Capeworld Comics

The FORBIDDEN Death Battle Prediction Blog Episode 5

 

Original Fight 3

 

King Ghidorah vs Zetton

 

It’s a common tokusatsu plot–the alien invaders keep a pet monster as their ace-in-the-hole for use against the stupid humans when it looks like they might win. The titular aliens of The Mysterians (1957) deployed Moguera, a robot mole-thing. And when that didn’t work out, they deployed a second Moguera! The alien babes from Gamera vs Guiron (1969) used Guiron, a knife-headed shuriken-firing monster, to protect themselves from  palette swaps of Gyaos, Gamera’s opponent from Gamera vs Gyaos (1967). Sometimes, evil aliens even team up their pet monsters. In the excellent (from a certain point of view) Godzilla vs Megalon (1973), the Seatopians teamed up their Megalon with Space Hunter Nebula M’s Gigan.

 

Among these world-threatening alien pets, two have a degree of notoriety that makes them stand out from the crowd.

 

The first is King Ghidorah, the three-headed astro-monster and common ultimate foe for Godzilla, king of the monsters. Ghidorah can be thought of as the Richard III to Godzilla’s Henry V. The second is Zetton, cybernetic alien dinosaur (yes I know he looks like a beetle, just roll with it, it’s Ultraman) created as the superweapon of the…Zetton.

 

God, I hope if humanity ever makes an ultimate cyborg weapon we don’t call it Human…

 

Zetton gained instant kaiju immortality by being the one to take down Ultraman. Ultraman was previously defeated by a monster called Gomora, a Godzilla-like kaiju with a spiky chest and two big horns. But Ultraman got to win a rematch against Gomora. He didn’t for Zetton. Ultraman’s Science Patrol buddies had to kill Zetton with a plot device while he was on the ground dying. Zetton can be thought of as the Brock Lesnar to Ultraman’s Undertaker.

 

Zetton and Ghidorah have had many versions throughout the years. Ghidorah’s been a multidimensional god in Godzilla Earth, an ancient Earth creature in the Monsterverse, and in 1991’s Godzilla vs King Ghidorah he’s…well, just google “Dorat Ghidorah.”

 

Zetton has his own series of variants. There’s Zetton II, Powered Zetton, EX Zetton, Gigant Hyper Zetton, Imago Hyper Zetton (Breathe), Hyper Zetton, Cyber Zetton, Hyper Zetton Deathscythe (Does Duo know?), Maga Zetton (my kind of Zetton), and probably a few dozen more Zetton I’m forgetting. Ultraman won a Guinness World Record for most spinoffs, so naturally the monster that handed Ultraman Prime his ass is going to have a lot of different versions throughout the decades.

 

For this fight however, we’re focusing on the originals–no supermodes, no “new and improved” versions, and no alternate continuities. It’s Ghidorah as seen in the showa Godzilla continuity vs Zetton as seen in the final episode of Ultraman, Farewell, Ultraman.

 

Oh, and before I forget, there’s one more thing connecting Ghidorah and Zetton. Listen to the noise the Science Patrol’s phone makes in Ultraman. That’s right. It’s Ghidorah’s cry. Pretty cool easter egg, huh?

 

…Well I thought it was cool…

 

Zetton

 

“ZET…TON…”

 

Throughout the 39 episode run of Ultraman, Ultraman and his pals on the Science Patrol protected Earth from several alien invasions. It was a common occurrence. The Science Patrol would fight an alien invasion Thursday, an ancient monster from the bowels of the Earth Friday, and the Bumble from Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer Saturday (No seriously. Episode 30). But the Zetton were the first space invaders to go about invasion smartly. They didn’t stick their people in microscopic hibernation aboard a spaceship letting out only one to take care of business like the Baltan in episode 2 (Did Ultraman commit genocide during that episode when he blew up the spaceship? It’s something of a controversy among the fandom). The Zetton infiltrated the Science Patrol with an agent Skrull-style while launching an invasion fleet. And their secret weapon was Zetton, who is described as being an alien dinosaur…even though he’s clearly modeled off an insect.

 

Hey, who are you to say alien dinosaurs don’t look like bugs? You ever met one?

