Warning: Contains SPOILERS for Godzilla X Kong: The Hunted!Godzilla is famously the King of the Monsters in MonsterVerse canon, with Kong being perhaps the only other Titan who can rival that position (though they seem to have come to a peaceful understanding in Godzilla X Kong). Godzilla earned that moniker by fighting and defeating Titans, so it stands to reason that he will keep his title by continuing to fight increasingly deadly Titans that challenge him. However, as revealed in a MonsterVerse tie-in comic, it seems the perfect villain for the next installment of the Godzilla X Kong franchise isn’t a Titan at all.

In Godzilla X Kong: The Hunted by Brian Buccellato, Dario Formisani, Drew Johnson, and Zid (prequel to Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire), Godzilla is hunting down one of the Titans fans see him fight in the movie: Titanus Scylla. Godzilla’s part of the story is tracking down this deadly Titan as it consumes nuclear power plants for radioactive sustenance, and ends with the battle in Rome fans can experience in The New Empire. Kong’s story, on the other hand, is one that doesn’t directly tie-in to the movie, but sets up a bold new villain for the next one.

The villain Kong faces in The Hunted is a human who sunk $500 million into the production of a giant mech-suit dubbed the Titan Hunter that’s akin to the Jaegers in Pacific Rim (minus the mind-melding). This independently wealthy man lost his family to a MUTO attack during the events of 2014’s Godzilla, and he holds every Titan accountable – including Kong. While Kong was victorious in the end, this mech-suit did some pretty serious damage in their one-v-one fight, which leaves the door open for a similar (and more heavily funded) enemy to rear its head in a later story.

Godzilla vs Kong is an epic film with one of the best monster battles in history, & the reason why they fought was due to Godzilla’s name for Kong.

Humanity Itself May Be Godzilla & Kong’s ‘Final Boss’ in Their MonsterVerse Trilogy

The Titans in the MonsterVerse (including and especially Godzilla) have always been portrayed as the living embodiments of forces of nature on Earth. Godzilla is the one that maintains the balance as the alpha, but every Titan plays their role. So, if humanity, not another Titan, ended up being the ‘ultimate villain’ of the Godzilla X Kong MonsterVerse trilogy, that would allow the series to send a powerful metaphoric message to audiences, as they’d witness humans wearing destructive machines of their own making literally fighting elements of Mother Earth incarnate.

Though beyond the metaphorical significance of this potential trajectory for the Godzilla X Kong franchise, it just makes sense that humanity would want a hand in its own potential extinction every time Godzilla or Kong needs to be called to action. No human weapon works against Godzilla or the other kaiju, leaving humanity vulnerable to attack at all times (which is essentially the cornerstone of this entire franchise). Now, however, there’s a mech-suit design that’s proven to be effective against Titans, and there’s just no way the governments of the world will let that go to waste.

It’s also interesting that the cost of producing the Titan Hunter was prominently featured in this comic, as it shows just how relatively cheap the mech-suit was to produce when compared to another famous MonsterVerse robo-titan: Mechagodzilla. In Godzilla vs Kong, it’s revealed that Mechagodzilla cost $3 trillion to produce, which is immensely more costly than the Titan Hunter’s measly $500 million.

How The Titan Hunter Mech-Suit is Different From Godzilla vs Kong’s Mechagodzilla

While the Titan Hunter is far less costly than Mechagodzilla (even as a fleet), there is the argument that it’s simply too similar to Mechagodzilla – both in terms of in-world reasoning and narrative storytelling. If a government or organization wanted to pour money into a Titan-killing robot, why wouldn’t they create one that nearly killed two Titans at once single-handedly, as opposed to investing in a mech-suit that couldn’t even kill one? Not only that, but fans already saw a man-made robo-titan take on Godzilla and Kong, so why would they want to see the same thing again?

The Titan Hunter is a giant mech-suit as opposed to Mechagodzilla being controlled through a telepathic link with the operator, making the Titan Hunter a far less intrusive experience for the pilot – which, in turn, means there can be more pilots for more mech-suits. Plus, the Titan Hunter uses far less energy than Mechagodzilla, making it possible for a fleet of them to be produced without having to literally drill to the center of the Earth.

As far as fans’ potential concerns that they’ll just get the same thing over again, the experience of seeing a human-piloted fleet of Titan Hunters descending upon Godzilla and Kong would be a vastly different experience from watching the two iconic Titans battling the equally iconic Mechagodzilla, regardless of the fact that the Titan Hunters are also ‘man-made robo-titans’.

The Titan Hunter Isn’t the First Kaiju-Sized Humanoid Robot in Godzilla Lore

Godzilla vs Megalon (1973)

The Titan Hunter is the first kaiju-sized humanoid robot in the MonsterVerse, but it’s far from the first one in wider Godzilla lore. In 1973’s Godzilla vs Megalon, fans were introduced to Jet Jaguar, a robot created by Goro Ibuki that could grow to the size of Godzilla. Aside from the human pilot, Jet Jaguar bears a number of striking similarities to the Titan Hunter. Both are humanoid robots the size of a kaiju, both were created by humans (an important clarification in more obscure Godzilla lore), and both have the power to take on Titans.

The difference between the Titan Hunter and Jet Jaguar, however, is that Jet Jaguar worked with Godzilla, whereas the Titan Hunter would fight Godzilla indiscriminately, as just the fact that Godzilla is a Titan would be enough for the Titan Hunter to go after him. However, perhaps this difference is only a temporary one, and the existence of Jet Jaguar is actually a secret inspiration for the Titan Hunter, alluding to a possible team-up scenario.

While it is possible that the Titan Hunter (or ‘Hunters’) could end up like Jet Jaguar, it seems far more likely that – if they do appear in the third Godzilla X Kong movie – they will be villains, just like the original Titan Hunter. From the metaphorical to the practical sense, it seems almost inevitable that a new fleet of Titan Hunters will be deployed in Godzilla X Kong 3, as this MonsterVerse prequel comic sets that storyline up perfectly.

Godzilla X Kong: The Hunted by Legendary Comics is available now.