Back in 2014, after Legendary’s first Godzilla movie, if you would have told me that this universe would eventually culminate in a pink Godzilla and a gauntlet-wielding Kong fighting side by side in a buddy-cop movie, I would have never believed you. And yet here we are, with Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire right around the corner. So much has happened in these 10 years, between 4 films, 2 shows, and a number of canon comics. I’ve spent the past few months diving deeper than anyone has ever gone before in mapping this universe’s unique timeline to present you lucky few viewers with the most accurate and comprehensive Monsterverse timeline and history to date. And I truly mean that; I’ve compiled over 18,000 words of timeline notes in my research for this video, all of which is available to read right now over on our Patreon. So join me as we uncover everything from the ancient past of the Titans and Hollow Earth, to the present day with Monarch, Apex, and beyond. The Monsterverse is epic, in just about every sense of the term, from scale, to mythology, to cinematography… but the one area it falls staggeringly short in is its timeline. Because it is a mess. I’ve found more timeline related plot holes in my dissection of these titles than I’ve ever found for any other universe that I’ve done timeline work on before, be it Marvel, Frozen, Avatar or others. It’s so bad at determining hard dates for itself that even G-Day, the most pivotal day in Monsterverse history, is nearly impossible to choose a date for. I’ll explain more on that later, but suffice it to say, this timeline needs more than what my typical forensic chronology usually encompasses; it needs to be realigned. It needs to be fixed. So, welcome to Geekritique. My name is Dakota, everyone’s third favorite fictional chronologist, and today I’ll be your Chronopractor. It’s kinda like a chiropractor, but instead of fixing people’s backs, I’ll be fixing this timeline for you. If you like what you see here, please don’t forget to click that like button, and subscribe for more massive timeline videos just like this. We’re also hosting a giveaway of the new card game Continuity, so if you’d like to win a free copy of the game signed by its creator Benson Farris, all you need to do is like this video, subscribe to the channel, and incorporate the word ‘continuity’ somewhere in your comment. There’ll be more information on the Continuity giveaway in the description below! To set the stage for the overall history of the Titans in modern day, we need to understand their origins as best we can manage. We don’t know exactly how long the Titans have been around, but early theories claimed they could have existed for millions of years. “Millions of years older than mankind, from an age when the earth was 10 times more radioactive than it is today.” But that was before it was generally accepted within Monarch that the Titans first arose in Hollow Earth, an obvious retcon. So it’s difficult to put an actual year date on events we know only from legend. Prior to the release of Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, which will likely unlock even more of the ancient history of the Titans and the Hollow Earth, we don’t have much concrete knowledge on the period before the Titans made their way to the surface world. But some of the legends and mythology of the Iwi people might shine a light on their ancient past. Bear with me, as much of this universe’s prehistory has been overwritten or reworked several times, but what I’ll present here is the current understanding of the Titans’ long forgotten past. Long ago, there was a war between Godzilla, or members of Godzilla’s species, and Kong’s ancestors, the Great Apes. The Iwi and the Great Apes knew Godzilla by the name Zo-zla-halawa, the bad lizard who swallowed a star. The Great Apes had created many great works within Hollow Earth, including Kong Temple, without the aid of humans, but humans did coexist with the Titans for millennia in Hollow Earth. Dr. Ilene Andrews believed that human civilization in Hollow Earth predated the Sumer civilization on the surface by nearly 10,000 years, if not more. The war between the Great Apes and Godzilla forced a number of Kong’s ancestors to make their way up to the surface world, and the Iwi people followed them up to what we now know as Skull Island, through the vile vortex opened up by the titan’s wake. There is some contradictory evidence across the various Monsterverse titles as to when exactly the Iwi people came to Skull Island, however. The comic Skull Island: The Birth of Kong claims they came to the island fairly recently, when Kong’s parents were still alive. But the Godzilla vs Kong novelization claims it was much earlier, and that works much better with claims made in Kong: Skull Island. “The way they tell it, for thousands of years, the people of this island lived in fear. It’s a helluva long time to be scared.” At some point after that, Godzilla, and others of his species, made their way to the surface world and were worshipped by the people there as gods. The Phoenicians knew a member of his species as “He Who Arose,” or Dagon, and the Japanese knew that particular Titan as Raijin, while other cultures depicted Godzilla in their cave art around the world. Great temples were erected for Godzilla by civilizations now lost to time. “It looks Egyptian, or Roman.” “No, this is something different. This is… This is way older.” The Iwi continued their worship of the Kongs on Skull Island after leaving Hollow Earth, erecting vast temples for them, likely with significant aid from the Great Apes themselves. I mean how else could the Iwi have made these giant monkey bars for them, if not with the help of Kong’s ancestors? Elsewhere in the world, the benevolent Titan Mothra had statues and bas-reliefs erected for her that indicate she may have also been worshipped by humans many millennia ago. Godzilla, and others of his species, had a number of rivalries throughout the years that challenged their dominance as alpha Titans, outside of the Great Apes whom they mostly left alone on Skull Island. Jinshin-Mushi, a subset of the MUTO species, also known as MUTO-Prime, was a formidable foe, one who attacked and implanted its offspring into the Godzilla-like Titan known as Dagon, absorbing his radioactivity to feed its eggs and killing it slowly over the course of many centuries. Monster Zero, or Ghidorah, likely wasn’t a Titan native to earth at all, and is said to have come from the stars. The rivalry between Ghidorah and Godzilla was said to be legendary. For whatever reason, however, Ghidorah was forcibly frozen in ice. What kind of power could have so quickly frozen a creature of that size? I have a feeling we’ll find out soon. As for the resident Titans of Skull Island, a longstanding war between the Great Apes and the Skullcrawlers killed off most of the Kongs’ numbers, until only two were left, the strongest of their tribe. Kong was born into the world during his parents’ last battle against the giant Skullcrawlers, and he watched as his mother and father died shortly thereafter, becoming the last of his kind on the surface world. “This is what’s left of Kong’s parents.” As for the rest of the Titans that left Hollow Earth, they eventually fell dormant for centuries and millennia on the surface world, fading into myth. And now we fast forward the clock to the Monsterverse’s modern era, which began in earnest during the final years of World War II. A young William Randa was serving aboard the USS Lawton when it was attacked by the Ion Dragon in 1943. “USS Lawton. Went down 200 miles west of Pearl. In 1943.” “You were on this ship.” “Out of a thousand young men on that ship, I was the only survivor.” While the military didn’t initially believe his tale, Bill Randa would dedicate the next 30 years of his life to proving what he saw that day. In February of 1944, Lieutenant Hank Marlow of the 45th Pursuit Squadron, and Gunpei Ikari, a Japanese Navy Air pilot, went down on the beach of Skull Island after