"He looks like the goddamn devil!" - James Rolfe
If Godzilla is "king of the monsters", then it's scary to imagine how bad his enemies must be. These ones here are among the very worst.
Films[]
Showa Era[]
- Clark Nelson from Mothra is an immoral businessman whose focus is solely on making money. He has his men gun down villagers so that he can abduct the twin fairies that were in their protection, all so he can exploit their powers as shows for making more quick bucks. He also sends his men to kill the protagonists and flees the country when Mothra begins her rampage, gunning down a policeman along the way! However, his vilest action has to be when he tortures a child who was trying to rescue the fairies without any second thoughts whatsoever.
- The majority of Godzilla's enemies are simply big, dumb and/or mind-controlled. A few, however, belong on this list, with King Ghidorah being the standout. One of Godzilla's most powerful adversaries, Ghidorah is one of the few monsters to actively enjoy causing destruction, as evidenced by his cackling, Joker-esque laugh. An Omnicidal Maniac of the first order, Ghidorah has made a living out of destroying planets along with every living being on them, and seems to get a thrill out of taunting the human military when it fails to destroy him. And this isn't a first for Ghidorah. In Destroy All Monsters, after the Kilaaks' control tower was destroyed, freeing all the creatures under its control, King Ghidorah kept right on attacking Godzilla and co.
- Gigan is of a similar mind to Ghidorah. Essentially a forty-story-high Psycho for Hire, Gigan enjoys nothing more than slowly dismembering other monsters with his buzzsaws and scythes. He regularly attacks Earth while in the employ/thrall of one alien race after another, and typically takes his time in slowly cutting his opposition to pieces - even when he could just shoot them. He's also a huge Dirty Coward, frequently abandoning his allies whenever a fight doesn't go his way, and enjoys ganging up on single opponents alongside the likes of Megalon and fellow sociopath Ghidorah. Amongst the fandom, he is generally regarded as Godzilla's most brutal adversary.
Heisei Era[]
- Chuck Wilson, the leader of the Futurians, is paranoid about Japan becoming an economic superpower, and so hatches a twisted plan to ensure this never happens. Appearing in Godzilla vs. King Ghidorah, Wilson steals a time machine and then takes three genetically engineered creatures called Dorats with him to the past. Convincing Japan's government to aid him with lies about Godzilla, he has his lackeys travel to the past and attempt to erase Godzilla from history. When they fail, Emi Kano, on Wilson's orders, leaves the three Dorats behind, where they are hit by a nuclear explosion, absorbing the radiation and becoming forcibly fused together into King Ghidorah. In the present, Wilson takes control of King Ghidorah and directs it like a living WMD. It destroys an entire city and kills hundreds of people under his orders, before flying to Hokkaido next, destroying everything in its path. Eventually, Japan has no choice but to bring Godzilla back, making Wilson indirectly responsible for all the evil Godzilla does in future movies. Wilson, showing no remorse for anything, just gloats that either Ghidorah will destroy Japan, or Godzilla will do it for him.
- SpaceGodzilla, an Evil Twin of Godzilla created when Godzilla's cells fused with a crystal alien. Appearing in Godzilla vs. SpaceGodzilla, the corrupted clone only had two focuses: Take Over the World and slaughter the members of inferior species, his genetic donor included. After thoroughly butchering the inhabitants of a space station that he flew past, SpaceGodzilla assaulted Monster Island and kidnapped Godzilla's adoptive son, Godzilla Junior, purely out of spite for his original template. He then converted an entire city into a fortress made out of giant crystal spires that drained all life from the Earth and transferred it into him, enabling him to become more powerful. Fortunately, he was slain by Godzilla and MOGUERA before he could repeat the process in other cities. SpaceGodzilla was described by Mothra's priestesses as an abomination, and, seeing as he was as deliberately malevolent as a Heisei monster could get, that's a very accurate assessment.
