causing large-scale explosions when fired at buildings.

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.

Durability: King Ghidorah is usually portrayed as being extremely durable and resistant to damage, often to an extent close to Godzilla. He withstands conventional weaponry with no noticeable effect, and can even shrug off point-blank blasts from Godzilla's atomic breath. King Ghidorah tends to use his durability to his advantage, as he often prefers to escape from a battle that he can't win before he suffers more injuries than necessary.

Magnetic Powers: In Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster, while encased in the meteorite, King Ghidorah had the ability to generate what appeared to be magnetic fields that varied in strength from time to time. While it was never stated directly what purpose they served, it was stated that they were somehow connected to its powers. It seems possible that King Ghidorah used them as a form of levitation.

Trivia

Originally, before production of "Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster," this suit had purple scales and rainbow-colored detail on the wings, but later on, the entire body was recolored into a gold color.

The Showa Ghidorah was portrayed through an actor inside the middle head, who would hunch over, holding a pole, with the necks and heads being controlled by wires.

His design was mostly created by Eiji Tsuburaya based on a minimal description in the script: "It has three heads, two tails, and a voice like a bell."

In Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster, not once (at least on-screen) did Godzilla use his atomic breath against King Ghidorah in battle, while he does use it repeatedly, with no apparent effect, against Rodan.

King Ghidorah would go on to become one of Toho's Big 5 monsters. As such, he returned for many films after the Showa era ended and became one of Godzilla's most recognizable foes.

That's all there is to know about the Showa King Ghidorah. Thank you for watching, see you next time!

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