a harrowing dogfight. After crashing, they took their fight into the jungles of the island, and it wasn’t until they first met Kong that the two stopped trying to kill each other. “If you take away the uniforms, the war… and he became my brother.” Ishirō Serizawa’s father, Eiji, was present during the bombing of Hiroshima, and kept this broken watch as a reminder of the destructive nature of mankind. “8:15 in the morning, August 6th, 1945.” “Hiroshima.” “It was my father’s.” Eiji would later join Monarch, and pass the watch, and his legacy, on to his son Ishirō. The true origin of the Monarch organization is deeply confusing. If you were to have simply given Monarch: Legacy of Monsters a cursory viewing, it would seem to most that it began in 1952, when Keiko Miura, Lee Shaw, and Bill Randa found the USS Lawton, and in turn the Ion Dragon. But if you were to have paid close attention to certain lines about the organization’s early history, you’ll know that doesn’t exactly line up. Notice what Shaw says in episode 3. “When was Monarch founded?” “Uhh, late 40s, thereabouts.” At first glance this appears to be a pretty significant plot hole, as we presumably just saw Monarch’s foundation in the previous episode set at 1952. Is it possible then that Monarch could have been founded by either Keiko, Lee, or Randa, prior to their first meeting in 1952? Notice what’s said about Lee Shaw. “You say he helped found Monarch. But that was in the ‘50s.” “40s actually, though he came a few years later.” Again, the show claims that Monarch was founded in the 40s, but now we know Lee wasn’t around until his assignment in 1952. So who founded Monarch: Keiko Miura or Bill Randa? “I founded this place and that fascist tin-pot thinks he can bury me in the basement.” The answer, it seems is Bill Randa, who is already hunting them by the time he meets Keiko and Lee. “I’m a cryptozoologist.” And he’s already got a catchy name for the Titans. “We call ‘em MUTOs, for Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organisms.” But is there any way to find a solid year to pin down the birth of Monarch? It turns out there is. A newspaper in Godzilla: King of the Monsters claims it was formed in 1946. There’s also the first Monsterverse tie-in comic, Godzilla: Awakening, which claims that Monarch was around by at least August of 1946. Full disclosure: this is the only comic I no longer consider canonical, as much of it was retconned by Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, and the two titles can no longer work within the same continuity. For example, the comic claims Lee Shaw was in Monarch by 1946, but we now know that isn’t the case, and the comic also claims that the bombing of Godzilla in 1954 also killed a Titan named Shinomura, but no other Titans appear in that scene. As such, the August 1946 date of Monarch’s founding isn’t viable because that comic is no longer canon. But enough evidence suggests that 1946 was indeed the year Bill Randa began hunting monsters. “Harry Truman didn’t think so when he funded Monarch in 1946.” In 1952, Lee Shaw is tasked to shadow Dr. Miura on a field expedition. “I am Lieutenant Leland Lafayette Shaw III, but you can call me Lee.” “I’m Keiko Miura, and you may call me Dr. Miura.” The two track down a trail of ionizing radiation into the mountains of the Philippines, where they first meet the head of Monarch, Bill Randa. Let’s call their small group ‘Clan Randa’ to differentiate their small unit as opposed to the totality of the Monarch organization. Clan Randa eventually find the USS Lawton, a ship that sank “9 years ago,” and they soon learn that it was brought there by the Ion Dragon. This was the group’s first hard proof that these Titans were real. Keiko and Lee would become fast friends with Bill, and would soon enter into the Monarch ranks. Despite having received initial funding in 1946 by the US President, Monarch now required hard evidence that they could share with the US Military to further fund their organization. It would take Monarch two years after their Ion Dragon encounter in the Philippines to find the evidence they needed of a giant creature in Indonesia, whom they soon discovered to be Godzilla. Clan Randa claimed that with enough uranium they could lure the creature out, which the Army took to heart and set up the Castle Bravo test for March 1st, 1954. We have some contradictory information here. Godzilla 2014 claims “The Americans first thought that it was the Russians. The Russians thought that it was them. All those nuclear bomb tests in the 50s. Not tests.” “They were trying to kill it. Him. An ancient alpha predator.” However, Monarch: Legacy of Monsters is very clear: Russia was not involved and there was only one bombing attempt, Castle Bravo, the biggest bomb ever detonated by the United States. And for over a year it was believed that they had successfully killed Titanus Gojira with that explosion. Monarch would subsequently be handed a blank check from the Department of Defense to continue their research. However, Bill Randa’s presence at the Castle Bravo sight seems to also be a retcon, as previous comments made by him in Kong: Skull Island don’t seem to imply that he was ever there. “The 1954 Castle Bravo nuclear tests weren’t tests… they were trying to kill something.” It still kinda works, so we’ll let this retcon slide. In the Summer of 1955, the American Defense Industry Federation held a Ball, and Monarch were forced to show face to secure funding and continued partnership from the military. “Look, this is only one night a year.” Keiko and Lee took center stage, while Randa stayed behind at Monarch HQ. It was there where he learned of a Dr. Suzuki in Japan who had created a device capable of communicating with Titans, some 64 years before Dr. Emma Russell perfected her ORCA. “This clever man has made a Titan phone.” Keiko and Randa head out immediately to see the device in action while Lee stays behind in Washington to attend their scheduled budget proposal. “We’re presenting our budget proposal to the committee on Friday.” That is until he gets some serious FOMO and abandons his post to be with Clan Randa, something General Puckett warned Lee against. With Suzuki’s device, they successfully lure Godzilla out of hiding, proving that they hadn’t killed him the year prior at Bikini Atoll. “We didn’t kill it. Jesus Christ, we didn’t kill it.” Clan Randa’s revelry is short lived, as they come back to the States to discover that operational control over Monarch has been stripped from them and given to Lieutenant Hatch as part of Lee’s punishment, but they’re given another chance to prove that Monarch is still worth funding. “You have three days before the budgetary meeting. You have three days. Take your life’s work and string something together.” It’s during those 3 crucial days in 1955 that Bill Randa first developed his hypothesis on the Hollow Earth. There is a timeline error here however, as Hatch claims the events in 1954 were two years prior to the Summer of 1955. “…in the two years since Castle Bravo.” This is obviously impossible. We jump forward 4 years to a Clan Randa field expedition to an abandoned Kazakhstan nuclear plant in 1959. This in and of itself is a pretty egregious anachronism in that the first nuclear plant ever made was in 1954, and this looks like it’s been abandoned for several decades. They’re obviously going for an abandoned Chernobyl type location, but the time period just doesn’t check out. Within one of the reactors they find a number of Titan eggs and Keiko decides to climb down to get a tissue sample. But tragedy strikes, the insectoid hatchlings pull Keiko down, and she falls to her presumed death into the newly opened abyss beneath their feet. Having recently married Keiko, Bill Randa takes full custody of Keiko’s young son, Hiroshi, and Lee Shaw helps raise the boy as his uncle. By 1962, Monarch and the US Army had rekindled a decent working relationship, and an experimental new expedition to traverse the depths of Hollow Earth had been given proper funding. “Operation