- Destoroyah from Godzilla vs. Destoroyah. To give a good idea as to how sadistic he is, he BRUTALLY murders Godzilla Junior in front of Godzilla himself and, just to rub the proverbial salt into the wound, then wraps his tail around Godzilla's throat and begins to drag him around while laughing. While Godzilla mourned the loss of his only child, Destoroyah grabbed him and hurled him away, preventing him from attempting to revive him or grieve. The fact that Destoroyah seemed to be enjoying every minute of it hammers home how twisted this monster is.
Rebirth of Mothra[]
- Everything that King Ghidorah did is without getting into the Rebirth of Mothra films where his Expy, Desghidorah, took it up a notch by slowly draining the Earth of all life - and Grand King Ghidorah drained the souls of children. It's about as malevolent as a film monster can get.
Millennium Era[]
- Godzilla: Final Wars
- There's Controller X. The Xillian Commander simply wanted to take Earth peacefully and was a Well-Intentioned Extremist trying to save his people. Controller X assassinates him the moment he gets the chance and takes over, instantly letting loose his entire army of monsters and beginning the systematic destruction of human civilization. While many alien invaders in Godzilla movies have done just that, it's the look of sadistic glee present on Controller X's face as he watches the horror he's unleashed that makes it clear that, unlike his more peaceful predecessor, he's a sadist who enjoys what he's doing. When he captures the Gotengo at the climax of the film, he orders his men to slaughter the entire crew except for the ones he wants to kill personally. Whereas his predecessor took prisoners even when he could've simply let them die, X has absolutely no regard for life at all. During the Final Battle of the film, he takes his time to enjoy the Curb Stomp Battle he's inflicting on his opponent.
- And there's King Ghidorah's evolved form, Kaiser Ghidorah/Monster X. Originally mind-controlled by the Xillians in his Monster X form, Ghidorah battles Godzilla to a standstill, during which time the aliens are defeated. Freed of their control, Ghidorah evolves into Kaiser Ghidorah and proceeds to use his Vampiric Draining on Godzilla, slowly torturing him to death for no real reason beyond hatred (since he's no longer receiving orders from the Xillians).
MonsterVerse (also includes the novelizations)[]
- King Ghidorah, depicted here as an analogue to Satan, proves himself to be as vile as ever. Upon arriving at the Earth, Ghidorah made the decision that all of the planet's life is beneath him, setting out his goal to utterly remake it in his own image, ultimately becoming the Arch Enemy of Godzilla in the process as the latter was defending the Earth's natural order. Upon release from being frozen in Antarctica by Alan Jonah and his bio-terrorists, Ghidorah viciously kills Dr. Vivienne Graham by eating her alive before proceeding to kill the Monarch soldiers around him using his anti-gravity beams, eventually forcibly awakening seventeen Titans globally and having them destroy all life on Earth. During his final battle against Godzilla, Ghidorah attempts to drain him of his life, even killing Mothra when she opposes him. Even after the destruction of his physical body, Ghidorah still retains his consciousness through his remaining brain, and upon using his consciousness to corrupt Mechagodzilla's programming, the otherworldly entity uses it to kill both Walter Simmons and Ren Serizawa, the latter by electrocuting him and trapping his consciousness inside Mechagodzilla before obliterating it. He then uses his new profound body to wreak havoc on Hong Kong, killing numerous people with an Evil Laugh, and attempting to kill both Godzilla and Kong for the last time. Unlike the rest of the Titans, Ghidorah is not acting upon instinct and is instead genuinely evil with an actual endgame goal, and opts to kill his enemies in needlessly horrific ways simply For the Evulz.