 

Zetton appeared from an exploding blue balloon (because it’s Utlraman) launched from the mothership and started attacking Science Patrol HQ. Ultraman intervenes only to get his ass kicked. He’s overpowered, his energy attacks don’t work, and when he goes for his specium ray finisher he gets it reflected back at him. Ultrman’s left on the ground dying, but the Science Patrol pulls a plot device weapon out of nowhere (because it’s Ultraman) to blow up Zetton.

 

As anti-climactic as it is for Zetton to be done in by a tiny rocket introduced  at the last moment, it did signal that the Science Patrol could get along without having to rely on Ultrman.

 

Ultraman is saved by his superior Zoffy, who takes him back to the home planet of the Ultras to heal. Unfortunately, this wipes the memory of his human host Hayata so that he doesn’t have any recollection of his adventures with Ultraman.

 

If you think that’s kind of a bummer way to end the series, the Japanese apparently thought so to. The original Ultraman’s story continued in the 1996 movie Revive! Ultraman where he comes back to Earth, merges back with Hayata to restore his memories, and defeats Zetton II after the Science Patrol powers him up by shooting his color timer with a solar charge.

 

But though he got to kill Zetton II, he never got a runback against Zetton I, and the shadow of Zetton’s victory over Ultraman looms over the franchise. Zetton isn’t the strongest foe in the Ultraman multiverse, but if you see him show up you know whoever that the current Ultraman is going to be in for a fight.

 

Farewell, Ultraman in its entirety:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kx1Tu7cuWGc

 

Three Minute review of Farewell, Ultraman from The Color Timer Reviews:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gq6_ZuEIeb8

 

Powers

 

–1 Trillion Degree Fireballs. You read that right. Zetton can shoot fireballs out of his…eyes? (those big rectangles on his face) that are 1 trillion degrees celsius. That’s hotter than a supernova which is generally around 1 billion degrees celsius, though it isn’t the hottest temperature recorded. Scientists at CERN observed quark-gluon plasma that reached 5.5 trillion degrees celsius back in 2012.

 

But we have to ask ourselves…are Zetton’s fireballs really 1 trillion degrees celsius?

 

In a series like Ultraman where a lot of things don’t make sense, Zetton’s fireballs are notorious for not making sense. You can see the fireballs break through the Science Patrol HQ’s windows like thrown bricks. It was off-handedly mentioned in episode 31 that the Science Patrol HQ was made of concrete and a ferro-alloy that allows it to withstand “special weaponry.” None of that concrete and iron melted let alone evaporated into plasma.

 

If Zetton’s fireballs were actually as hot as they’re claimed to be, Science Patrol HQ wouldn’t ‘have caught fire–it would have evaporated into a cloud of plasma. The fires they started in the HQ were even put out by water hoses. Zetton’s fires were sub-grease fire. You don’t throw water on plasma-level fire and put it out. Even Johnny Storm says LOL NO to cooling down from water when he goes nova blast and water is typically his kryptonite.

 

I’m not ranking Zetton’s fireballs beyond what they’ve actually been shown to do. But we’ll see if Zetton actually needs 1 trillion degree fireballs to take down King Ghidorah.

 

–Teleportation. While Zetton wasn’t the first Ultraman monster to teleport (Dada teleported back in episode 28) he was the first to almost do something cool with it. He teleported behind Ultraman and shot his fireballs at him. I say “almost” cool because Ultraman dodged the fireballs anyway.

 

–Energy Shield. Just like Ultraman, Zetton can create a shield to block attacks. His is a little better than Ultraman’s though as it completely surrounds him and doesn’t require a gesture to create.

 

–Energy Absorption and Redirection. How Zetton beat Ultraman. He let Ultraman shoot his specium ray, absorbed it, and fired it back at Ultraman. While the specium ray is Ultraman’s typical finishing move, it’s not his most powerful. He killed a kaiju in episode 31 with a spiral-ray after his specium ray proved useless. You’d think he would have gone for that over the specium way after he saw he was having trouble with Zetton, but hey, hindsight’s 20/20. 

 

–A uh, red smoke beam….Hey, it’s Ultraman. There’s weirder stuff. When trapped by Ultraman’s catch-rings (energy hoops Ultraman creates to trap enemies by spinning in place really fast–I told you there was weirder stuff) Zetton shot a beam at Ultraman’s feet which created red smoke and stopped him from spinning.

 

–Makes a cool robot noise.

 

–Likes to raise the roof.

 

Strength

 

–Broke free of Ultraman’s catch-rings after stopping his spinning with his red smoke beam.