Hourglass is the culmination of nearly two decades of Monarch’s work.” Lee Shaw volunteers for the opportunity to lead Operation Hourglass, a program that utilizes Dr. Suzuki’s technology to summon a Titan from within the Hollow Earth to open a portal for them to enter through the vile vortex. It works, the Hourglass team enter into a subterranean realm successfully, but by all metrics on the surface the project appears to be a catastrophic failure, and all members of the team are pronounced dead after the entry site implodes on itself. The Department of Defense determines that no further funds should be allocated to Monarch after the incident. “It’s over, Bill.” Somehow Bill Randa finds a way to keep Monarch alive for at least another ten years after losing military funding. His obsession with Titans and the Hollow Earth alienate himself from others, however, which destroys his relationship with his son, Hiroshi. After losing his mother, his uncle, and now his relationship with his father to Titans, Hiroshi Randa would grow to develop serious commitment issues in his personal life. 3000 words into our video and we're only just getting to the events outlined in our earliest chronological film in the franchise, Kong: Skull Island. If you’re still here, and you appreciate how much work has gone into this video so far, please be sure to leave a like and click that subscribe button to see more videos like this in the future. It really does go a long way. Don’t forget to also use the codeword ‘Continuity’ to be entered into our giveaway! “Mark my words, there’ll never be a more screwed up time in Washington, but we can’t let it stop us.” On January 23, 1973, President NIXON (sorry) announced the agreement to end the Vietnam war and to bring the troops home after almost two decades of conflict. Bill Randa saw this as his last opportunity to secure funding from the Department of Defense, before the troops left their deployment in Vietnam. “Monarch is on the cusp of being shut down, Brooks. We’re broke! When this war ends we’ll never get approval for our expedition.” He and Houston Brooks, whom Randa hired for a paper he wrote on Hollow Earth, petitioned the government to send an armed guard to join them on an expedition to the newly discovered Skull Island. Randa believed the island was an entry point into Hollow Earth, an emergence point for ancient species and Titans. Meanwhile in the Pacific, despite getting the okay to send his men home, when Lieutenant Colonel Preston Packard gets the call to complete one more field mission as an escort for Monarch, he takes that as his cue that his war isn’t finished yet, and volunteers his squadron for the assignment. Along with Packard and his men, the expedition to Skull Island is joined by photographer Mason Weaver, and the gun-for-hire, James Conrad. The actual mission to Skull Island, and the primary timeframe for the film, must occur in either late January or early February 1973, because the war was coming to a close, and Randa needed to rush the escort to coincide with a LANDSAT team who were already planning to map out the island. This is how we were able to calculate that Hank Marlow and Gunpei Ikari crash landed on the island in February 1944, as Hank claims it’s been “28 years, 11 months, and 8 failed attempts to get back to the world.” Skull Island is surrounded by a perpetual storm system that hid it from the outside world for millennia until satellite imaging captured photos of the island in the early 70s. It’s never directly explained why the storm system persists, but it can be implied that the anomalous weather is what initially tipped Randa off that there might be a connection to Hollow Earth and the origin of the Titans on the island. Randa’s hunch was correct. After the helicopters broke through the storm, the party encountered a world teeming with dangerous and wonderful creatures. Sker Buffalo. Mother Longlegs. Skullcrawlers. Leafwings. And, of course, Kong. “Is that a monkey?” After the helicopters begin bombing the island, Kong makes quick work of them, killing most and bringing the rest down to the ground. Kong’s attack, along with Packard’s continued unwillingness to let go of the war, offers the Lieutenant Colonel a new target to direct all of his fury. “Where’s Randa?” If you’re wondering where best the opening scene of Monarch: Legacy of Monsters fits, it’s right here. Bill Randa, believing himself to die shortly after crash landing in a helicopter and being chased by a Mother Longlegs, offers up a final message to his son, Hiroshi, before dumping his life’s work into the ocean. “Hey buddy, I don’t know if this’ll get to you; I hope so. Actually, I don’t because it’ll probably mean I’m dead.” And yes, Randa does die unceremoniously about a day or two later, at the hands of a Skullcrawler. Much of the group needlessly die throughout the course of the movie, either due to Packard’s obsessive need to hunt down and kill Kong, or just because the island’s fauna is so particularly incompatible with human longevity. Some members of the expedition come into contact with Lieutenant Hank Marlow, who’s taken refuge with the native Iwi people for almost 29 years. “You’ve been here since ’44?” “Yeah.” Hank Marlow explains that he and the recently deceased Gunpei Ikari had worked hard to pool their collective plane scraps together to create a functional boat to leave the island on. “Me and Gunpei spent 6 years of our lives building this thing.” Those that survived Skull Island use the boat to make their way off of it, rendezvousing with a pickup that was scheduled for 3 days after their initial landing. Along the way they witness Kong avenge his parents’ killer, the Alpha Skullcrawler, reasserting his dominance over Skull Island. Mason Weaver and James Conrad are soon inducted into the ranks of Monarch, and Lieutenant Hank Marlow finally returns to his home in Chicago after being marooned for some 29 years, and is reunited with his wife and a son he’s never met. It’s the Monsterverse’s own Odysseus tale. Houston Brooks and Monarch decide to keep Skull Island a secret and to leave its security to its resident Titan. Some time later come the events of the 7th episode of the Skull Island anime. It’s a self contained story of Kong’s friendship with an unnamed Spanish girl. We learn that on one side of Skull Island, confined to a small fortified beach, resides a whole village of Spaniards who must have been stranded there for an extended period of time. We know this episode occurs after the events of Kong: Skull Island, thanks to a line from the Spanish girl, who asks “When those men came with the machines that flew, did it ever make you think what else they could build out there?” We know this isn’t referring to the planes that found their way to the island during World War II, as there’s no direct evidence that Kong actually saw those, but we know he did see the helicopters fly in during the Vietnam war. This quote also suggests that this girl can’t comprehend what other technological advancements exist outside of Skull Island, meaning these Spaniards have likely been here for decades, if not centuries. It ends in tragedy, however, as a Titan known only as ‘Kraken’ kills her and her entire village. All Kong has left to remember her by is her pendant. While this episode does occur much earlier than the rest of the anime, likely circa 1980, I highly recommend viewing the episodes in the order they’re listed on Netflix. The crew of Operation Hourglass spend a week in what appears to be a sub-realm of Hollow Earth. “I don’t think this is the realm of the Titans at all. It’s a place between places. I call it ‘Axis Mundi.’” “The pole between heaven and earth.” Lee’s team is attacked by a Titan, and after requesting an immediate extraction, he’s sucked out of Axis Mundi and shot into 1982. “Go get me Bill Randa!” “I can’t. He’s dead. We are in a Monarch medical facility. You disappeared during Operation Hourglass in 1962… 20 years ago. Uncle Lee.” Lee is shocked to discover that he’d lost 20 years in just a week, and after attacking Emiko, a nurse on staff, he is deemed unfit for duty, and is sent to live out the remainder of his days in a Monarch retirement shelter. It’s in 1982 that Hiroshi Randa first meets Emiko, and while we don’t know when they were eventually married, we know that he was in a relationship with Emiko prior to marrying his other wife in San Francisco, Caroline, in 1984, some 30 years before G-Day. “I bought them a sunset cruise for their wedding anniversary. 