- Godzilla vs. Kong: Walter Simmons, the founder and CEO of Apex Cybernetics, initially seems as if he is trying to help humanity survive the destruction caused by the Titans, but his supposed Well-Intentioned Extremist intentions are ultimately cut short as his true goal is to enslave the Titans and terminate the ones he can't control, before controlling the world with Apex as a corporate empire, all because of his Fantastic Racism belief that mankind always is and always has been the dominant race. To do this, Simmons starts off by inventing the Oxygen Destroyer, which he sells to the military for them to use to kill Godzilla, and uses illegal methods to bring himself out of accountability by using bribery and even having Sara Hayes assassinated in a car crash when she finds out. Eventually, he uses his CTO, Ren Serizawa, to create the Godzilla-doppelgänger known as Mechagodzilla, which he tests against Skullcrawlers to make sure it is useful, with it at one point slicing one in half. He then activates its signal to lure Godzilla to Hong Kong, watching in pure excitement as Simmons is deliberately causing hundreds to thousands of casualties indirectly with zero remorse for his atrocities, with plans to use Mechagodzilla to kill Godzilla and make himself the Fake Ultimate Hero to the public. Despite being only human, Simmons proves to be far worse than the Titans he's out to conquer, and is the very epitome of the arrogance of man.
- Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire: The Skar King is an ancient and malevolent Great Ape Titan warlord who corrupted his once peaceful tribe and waged war against Godzilla and his allies in an attempt to conquer the Surface World. Defeated and imprisoned in a lower layer of the Hollow Earth, inspiring various myths of evil gods being imprisoned, the Skar King confined his tribe to a volcanic wasteland and ruled for generations through a reign of suffering and fear. He took the tribe's females as his personal harem, imposed a mentality on his tribe where only the most cruel and vicious Great Apes were deemed fit for survival, and brutally killed any who dared to defy or fail him. Enslaving and torturing the prehistoric cryogenic Titan called Shimo, the Skar King plotted to use her to wipe out all life on the surface by causing a new Ice Age, while lying to his followers that they would rule together once his conquest was complete. Upon discovering humans from the surface had entered Hollow Earth, the Skar King slaughtered Monarch's Outpost and led his army in an attempted conquest, using Shimo to freeze everything in sight. When Suko, one of his sons, betrayed him to rescue Kong, the Skar King scalded Suko's mother alive right in front of him and ordered his Red-Stripe enforcers to capture both Kong and Suko to be executed. Reaching the surface with Shimo during the final battle, he unleashes wanton destruction upon a populated beachside town and attempts to kill Suko himself before being defeated by the combined efforts of Kong and Godzilla, frozen solid by a liberated Shimo, and smashed to pieces.
Comics[]
- The comic Godzilla: Gangsters and Goliaths gave us Ryoto Takahashi, Yakuza boss and all-around bastard. He murders Detective Sato's partner in cold blood and has Sato dumped on Monster Island, intending that he die far from his home and family, and also planning to frame him for the murder of his own partner. So when Sato returns home with the Elias and Mothra, Takahashi kidnaps the Elias, which leads to most of Monster Island's population, Godzilla included, rampaging through Tokyo. After slaughtering the priests of Mothra who came to retrieve the Elias, Takahashi demands that the Prime Minister pay him millions of dollars, or he will simply let Tokyo burn to the ground. But even once his demands have been met, he refuses to end the destruction and even attempts to kill his own henchmen who say that he should! To top it off, he does this out of insistence that he, not Godzilla, go down in history as Japan's greatest monster. He came close to getting his wish, but received competition from this next guy...
- Dr. Deverich from the comic Godzilla: The Half-Century War is quite possibly the worst human being in the entire franchise. After abandoning the members of the Anti-Megalosaur Force (AMF) when they refused to utilize his designs, Deverich sold his psionic transmitters on the black market, which enabled terrorists to summon kaiju monsters to any city they chose to target. When testing his first device on Godzilla and Anguirus, he ended up leveling Hanoi and much of Vietnam without any remorse at all. He then went on to obliterate the city of Accra, Ghana, so that every kaiju monster on Earth could arrive there as part of a demonstration to his customers. After perfecting his design in 1987, he used it to reach out into space and summon Space Godzilla to Bombay, annihilating it as well. The same transmitter also accidentally called Gigan and King Ghidorah to Earth, resulting in the near extinction of the human race! With a criminal career spanning decades and a death toll in the billions, Dr. Deverich outdoes every kaiju in the series when it comes to monstrosity.