 

–Bowled over Ultraman with a single blow then subjected him to ground-and-pound. Ultraman’s strength caps off at being able to lift a little less than 200,000 pounds as that’s what the kaiju Skydon weighed in episode 34. Ultraman was unable to lift Skyon off his feet and could only clumsily pull and push him.

 

Durability

 

–Energy shield was powerful enough to shatter Ultraman’s ultra-slash attack. Ultra-slash, also known as dismembering halo, is when Ultraman creates a spiked energy ring and throws it. It typically carves up monsters, but against Zetton’s energy shield it just shattered.

Speed

 

–Was able to put up a shield in time to block Ultraman’s ultra-slash.

 

Skill

 

Not much. He was able to beat the Bruce Lee of the giant monster crowd, but he did it through raw power rather than cleverness or technique. Still, Zetton was smart enough to know to use his teleportation to move behind Ultraman and to absorb and fire back his specium ray. He’s got some degree of intelligence to figure that out.

 

King Ghidorah

 

“Why does no one pay heed to my warning?  The entire human race will perish from the Earth.  When the monster Ghidorah passes, only flaming ruins are left.”

 

“Ghidorah?”

 

“Centuries ago, the monster appeared in the skies of Mars.  Within a month, the culture of Mars had been wiped out completely.  The civilization on my planet had reached a stage of development which you people will not achieve for a long time.  Centuries, at least.  Today, because of the space monster, it is a dead world.  Dead and uninhabited.”

 

“It would be a bad situation if that creature came here to Earth.”

 

“It’s worse, because he’s arrived.”

 

The Three-Headed Monster. The Astro-Monster. Monster Zero. The King of Terror.

King Ghidorah.

 

By far the most notorious Godzilla antagonist, King Ghidorah might be the most powerful of the showa series. Godzilla never defeated him one-on-one, but then again Ghidorah never defeated him one-on-one either. It’s possible that Ghidorah lags behind Godzilla in power. In Godzilla 2 for the NES, Ghidorah had higher stats than Godzilla, but while the NES games took a lot from the showa continuity, it’s not the showa continuity. Dr. Sherizawa doesn’t even have his eyepatch.

 

Ghidorah still places in the top-tier of showa Godzilla monsters. He shares this tier with Godzilla himself, Mechagodzilla (who nearly defeated Godzilla), King Kong (who defeated Godzilla), and Hedorah (who defeated Godzilla and then crapped on him for added humiliation–no seriously).

 

Ghidorah first appeared in Ghidorah, The Three-Headed Monster (1964) where his origin is given as a space monster that destroyed the civilization on Venus (Mars in the dub). He’s not the pet of any alien civilization, just a wild predator of the spaceways sort of like a smaller Galactus, but that changes in the next film. Mothra tries to get Godzilla and Rhodan to team up and fight Ghidorah with her, but both monsters don’t really care about humanity. So Mothra, ever the Superman of the Godzilla set, tries fighting Ghidorah on her own. She gets BTFO and Godzilla gets mad that THEY’RE KILLING MOTHRA and decides to fight Ghidorah after all. Rhodan joins in, because apparently the big bird has a heart to (I like to think it was because he remembered his deceased mate from his own movie). Together, the Earth Kaiju defeat Ghidorah by having Godzilla hold him while Rhodan gives Mothra a lift so she can use her string shot on Ghidorah’s heads. Godzilla tosses Ghidorah who flies away defeated. But he would be back again, and again, and again.

 

Ghidorah showed up next in Invasion of the Astro-Monster (1965) where he gets into his role as pet of alien invaders–a role he’ll stick with to the end of the showa series. The Xillians from Planet X, who all look like Matrix meets Teletubbies, claim to be under attack from “Monster Zero” and request to borrow Godzilla and Rhodan to beat him up. When Godzilla and Rhodan confront Monster X on Planet X, Monster Zero is revealed to be King Ghidorah. Godzilla and Rhodan put the hurt on Ghidorah and all seems well–until the audience realizes there’s still an hour of film left. Then the Xillians reveal that surprise, Ghidorah was under their mind control the whole time–and now Godzilla and Rhodan are as well! The Xillians sic the monsters on Earth, but scientists come up with a device that not only shorts out their mind-control equipment but wrecks their flying saucers ala’ Earth vs The Flying Saucers. Godzilla and Rhodan resume fighting Ghidorah and Godzilla gets to show off his sick clinch boxing skills. After Rhodan picks up Godzilla for a combo attack, all three monsters fall into the ocean and Ghidorah escapes.