30 years.” At the age of 6, a young girl named Annie and her father are stranded on an uninhabited island somewhere near Skull Island in 1983. He sacrifices his life protecting Annie from a giant dog-like creature. Annie then befriends the newly-orphaned puppy of the creature her father killed, and names him Dog. They would be alone there for the next 10 years. “And for not finding me for 10 years…” The first season of Netflix’s Monsterverse anime, Skull Island, occurs in the Spring or Summer of 1993. We know Fall hasn’t begun yet, so mid-year checks out. “No, it’s a ‘this Fall’ thing.” And we know this occurs roughly 20 years after Kong: Skull Island. “End of the war, our ship got sent out to a classified mission to this island. A dozen choppers left. None came back. (…) That was 20 years ago.” The story follows a teenage boy named Charlie, his best friend Mike, and their two fathers, all of whom have searched the seas for years looking for monsters. “We’re searching for cryptids.” They rescue a girl adrift at sea, named Annie, who is running from a group of men trying to take her into custody. Then the Kraken attacks their ship, brutally killing Mike’s father, and everyone is washed ashore onto Skull Island. Over the next several days, they encounter a number of monsters that nearly kill them: Trapdoor Crabs, Giant Ants, Killer Chameleons, and, of course, Kong. “That is a big monkey.” Over the course of their stay on the island, it becomes clear that Irene, the woman that hired all these men to bring Annie in alive, is actually Annie’s mother, though it takes the girl a while to come to grips with that. Mike also appears to be severely ill, thanks to being touched by the Kraken’s poison. To make it off Skull Island, and to get Mike some medical help, they need to first get rid of the Kraken who won’t let anyone leave, so Charlie and Annie come up with the idea to draw Kong out by stealing a mysterious pendant, and having Kong chase them to the shore. It’s a bloody battle between Kong and Kraken, but I think we all know who comes out on top. Annie is badly hurt in the chaos, and she wakes up in civilization shortly thereafter. “You’ve been asleep for a bit.” “How long’s a bit?” “2 weeks.” If you’ve yet to watch Skull Island, I definitely recommend it. It’s a good time, the lore is expanded upon significantly, and it even dives into the unique connection the island has with the Hollow Earth. “I’ve mentioned that fountain before, but I think what we’re seeing on this island is a connection to… the Hollow Earth.” Keeping the discussion centered on Skull Island for a bit, we have the flashback events detailed in the canon tie-in comic, Skull Island: The Birth of Kong. Houston Brooks’ son, Aaron Brooks, and a team of Monarch hotshots plan a secret mission to Skull Island after they find out that their organization had redacted any information about the island. The mission goes awry almost immediately after they break through the storm as the group are attacked by a number of Psychovultures and other monsters. They meet a young Iwi boy named Ato who speaks English and takes the remaining members of the team to their village. This comic’s timeline is infuriatingly difficult to pin down. When they get to the island it’s supposedly August 7, 1995, but the next day, after spending what appears to be a single night in the Iwi village, it’s suddenly July 14th, 1996 - but it’s absolutely impossible for them to have spent almost a full year on the island. I choose to place the events of the flashbacks in July 1996, as the dates from that point are consistently within that month. In the comic, one of the members of their crew, Riccio, begins having visions of the past. Some of what he sees, namely the origin of the Iwi on the island, appears to now be retconned, but most of it still works within canon, like seeing how Kong first entered the world as his parents died. Seeing no way off the island after some time, Aaron Brooks decides to stay there with the Iwi people. We don’t know if he is alive or dead by the time the present day events of the Skull Island: The Birth of Kong comic occur, but Aaron’s fate is left satisfyingly open ended after he sends his records off into the sea to be found by his father. This comic also appears to be where they got the idea for Bill Randa to do something very similar in Monarch: Legacy of Monsters. According to promo assets for Godzilla 2014, paleozoologist Vivienne Graham joined Monarch in 1997 as Serizawa personally recruited her. But Godzilla: King of the Monsters assets claim she was hired by Monarch in 1999, so we’ll go with that. By 1999, Dr. Ishirō Serizawa was already well established within the Monarch organization, as his father, Eiji Serizawa, was said to be a founding member. This, however, as well as much of Serizawa’s backstory, is only explored in depth in what we now consider to be a non-canon comic book tie-in, Godzilla: Awakening. The two would become a staple of modern Monarch leadership leading up to and following the events of G-Day, with Ishirō Serizawa eventually becoming the Director of the organization, and Vivienne Graham attaining the Senior Paleozoologist title. Their first field assignment, a trip to the Philippines in 1999, led them to the corpse of a dead Titan, which had slowly been drained of its radiation for centuries and millennia by Jinshin-Mushi, the MUTO Prime. This dead Titan may have been Dagon, the Godzilla-like creature first introduced in Godzilla: Aftershock, but whatever had been nesting and incubating inside the corpse had broken free and was headed toward Japan to feast on more nuclear radiation. Over the next few days, the MUTO that broke free of the Titan body made its way to Janjira, Japan, where a large nuclear facility was located. Nuclear engineer Joe Brody, who had watched the seismograph readings since they first took shape after what was perceived to be an earthquake in the Philippines, saw that the same readings were now occurring in Janjira. On the day of his birthday, the MUTO attacked the power plant to begin absorbing its radiation. Joe’s wife, Sandra Brody is killed during the event, and her sister, Michelle Duvall, would join Monarch after her death. “My sister, Sandra. She worked in Japan. Janjira.” Neither Joe Brody, nor his son Ford, would learn the truth about what happened in Janjira for another 15 years. Dating this particular event in 1999 isn’t easy, considering all of Joe’s floppy discs with seismic readings vary wildly in their dating, but there is a sticker on the board of Ford Brody’s classroom reading May 18th, so perhaps we’ll go with that as the date. The present day events of the comic Skull Island: The Birth of Kong occur in July 2012, two weeks after a potentially hazardous Monarch package is found at sea. Houston Brooks is getting ready to retire after 40 years of service within the Monarch ranks, but someone brings him the package left adrift by his son in 1996. It’s a message in a bottle of sorts that only Brooks’ could decode, and he learns of his son’s failed mission to Skull Island. He decides to postpone his retirement in light of the news, and chooses to go back to Skull Island. There he discovers the vile vortex beneath the island to Hollow Earth, and a permanent Monarch base is installed there, and Dr. Ilene Andrews would soon begin her study of Kong. Corah Mateo, better known as May Hewitt, was hired by Applied Experimental Technologies around April 2012, some 36 months prior to the present day events in Monarch: Legacy of Monsters. “Look, you are brilliant, and you can work anywhere. But I think the future looks better if you create it with me.” But her time with AET would be short lived, as she would sabotage their operations in March 2013, when she discovered they were testing a cybernetic neuro-interface on monkeys. Corah would run away from home then, change her name to May Hewitt, and move to Tokyo. We know roughly when she sabotaged AET by calculating when she was last home. “2 years... 