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Zilla (ジラ, Jira) is a giant mutated marine iguana monster that is featured in the animated series G-Force.
Appearance[]
Zilla is 90 meters tall, 180 meters long, and weighs 20,000 tons. Zilla stands bipedally, but hunched forward like a dinosaur, though occasionally he walks upright. Zilla has dark blue skin on the top portion of his body, with brownish skin on his underbelly. Zilla has a long rectangular head with a large underbite, three rows of forward-pointed scutes on his back, two smaller humanoid forelimbs, and long powerful hind limbs.
Personality[]
The first Zilla that attacked New York City in 1998 seemed to be driven only by instinct, desiring to collect food and nest underneath the city. Zilla attempted to evade the military whenever possible, but was not afraid to lash out when cornered. The surviving offspring of Zilla imprinted on a human scientist, and became very loyal and protective of the scientist and his colleagues. The still-living Zilla is far more aggressive than his parent against hostile creatures and will fight rather than retreat. This Zilla also displays remarkable intelligence.
History[]
In 1968, the French government conducted a nuclear test in secret on an island in French Polynesia. The test proved successful, decimating seemingly all flora and fauna on the island, and leaving nuclear fallout in its wake. What the French were unaware of however, was that something had survived the test. Unbeknownst to the French government, Galapagos marine iguanas had recently been introduced to that particular island by an independent scientific organization. The iguanas thrived in this new habitat, and the beaches were littered with their nests. The nuclear test eradicated this iguana population, but one small egg remained in the radioactively polluted sand. Not only did the embryo inside the egg survive, but the fallout heavily mutated its genes. When the iguana hatched, it required massive amounts of food to sustain itself. It began catching fish from the nearby waters, many of which were also irradiated. The iguana grew to incredible size over the next three decades, and developed bizarre anatomical mutations, such as a bipedal gait and three rows of huge dorsal scutes.
By 1998, the creature had grown to nearly 300 feet in height and required even greater amounts of fish to sustain itself. The creature swam away from its island and into the middle of the Pacific Ocean. There, it intercepted a Japanese fishing boat full of thousands of fish. The creature destroyed the vessel and fed on its catch, then swam south toward South America. When the ship's wreckage was recovered, all of the signs pointed to Godzilla, who was recently believed dead, being responsible for the attack: the bite marks, the radioactive fallout, and the only survivor recovered from the ship, when asked about what caused the wreck, responded "Gojira" over and over again. G-Force immediately mobilized to locate and combat Godzilla, finally finding relevance for itself again.
The creature that caused the shipwreck came ashore in Central America, then walked into the Atlantic Ocean on the other coast. American scientific teams examined the footprints left behind by the creature, and became only more certain that they were left behind by Godzilla. They indicated a creature that was bipedal, reptilian, and well over 80 meters in height. It was only days later that the creature came ashore in New York City. It fed on fish stored at the city's docks, walked through part of Manhattan and caused millions of dollars worth of damage, and then disappeared without a trace. With the declaration that Godzilla had arrived in New York, the world was thrown into a panic. G-Force worked to receive permission to operate in the United States, while the Americans' own military converged on New York City, evacuating and closing the city off. A leading American researcher on mutations resulting from nuclear fallout, Dr. Niko "Nick" Tatapoulos, was assigned by the U.S. military to study and track "Godzilla," so that the U.S. military could have the honor of finally killing the King of the Monsters, while G-Force had failed to do so for years. Nick hypothesized that Godzilla was feeding on fish, due to its attack on the fishing boat and its actions at the docks earlier.
Nick and the U.S. army prepared a trap for the monster. They placed a mountain of fish in the Flatiron district, and anticipated that Godzilla would show up. In a matter of minutes, the streets erupted and a gigantic reptilian monster emerged from underneath the streets. The monster immediately fed on the fish, while the army looked on in awe. With the creature unsuspecting, the military opened fire with artillery, rockets, machine guns, and every weapon they could muster. To their surprise, Godzilla actually ducked and dodged all of their shots, and then darted off behind nearby building. Two F-18 falcons were sent to pursue the monster, but both were ambushed and destroyed. After evading its attackers, "Godzilla" grabbed onto the Chrysler Building and roared into the night sky, before amazingly vanishing again. Nick examined skin samples left behind by the monster, and came to the conclusion that not only was "Godzilla" actually mutated from a marine iguana, but had somehow managed to impregnate itself asexually. He theorized that it must be collecting fish to feed its young and is nesting somewhere underneath New York City. The military laughed at Nick, claiming that scientific studies and DNA analysis had already shown that Godzilla was both male and mutated from a species of large dinosaur. Nick was promptly removed from the task force pursuing Godzilla.
Nick soon joined with members of the French Secret Service, who had come to New York to follow the creature, which they believed their nuclear test in 1968 had actually created. They entered the subway systems under the city, where they actually encountered the monster tunneling through the subways. Nick called the head of the military task force, Major Hicks, and warned him that Godzilla was surfacing. Hicks ordered his units to mobilize, and when the monster surfaced near Central Park, it found the entire military waiting for it. When they opened fire, the monster evaded it and quickly ran to the Hudson River before diving underwater. Two Ohio Class nuclear submarines were ready for it, and bombarded the creature with torpedoes. Radar confirmed direct hits, and Godzilla's signature vanished. The monster was confirmed dead, but Nick and the French agents stumbled upon something far worse: hundreds of the monster's eggs inside Madison Square Garden, all ready to hatch. The eggs hatched and the hatchlings attacked Nick and the team. Nick managed to get into contact with Hicks again and told him he needed to bomb Madison Square Garden before the hatchlings could get out and proceed to grow and reproduce. Using the video equipment in the building, the team sent a video feed of the creatures running rampant through the Garden, which finally convinced Hicks to order a missile strike on the building. Nick and the others escaped the building before it was incinerated by the missiles, and it seemed that Godzilla was forever no more.
But just then, the ground began to shake and the still-living "Godzilla" emerged from beneath the streets. Upon seeing its dead young, the monster became enraged and chased Nick and the others through the streets. They jacked a taxi to try and escape the monster, and called Hicks once more to inform him that Godzilla was still alive. The taxi lured the monster onto the Brooklyn Bridge, where it became entangled in the suspension cables. The two F-18 falcons that had just destroyed Madison Square Garden quickly arrived at the location and fired six tomahawk missiles directly at the helpless creature, causing it to fall forward and died.
The media exploded with news that the United States military had finally killed Godzilla. G-Force, which had failed to receive permission to deploy on U.S. soil, sent a team of scientists to examine the body and confirm that it was in fact Godzilla and that he was truly dead. The scientists quickly confirmed that this was not Godzilla, but in fact a new never-before seen monster. The French government finally revealed to the world that they had conducted a nuclear test in Polynesia in 1968, and that the monster that attacked New York was the result of fauna living on the island being mutated by the fallout. The U.S. military and media refused to acknowledge that the monster they had killed was not Godzilla, and rode the publicity for the next year.