 

Ghidorah went down for good in the final film of the showa timeline, Destroy All Monsters (1968). Destroy All Monsters was the grand finale of the showa Godzilla series and Ghidorah’s brawl with nearly every Godzilla monster was the fireworks. Though it wasn’t the last film in the showa Godzilla series, it was the last film in the showa Godzilla timeline taking place far into the future where all the monsters live happily on Monster Island…until the Kilaak aliens steal an idea from the Xillians and mind control them all to attack humanity. When their mind control device is broken, the Kilaak play their trump card–King Ghidorah! (the poor creature just exists to be mind controlled by aliens, doesn’t he?). His fight against all the Earth monsters…doesn’t go well for him. They should have called the movie Destroy That Monster. Godzilla holds him still while the other monsters unload on him. He breaks away and gets to beat up Anguirus a little (Anguirus just exists to suffer), but then Ghidorah gets dropped by a kick from Gorosaurus of all kaiju. Then the Earth monsters just curbstomp him to death with Minilla getting in the final blow just to add to the humiliation.

 

Ghidorah’s final appearance was in Godzilla vs Gigan (1972), which takes place before Destroy All Monsters on the timeline. Giant cockroach aliens from “Nebula Space Hunter M” (Which is probably the downtown ghetto part of Ultraman’s M78 Nebula) have two plots to take over Earth. The first is a Godzilla theme park called World Children’s Land (it’s that kind of movie). The second is Gigan and King Ghidorah. Though they initially make a killer tag team with the help of a laser beam hidden in World Children’s Land’s Godzilla building (like I said, it’s that kind of movie), Godzilla and his Robin Anguirus overcome them with the power of teamwork and friendship. Ghidorah doesn’t have much in the way of feats from this film as a good chunk of his presence is nothing but stock footage.

 

Ghidorah also appeared as a pet of the Garogan aliens (making them the fourth alien race to control Ghidorah) in Zone Fighter, which was one of many, many, MANY not-Ultramen to come out of showa era Japan. Zone Fighter had one thing to help it stand out from the sea of Ultraman clones–it was canon to the showa Godzilla universe. Ghidorah wasn’t the only Godzilla monster to appear on Zone Fighter. Gigan showed up and met his end at the hands of Zone Fighter. Godzilla himself teamed up with Zone Fighter Green Hornet and Batman style. As for giving Ghidorah feats, the best he gets from Zone Fighter is flying after Zone Fighter to Venus, likely because they couldn’t figure out how to make the meteor/fireball thing work on the show’s budget and so just put the puppet up on a starfield In this fight though, Zone Fighter probably hurts Ghidorah more than it helps him. Ghidorah got taken down like any random kaiju on Zone Fighter. His big gimmick was that the Garogan’s gave him a crystal that blotted out the sun sapping Zone Fighter of his powers, because when you rip-off Ultraman, you rip-off all the way. Once his crystal was gone, Zone Fighter busted him up like any monster-of-the-day. 

 

Zetton defeated Ultraman. Ghidorah lost to diet coke Ultraman. Ghidorah might get a speed feat off Zone Fighter, but the implications of his appearance aren’t good. 

 

Ghidorah profile by Wikizilla:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3aVPGA9iPqE

 

Powers

 

–Flight. Ghidorah can fly, and can even fly through space as seen in Zone Fighter. To travel from planet-to-planet, Ghidorah usually either turns himself into a fireball or a meteor just like his pal Gigan turns himself into a crystal. In Zone Fighter, Ghidorah flew after Zone Fighter when he lured Ghidorah to Venus, but it’s hard to say how much of the pursuit was depicted on screen. Ghidorah can’t travel too fast, otherwise there would be no point for his meteor and fireball forms. Ghidorah’s flight power might have something to do with his second power, that is to say…

 

–Gravity beams!  Each of Ghidorah’s three heads can fire off what appears to be yellow lightning bolts but are in fact “gravity beams.” You’d think they’d be able to do more than just blast things–maybe lift objects into the air–but nope, that’s all they do. Kaiser Ghidorah from Godzilla: Final Wars was able to lift things with his gravity breams, but not the original showa Ghidorah.