2 years and a month.” Now, there’s a pretty significant timeline error in regard to May’s time in Japan according to Monarch: Legacy of Monsters. The title card here claims that she met Kentaro 2 years earlier than the primary events of the show, but a couple episodes before that was a title card that said Kentaro met May 1 year earlier. These two scenes are minutes apart from one another, and we know that no more than a few weeks elapse throughout the main events of the series, so this is impossible. Which time frame is correct then: 1 or 2 years earlier? I lean in favor of it being 1 year earlier, in 2014, as Kentaro’s father Hiroshi is still believed to be alive. This presumes that G-Day hadn’t happened yet. But that brings us to another issue, that being when exactly G-Day occurred, because the night in question, the night of Kentaro’s art exhibit, is dated to June 19th, 2014, a month after G-Day is generally accepted as happening. At some point in 2013, Bill Randa’s files were fished up in the Sea of Japan, and would eventually find their way into the hands of Hiroshi Randa. When I say that the continuity within the Monsterverse Timeline is off the charts, I don’t mean that in a good way. Let’s finally break down when Godzilla 2014 occurs based on all the in-universe clues. First up, there’s a calendar dated to July 2014 in Elle Brody’s home, placing the events in the Summer, while kids would usually be on their Summer break, but later we see that the school buses are still running, so this cannot be true. “There’s still buses on that bridge.” According to Godzilla: King of the Monsters, the footage of the MUTOs attack on San Francisco occurred on May 16th, 2014, which is probably the most viable date. Monarch: Legacy of Monsters’ opening credits has a newspaper dated to May 25th, indicating the attack on San Francisco occurred on the 24th. But then later we have dialogue that two days before G-Day was supposedly the first of the month. “Yeah, of course. It’s the first of the month.” But G-Day also has to be after Kentaro’s exhibit on June 19th. So which is it? May 3rd, 16th, 24th, or sometime in June or July?? Let’s just call it May 16th, 2014, the day the film originally released in theaters, and call it a day. I’m tired. But let’s continue. Ford Brody, having recently returned home after fourteen months of active duty, gets the call to bail his father out of prison in Japan. Joe, who’s convinced another freak accident like the one that happened in 1999 was going to occur again, tried breaking into the Quarantine Zone of Janjira to retrieve his notes, and Ford ends up aiding him on that pursuit. “The new readings are exactly like they were on that day, and I can prove it to you.” While in Janjira, the two are detained by Monarch, who have secretly been running a containment facility for a dormant Titan known only as a MUTO. Having drained all the site’s nuclear radiation, the MUTO awakes and is ready to begin its mating process. As it breaks free of its containment, Joe Brody is mortally wounded, and he dies shortly afterward. Monarch follows the creatures path to Honolulu, Hawaii, and on the way Serizawa catches Ford up on how he believes Godzilla will come forth to meet the Titan head on. “Nature has an order, a power to restore balance. I believe he is that power.” As the MUTO destroys Honolulu, and Ford is caught in its path, Godzilla shows up to lay down the law. Over the next several days Monarch follows the paths of Godzilla and the MUTO across the Pacific Ocean. Eventually another MUTO emerges, a female, and it soon becomes clear that they intend to mate now that the two have consumed an incredible amount of nuclear energy. The female MUTO tears through Las Vegas as it journeys to meet its male counterpart in San Francisco. Serizawa is convinced that they need to trust in Godzilla to save the day. “The arrogance of man is thinking nature is in our control, and not the other way around. Let them fight.” G-Day, the pivotal day when the world saw the full might of Godzilla as he took both Titans down, occurred on May 16th, 2014, and the world was forever changed. Many families were displaced, and many more were killed, including Andrew, the firstborn son of Monarch employees Mark and Emma Russell. Mark would leave Monarch because of this, and drink himself out of a functional family, something he would regret and make amends for down the road. Cate Randa witnessed the deaths of most of her schoolchildren during the attack, crippling her for almost a year. Hiroshi Randa’s family in Japan assumed him dead after the attacks on San Francisco, while his family in the states believed he disappeared a week after Cate spoke to him after the destruction. “About a week after that, we got a call from the state police in Fairbanks, Alaska saying the bush plane he was on disappeared in a snowstorm.” Much of San Francisco would be quarantined off, and some would enter into the business of reclaiming goods for others as part of a government sanctioned cleanup. The emergence of the Titans, and the destruction of cities like Honolulu, Las Vegas, and worst of all San Francisco, led many countries and cities to create Titan proof shelters. Japan was the first to introduce a Titan warning system, but the US followed suit. “It’s the early warning system.” “Warning for what?!” “Gojira.” The beachfront property bubble finally burst as nobody wanted to buy homes near the sea any more. Tech companies began building underground homes that only the ultra wealthy could afford, while companies like AET pivoted their business strategy towards preparing for future Titan attacks. “Monster prep. Big business now.” The San Francisco Commission was created to provide governmental oversight over Monarch’s activities in the wake of the attacks, and would be a thorn in Monarch’s side for many years to come. A few months after the events in Godzilla 2014 comes the 4-part comic series Godzilla: Aftershock. Ecoterrorist Alan Jonah is being interrogated in Guam when a 3rd MUTO awakens and attacks the base. This turns out to be the parent superspecies to the two MUTOs featured in the Godzilla film, known as MUTO Prime, or Jinshin Mushi in Japanese legends. It is the ancient abomination that originally brought down one of Godzilla’s species, known as Dagon or Raijin. “15 years ago we found the fossil of another giant animal, in the Philippines, like Godzilla. But this creature died long ago, killed by these.” A newly estranged Emma Russell shows up on the scene, alongside Ishirō Serizawa and Vivienne Graham. This happens to be where Emma and Alan Jonah first come into contact. Monarch tracks Jinshin Mushi to where it first burrowed out to the surface in Japan and discover its dangerous past. Godzilla faces off against MUTO Prime several times throughout the comic and it doesn’t look like he could win a third round. They realize this isn’t a fight they can afford to let Godzilla fight on his own. A member of the San Francisco Committee agrees to use his security clearance to enter MIT and secure Emma’s ORCA prototype that she and Mark had made in college to try and use on the MUTO. It worked and gave Godzilla the edge to defeat Jinshin Mushi once and for all. Emma Russell would secretly begin her partnership with the ecoterrorist Alan Jonah around this time. This story occurs around August 2014. On April 1st, 2015, Cate Randa visits Tokyo to see if she can learn anything about her father’s nearly year-long absence. She doesn’t truly believe he’s dead, but she’s looking for closure. Instead she finds Hiroshi’s second family, her half brother Kentaro, and a Monarch package full of encoded files that just