- Godzilla: Rulers of Earth: Emperor Karkaro of the Cryog likes to present himself as a great warrior for his people, but in truth sacrificed them and his entire world to save his own skin when King Ghidorah attacked. Later arriving on Earth when his former commander Rhizon has been trying to conquer it, Karkaro seizes control of the invasion and deploys the monstrous Trilopods to devastate Earth's cities and kill countless people before having them try to drain the energy of Earth's Kaiju. Psychologically tormenting Rhizon, Karkaro has him imprisoned while vowing a torturous death when Rhizon calls him out for his cowardice and has Rhizon's innocent crew executed out of spite. Karkaro vows to wipe out all life on Earth and raze everything on the planet to ash solely to take it for himself and salve his ego, showing himself to be the worst of all the aliens who threatened Earth.
- Godzilla, King of the Monsters (1992 manga): Dr. Mad Oniyama, wanting to Take Over the World, revives and rebuilds numerous kaiju and sics them on Godzilla in an attempt to kill the only one who can thwart his plans. Oniyama also unleashes his kaiju on various populated areas all over the globe, and in one instance, takes advantage of the chaos to kidnap a class and hold them hostage, intending to shoot them all when they're saved. Additionally, Oniyama personally tries to freeze Godzilla to death, then later brainwashes and commands him to destroy a city while assisting by piloting Gigan, attempting to siphon Godzilla of his life energy when the kaiju is freed. In one final attempt to rid himself of the monster, Oniyama integrates himself into a kaiju chimera and drops Godzilla onto a large bed of spikes. With seemingly no one to stop him, Oniyama lays waste to another city and tries to destroy an intervening mecha by crushing its crew underfoot.
Other Media[]
- Mulu-elu Galu-gu from Godzilla: City on the Edge of Battle is a Bilusaludo who, exploiting Earth's desire for a weapon to combat Godzilla, created Mechagodzilla, intending to turn it against humanity once it disposes of Godzilla. However, he was forced to leave Earth before he can enact upon that plan, leaving Mechagodzilla unchecked as it kills off numerous lifeforms still living on Earth, humans included. Finding Mechagodzilla once more, Mulu-elu tricks Haruo Sakaki and his soldiers into injecting themselves with Mechagodzilla's nanometal in an attempt to defeat Godzilla. When they learn of Mulu-elu's plans to assimilate the entire Earth in nanometal afterwards, killing all life in the process, Mulu-elu uses the nanometal to kill most of Haruo's men whilst leaving Haruo's Love Interest, Yuko Tani, in an irreversible coma. Proud of being called a monster for his self-appointed superiority and omnicidal designs, Mulu-elu Galu-gu was the evilest being in a world full of monsters.
- Godzilla anime (Gen Urobuchi's trilogy) fan film Planet Eating Wings: King Ghidorah is the Exif's planet eating god. Arriving on Earth, Ghidorah's first act is to reduce everything in his vicinity to a flaming wasteland and kill everything in sight. Fighting Godzilla, Ghidorah proceeds to sadistically mutilate and dismember the Monster King, drawing the battle out to prolong his suffering as long as possible. After winning, Ghidorah continues laying waste to everything in sight to entertain himself while waiting for his consumption of the planet to complete. When overpowered by a Mothra-empowered Godzilla, Ghidorah decides to set the moon on a collision course with Earth in a final act of spite.
- Skull Island (2023 series): The Kraken is an intelligent but vicious Titan, looking to usurp Skull Island from King Kong himself. It slaughters every living thing that crosses its path, unprovoked, preventing anyone from leaving the island. Previously, the Kraken attacked and wiped out a village of people Kong was protecting, including a young woman Kong had befriended, leaving their bodies for Kong to find. The Kraken toys with its victims, playing around with an attacking Mike after killing his father; and tossing its kills at Kong's home to taunt and goad him into fighting it on its territory.