 

–Magnetic Powers. While in his meteor form, Ghidorah emits a strong magnetic field that attracts nearby metallic objects. In Zone Fighter, he seems to have figured out how to use magnetism outside his meteor form as he suspends a bunch of cars in the air. But in terms of combat usefulness, we’ve never seen Ghidorah actually Magneto objects at people.

 

Strength

 

–Destroyed several planetary civilizations including the Venusian (Martian in the dub) civilization which he took down in three days. He’s the reason Venus is an inhospitable hellworld.

 

–Gravity beams hurt Godzilla, but were also blocked by a rock formation Godzilla used for cover during a kaiju beam shoot-out (Invasion of the Astro-Monster). Rhodan was also able to use a rock formation as cover (Ghidorah, The Three-Headed Monster).

 

–Set Rhodan’s wings on fire (Invasion of the Astro-Monster).

 

–Flapped his wings hard enough to push back Godzilla (Godzilla vs Gigan).

 

–Hit Mothra (the larvae) so hard with a gravity beam she went flying through the air (Ghidorah, The Three-Headed Monster).

 

–Flicked Anguirus away with a flick of his head (Destroy All Monsters).

 

–Broke free of Kumonga and Mothra’s webbing (Destroy All Monsters).

 

–Pushed Godzilla down a ravine and through a bridge. (Ghidorah, The Three-Headed Monster).

 

–BTFO Mothra with a single gravity beam (Ghidorah, The Three-Headed Monster).

 

–One tail was strong enough to lift and slap around Mothra while she held onto it (Ghidorah, The Three-Headed Monster).

 

Durability

 

–Took Godzilla’s atomic breath straight to the chest seemingly without harm (Invasion of the Astro-Monster).

 

–Flew into the air with Anguirus attached to his neck (Destroy All Monsters).

 

–Unmoved by Rhodan’s wing flaps which created winds strong enough to push back Godzilla (Ghidorah, The Three-Headed Monster).

 

–Took Rhodan suddenly cutting back on him in flight and tackling him out of the sky (Ghidorah, The Three-Headed Monster).

 

Speed

 

–Typically needs to convert himself into either a fireball or meteor to travel interplanetary distances, but he chased Zone Fighter from Earth to Venus without any such conversion.

 

–Kept up with Rhodan in flight (Ghidorah, The Three-Headed Monster).

 

Skill

 

–None really. It can even be argued that Ghidorah has a rather acute lack of skill with how uncoordinated his heads seem to be. He never concentrates the fire of his gravity beams. He always fires them erratically with his heads flopping about like those inflatable tube men outside auto dealerships. This means Ghidorah covers a lot of area with his blasts, but it also means that they aren’t the hardest things to dodge. Godzilla dodged quite a few boxing Ghidorah at the end of Invasion of the Astro-Monster.

 

Who Wins

 

Zetton takes this one pretty handily.

 

Get it?

 

Because Ghidorah doesn’t have hands?

 

Ghidorah’s MO is to show up, shake his heads, and blow up stuff until there’s nothing left to blow up. He’s never fought beings that can do the kinds of things Zetton can. He’s never fought guys that can teleport behind him or block his gravity beams with a shield. He’s never fought guys that can absorb his gravity beams and shoot them right back at him. Zetton’s powers give him the ability to perfectly defend himself from Ghidorah and counterattack decisively. Ultraman’s specium ray has been shown to be vastly more powerful than Ghidorah’s gravity beams (Ghidorah’s gravity beams have never caused a monster to explode in one shot) and Zetton flipped that right back on Ultraman. There’s no doubt he could do the same to Ghidorah. And if that doesn’t take Ghidorah out, then another round of reflection likely will as Ghidorah doesn’t seem to be the type to catch on to what Zetton is doing to his beams.

 

Even if Ghidorah somehow gets the upper hand on Zetton, Zetton can just teleport away and recover or get in a sneak attack like he did against Ultraman. But unlike Ultraman, Ghidorah probably won’t dodge fireballs shot at him from behind. He likes to shake his heads around, but only in front.

 

Ghidorah might not have a strength advantage over Zeton, or he might not. It’s entirely irrelevant for this fight as ranged attacks are going to decide it. Zetton has no reason to close the gap with his teleportation if Ghidorah can physically overpower him and no reason not to keep the fight at range when he can redirect all the beatms Ghidorah likes to shoot.

 

In this fight, Zetton gets ahead of Ghidorah…and a head…and a head.