so happen to be from the late great Bill Randa. After getting Kentaro’s ex-girlfriend, May Hewitt, to help them decode the files, they learn that their family has a long history within the Monarch organization. “I don’t see any Randas up here. I thought we were Monarch royalty.” “Well, your family has kind of a complicated legacy here.” Most of Bill’s files are heavily redacted, to a point where there’s nothing of value in any of it. Why Bill Randa was running around with all these redacted files, as the founder of Monarch, and not the original files? We’ll never know. After being chased by Monarch agents Tim and Duvall over their possession of the files, Cate, Kentaro, and May, head to a Monarch-affiliated nursing home where they find an elderly Lee Shaw. “Wouldn’t that make you, like, 90 years old?” “What can I say, good genes, huh?” And with Lee Shaw and two Randa grandchildren, Clan Randa is reborn! Together Clan Randa travel the world in search of clues left by Hiroshi, first in Alaska, where they find his downed plane, a new Titan known as the Frost Vark, and a potential entrance to the Hollow Earth. Monarch end up catching up with them and Shaw is detained by Deputy Director Verdugo, while the rest of Clan Randa head to San Francisco. “Deputy Director Verdugo. I should have known. How is the view from the almost top?” While in the ruins of San Francisco, Clan Randa find a map of Godzilla’s territorial routes that offers them clues to continue their search for Hiroshi. Meanwhile Lee pulls a coup on Monarch, enlisting Michelle Duvall and other likeminded individuals in a crusade to blow up all the extant gates leading into Hollow Earth and the Axis Mundi. Clan Randa reunites with Shaw and they witness a waking Godzilla who hasn’t been seen since he defeated Jinshin Mushi the year prior. They also learn that Hiroshi was alive this whole time. After this, Clan Randa split up again, and May is kidnapped by AET, who want her to spill the beans on Monarch’s Titan knowledge as payment for all the damage May cost them in 2013. “But you wiped out years of research. Millions of dollars of work.” Tim decides to help the Randa’s find May, convincing them that he’s actually trying to help. “Your father spent his life trying to prevent something like G-Day from happening. I believe that he’s trying to prevent the next one.” Tim sets off the prototype Titan Alert system as a distraction to retrieve May, or Corah, from AET’s clutches. This wasn’t wholly necessary, though, as May had already made a secret deal with AET’s Brenda Holland. Walter Simmons, owner of AET, decides then that they’re ready to finally change the name of their company to Apex Cybernetics. “I think it’s perfect. A bold statement for AET’s new corporate mission.” And in response to the experimental Titan Alert system that was employed, Monarch takes the opportunity to finally come out of the shadows. “My name is Natalia Verdugo. I’m speaking to you today as a representative of Monarch.” Lee Shaw heads back to the site where Keiko Randa fell into the Axis Mundi to try and destroy it for good, when he’s intercepted by the rest of Clan Randa. The ensuing collapse sucks Lee, Cate, and May into the realm of Axis Mundi. Hiroshi finally returns home to Emiko, who officially separates from him. Later, Tim and Kentaro ask him to help them find those lost in the Axis Mundi with the aid of Apex Cybernetics. “Monarch isn’t the only game in town.” After most of Clan Randa are sucked into the subterranean realm of Axis Mundi, they stumble upon Keiko Randa, who still appears like she did in 1959, some 56 years prior. “How long do you think you’ve been down here, Kei?” “By my estimation, 57 days.” Learning that the current year on the surface is 2015 was a huge shock for Keiko, but with her help they were able to use Lee’s Operation Hourglass vessel to call forth a Titan to open the portal home. Just then, the Ion Dragon resurfaces, but the Titan they call just so happened to be Godzilla, and he tears the Ion Dragon apart. Cate, May, and even Keiko make it out, but Lee Shaw is left behind. “Thank you... for everything! Live!” The three are shot into 2017, on Apex’s Skull Island Research Station, and are met by Kentaro and Hiroshi Randa. “A lot’s changed in the past 2 years.” Kong comes over to check out the sudden radiation signature that he probably registered as belonging to Godzilla, and he’s seen sporting a sweet new beard. We’re now nearly 8000 words into this video, making it by far the longest scripted video in Geekritique history, bigger even than my MCU Timeline V7! But we’re not done yet, as we still have a few more films and comics to discuss as we lead up to Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire. Please, if you haven’t already, throw a like my way, and let me know how I’m doing so far. And don’t forget to use that codeword ‘continuity’ to be entered into our giveaway either. By the time Godzilla: King of the Monsters rolls around in 2019, the general public hasn’t seen Godzilla “in over 5 years.” Monarch is now well known to the citizens worldwide as the premiere Titan experts, while Apex Cybernetics has been working as a government contractor and has collaborated with Monarch on a few projects. Mark and Emma Russell have been out of contact and divorced for some 3 years. After leaving Monarch and cleaning his life up, Mark began studying wolves in Colorado, and tried to keep in contact with his daughter Madison regularly. Unbeknownst to Mark, Emma and Maddie were at that point deep in the Yunan Rainforest of China researching a Titan egg belonging to the legendary Mothra. The Titan would soon be born, just in time for Emma to finally test her finished ORCA device. The experiment works, and they’re able to pacify the newborn Titan larva. “Meet Titanus Mosura. Or as we like to call her... Mothra.” That is until the base is invaded by Alan Jonah’s ecoterrorists and the two Russell women are taken prisoner along with the ORCA. The Mothra larva leaves to find a place to begin her metamorphosis. Monarch representatives including Director Serizawa, Dr. Graham and Sam Coleman are called away from their senate hearing to address the ORCA-sized issue. They find Mark Russell who might be able to help them in tracking Emma and her ORCA, and they bring Mark to Outpost 54, codenamed Castle Bravo after the nuclear test in ‘54, which is some really nice timeline synergy there. Godzilla leads them to Outpost 32 in Antarctica, but the way he disappears from radar indicates he’s using some unknown means of travel. “I’m telling you, Doctor Brooks was right; it’s the Hollow Earth.” There in Outpost 32, Alan Jonah coerces Emma Russell to wake up the mysterious Titan trapped in ice, Ghidorah. “I’ve been scouring through thousands of years of myths and legends, but it’s almost as if people were scared to even write about it.” “As if it was meant to be forgotten.” It’s there Mark realizes that his ex-wife is indeed working alongside Jonah, and she’s doing it of her own volition. Godzilla and the newly awakened Ghidorah duke it out, and in the mayhem Serizawa’s longtime partner, Dr. Vivienne Graham, is killed. Emma reaches out to her former Monarch colleagues, suggesting that what she’s doing in waking up the Titans one by one will be for the greater good. “The mass extinction we feared has already begun. And we are the cause. We are the infection. But like all living organisms, the earth unleashed a fever to fight this infection; its original and rightful rulers, the titans.” They next wake up the volcano-dwelling Titan in Mexico’s Outpost 56. “Local legends call it Rodan, the Fire Demon.” Between the ensuing chaos of Godzilla, Ghidorah, and now Rodan, the US military decide to use a new weapon developed clandestinely by Apex Cybernetics to neutralize all the targets. The Oxygen Destroyer only ends up hitting Ghidorah and Godzilla, and only Godzilla is truly incapacitated. While Ghidorah does lose a head, it quickly regrows. Little does Emma Russell or Alan Jonah realize, Ghidorah plans to wake all the Titans up simultaneously, causing a worldwide panic. Titans Scylla, Methuselah, Yamato no Orochi, Mokele-Mbembe and many more are seen to wake up around the world causing untold damage. “Massive storms and other disasters triggered by the Titans force millions to flee major cities. And with DC hit hard by a category 6 hurricane that has left the Capital completely flooded, this is the single greatest disaster in human history.” Mothra awakes again in China, this time sporting some sweet new wings, and she chooses to aid humanity’s efforts in stopping Ghidorah by leading Monarch to Godzilla’s resting place. “Mothra. Queen of the Monsters.” To save the world, Serizawa realizes that he must personally detonate an atomic bomb in Godzilla’s presence to speed up the Titan’s regeneration. “What time is it?” “Time to get a new watch.” Taking one last look at his father’s broken watch, and confronting his old friend face to face, Serizawa sacrifices himself, destroying the temple that the ancients had long ago built for Godzilla in the process. Maddison Russell steals the ORCA from her mother, tricking Ghidorah into diverting its attack to Boston’s Fenway Park. A newly juiced Godzilla comes rolling in and together Ghidorah and Godzilla take down the stadium’s notorious Green Monster. The epic battle is joined by Rodan on Ghidorah’s side and Mothra on Godzilla’s side. During the battle, Emma Russell finally comes to her senses and saves her family’s life by sacrificing her own to draw Ghidorah away. Mothra also sacrifices her life to help Godzilla and eventually he defeats Ghidorah, reclaiming the title as King of the Monsters. Scylla, Rodan, Behemoth and another MUTO bow before him, reasserting his dominance as Alpha Titan. The only date that works with all the timeline based evidence found in the film is that the climactic final battle in Boston occurred on Tuesday, June 18, 2019. This falls in line with the Full Moon occurring the previous night, a Monday, June 17th, and positions itself prior to any of the news articles written and featured in the film’s credits. In the immediate aftermath of Godzilla: King of the Monsters, Director Serizawa is replaced by someone named Director Guilerman as the new head of Monarch, though this may be retconned as the character is from deleted scenes in Godzilla vs. Kong. Mark Russell decides to rejoin Monarch in the wake of the disaster, and the organization releases over 60 years worth of giant monster files to the public. One of the monsters that was awoken during Ghidorah’s call, the bat-like Camazotz, attacked San Diego, but later disappeared into Hollow Earth when the ORCA called the Titans to Boston. A new Mothra egg is discovered, meaning we’ll see her again someday, and Rodan now resides in a volcano north of Fiji. Behemoth helped restore deforested areas of the Amazon, while new ancient plants and fruits resurfaced, and several animal species were taken off the endangered lists, all in the wake of the Titans resurgence. Off the coast of Isla de Mara, the severed head of Ghidorah is fished up and Alan Jonah buys it off the sellers, and some years later sells the head to Walter Simmons of Apex Cybernetics. “It’s a brave new world my friend. Such things as this have become much more valuable since the rise of the King.” Several months after King of the Monsters comes Greg Keyes fantastic graphic novel, Godzilla: Dominion. Keyes also wrote the incredible novelizations of both Godzilla: King of the Monsters and Godzilla vs. Kong, so there’s plenty of timeline synergy between this title and the two films it sits between. In the comic, Godzilla embarks on a sort of victory tour where he helps get certain other Titans in line. Scylla, who previously bowed before him, squares up against Godzilla, and quickly finds out, before running off to continue hibernating. Godzilla saves Na Kika from humans who were attempting to trap the Titan beneath an oil rig. And lastly he faces off against Tiamat before finding rest on some remote island that has the skull of his ancient enemy, one of the Great Apes. This comic is narrated and told through Godzilla’s unique point of view. The graphic novel, Kingdom Kong, occurs next in 2021. Audrey Burns is called to duty on Skull Island after two years of inactive piloting. Her time spent fighting Camazotz in San Diego back in 2019, and the loss of her friend Tam Nassar who’s been in a coma ever since, has left Audrey in a state of deep post-traumatic stress. She’s hired on to be one of the top pilots that make the first trip into Hollow Earth as part of Nathan Lind’s new expedition. The manned flight, which is to be led by Nathan Lind’s older brother, Corporal David Lind, is scheduled to go ahead in a year’s time, in 2022, so the pilots have a year to train on the island’s unique terrain. According to Houston Brooks, Kong is said to be three times taller than his height in 1973, now at 90 meters. One of the supercell storms created in Ghidorah’s wake has up to this point stayed over Mexico for over two years, but in 2021 begins to move towards Skull Island. The 2022 scheduled flight into Hollow Earth has to be moved up and rushed into action before the storm collides with the perpetual storm already surrounding Skull Island. While this is all happening though, Camazotz, the bat-like Titan, comes out of the vile vortex and wreaks havoc on Skull Island. The pilots and Kong face off against it. Audrey faces her fears and together they succeed in defeating Camazotz. Audrey heads home to find her friend Tam finally awake from her coma, meaning that she doesn’t get the opportunity to enter into Hollow Earth with her fellow pilots. This graphic novel does feature some retconned information however. They explain that Monarch helped the Iwi people off the island before the storms became too much for local life to continue, but Godzilla Vs Kong, both the film and its novelization, claims that Jia was the last of her kind believed to still live on the surface. “When the storm took over the island, it wiped out the native people. But Kong saved her.” Nathan Lind’s expedition into Hollow Earth, in partnership with Monarch, is witnessed by a number of news outlets and government agencies who’ve been invited to cover the project. The pilots, having been forced to go ahead of schedule by a whole year, are unprepared for what to expect once they actually enter unto the breach, and the gravity inversion they experience once they get into Hollow Earth causes them to crash within it. Nathan Lind is labeled a hack; a fringe pseudo-scientist. Monarch cuts his funding and he’s shunned by the wider scientific community. But more than that he has to live with the fact that he got his brother killed due to his own miscalculations. “...Besides, I’m not with Monarch anymore, and Hollow Earth entry is impossible. I tried.” “I’m sorry about your brother. He was a true pioneer.” The short comic, Godzilla: Fight or Flight, begins shortly before Godzilla vs. Kong, and ends roughly around the time of Godzilla’s attack on the Apex Cybernetics lab in Pensacola, Florida, so it’s safe to read this before watching Godzilla vs Kong. A young fighter pilot who goes by the callsign of ‘G-Stan’ is, as you might guess, a big fan of Godzilla. But when he and his squadron are called to engage Godzilla because of his attack on Pensacola, he chooses to believe that Godzilla has a reason for the carnage. Note that I haven’t given this title a proper year date yet. And that’s because of the biggest timeline mystery in the entirety of the Monsterverse: when exactly does Godzilla vs. Kong take place? We’ve now come to the most controversial part of this Monsterverse timeline. Does Godzilla vs. Kong occur in 2022 or 2024? The obvious answer, and the most readily accepted solution, as many of you are probably rushing to type out right now, is 2024. There’s the line from Walter Simmons who claims “You see, 10 years ago, when Gojira was first revealed to the world, I had a dream...” This tells us that the events of Godzilla 2014 occurred 10 years prior, placing this film in 2024. Also, according to Collider, producer Alex Garcia claimed at a press event that the film occurred 5 years after King of the Monsters in 2019. But despite all this, there’s actually just as much, if not more, in-universe evidence that the film occurs in 2022. The novelization by Greg Keyes, for instance, is very clear that the story occurs 3 years after Godzilla: King of the Monsters, and reiterates this between 10 and 15 times. Maddison Russell is now said to be 15, which explains why she doesn’t have a vehicle and needs to borrow Josh’s older brother’s van. It even elaborates that the events of Godzilla: Dominion, occurred 3 years and 2 months before the start of Godzilla vs. Kong, and that Nathan Lind’s failed Hollow Earth expedition was actually the year prior, in 2021. This all adds up to a Fall 2022 timeframe for Godzilla vs Kong. So when the novelization reiterates the 10 years quote from Walter Simmons, it’s assumed that he’s simply rounding up to the nearest round number instead of saying 8 years. When interviewed by KDM, Greg Keyes claimed that he was in close contact with those in charge of the Monsterverse’s continuity, and everything he added to the film was approved by Legendary. The graphic novels and comics also corroborate best with the 2022 line of thought, especially the recent release, Godzilla: Fight or Flight which claims that the events in King of the Monsters was “a couple years ago.” Even the film itself has news coverage saying the last known Titan sighting was 3 years prior. “...governments around the world aren’t taking any chances, after the first substantiated titan sighting in over 3 years.” It’s possible that this is in reference to the Camazotz attack on Skull Island in 2021, which could lean in favor of 2024, but what happens there on Skull Island isn’t public knowledge, so most likely this is in reference to Godzilla’s world tour in the comic Godzilla: Dominion. The way I see it, most of the information leans in favor of 2022, but the generally accepted date is 2024. I’m going to guess that, based on the level of synergy the rest of the timeline has with itself, the filmmakers haven’t put as much thought into this as I have, and will likely just go with the 2024 date. So even though I believe the film fits better in 2022, we’ll put Godzilla vs. Kong and Godzilla: Fight or Flight in 2024 on our visual timeline. What do you guys think? 2022 or 2024? Now, by the time Godzilla vs. Kong begins, Skull Island is no longer inhabitable. Monarch has built a dome around the island, enclosing Kong in, but after he breaks through the enclosure, it becomes clear that he cannot stay there for much longer. “We need to start thinking about off-site solutions.” “The island is the one thing that’s kept him isolated - if he leaves, Godzilla will come for him. There can’t be two alpha Titans.” Meanwhile in Pensacola, Bernie Hayes, an Apex employee of 5 years and the host of the Titan Truth Podcast, intends to steal intel on Apex’s projects. “After 5 years of deep cover at Apex Cybernetics, I’m finally taking my shot.” But then the site is attacked by Godzilla, seemingly at random. Bernie, sneaking into the sites lower levels, finds what appears to be a massive cybernetic eye. Walter Simmons takes this opportunity to declare war on Godzilla, though he was already fully prepared to take Godzilla down, as Apex had nearly completed its Mechagodzilla project. Madison Russell, unconvinced that Godzilla’s attack on Apex was random, has her friend Josh come by and together they find the podcaster Bernie Hayes to investigate Apex because her father and Monarch are unwilling to do so. Walter Simmons has hired Ren Serizawa, the son of the late Director Ishirō “let them fight” Serizawa, to pilot the Mechagodzilla through the neurolink program, thanks to the fact that they now have two of Ghidorah’s psionically linked heads. Ren is bitter with his father’s legacy of always putting Godzilla first, over his relationship to him, and so he plans to kill Godzilla once and for all. But they need a better way to power the mech suit, and Walter Simmons believes that power source will come from Hollow Earth. Simmons reaches out to Dr. Nathan Lind to hire him for the job. “I’ve been fixated on Hollow Earth for as long as you have. Your theory that it’s the birthplace of all Titans, is fascinating.” Nathan believes the only way in to Hollow Earth and to this mysterious power source is if a Titan shows them the way, so he convinces his old friend Dr. Ilene Andrews to help relocate Kong. “You always believed that Skull Island was like Hollow Earth come to the surface, right? And that’s where Kong’s ancestors came from. Through that entrance in Antarctica; we could help him find a new home.” They haul the Great Ape onto a ship and start the trek to the Hollow Earth entry point in Antarctica, and Walter’s own daughter Maia Simmons is tasked to head the mission. Jia, the deaf Iwi girl who's been secretly communicating to Kong for the past year, helps calm the Titan down, surprising just about everyone. “Did the monkey just talk?” Well? Godzilla is pissed that Kong’s not on Skull Island anymore, and meets the party at sea, on his turf, and Kong isn’t the type to back down from a fight. “No, I spent 10 years on that island studying him. I know this for sure: Kong bows to no one.” The two Titans duke it out atop the aircraft carriers they’re using to ship Kong, and Godzilla comes out victorious in their first round. With the ships destroyed, and the seas no longer safe to traverse, they fly Kong over to Antarctica, where he’s coerced into entering the Hollow Earth for the first time. He brings the party to Kong Temple where he finds an ancient axe made out of a dorsal plate from one of Godzilla’s own kind, and Maia Simmons finds the energy sample needed for her father to replicate it in the Mechagodzilla on the surface. The film coalesces into a three Titan brawl in Hong Kong between Godzilla, Kong, and Mechagodzilla, and Kong initially bests Godzilla with his newfound axe. “Looks like round 2 goes to Kong.” But to defeat the now-sentient Mechagodzilla, who even killed its maker in Walter Simmons, Jia tells Kong that he must team up with Godzilla, and with a little help from Bernie’s dead wife’s whiskey, the giant jaeger is brought down. Kong and Godzilla, having now teamed up for the first time, have a newfound respect for each other. There can indeed be two Alpha Titans. Two months later we see that Kong is now living rent free in Hollow Earth, while Ilene Andrews and Monarch monitor the Titan. The graphic novel tie-in to the upcoming film, Godzilla X Kong: The Hunted, begins about a week prior to the events of the movie, and leads directly into the start of the mayhem. According to Monsterverse journalist KDM, the new film occurs 5 years after Godzilla vs. Kong, placing it in 2029, or perhaps 2027, depending on which in-universe clues they choose to follow. The story follows the RM Construction contractor, Raymond Martin, a Skull Island trophy hunter, as he prepares his new mech suit, the Titan Hunter, for action. Using decoys to draw Godzilla away from his usage of the Titan Hunter suit, he plans to enter Hollow Earth and kill giant monsters with abandon for sport. One of the decoys ends up waking up Scylla as well, and the Titan goes on a worldwide tour of nuclear sites absorbing all of their energy, from India to the UK, and eventually Italy. Godzilla is always one step behind Scylla until they make it to Rome where the two square off, which is where the events of the film Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire begins. Meanwhile, in the Hollow Earth, the Titan Hunter is killing giant creatures left and right, including a new species that Monarch has labeled a Spineprowler. Kong, protecting the two Spineprowler cubs, makes quick work of the Titan Hunter suit, and the cubs then make quick work of Raymond Martin. The comic also gives us our first canonical glimpse at Shimo, one of the new Titan threats Godzilla and Kong will face off against in The New Empire. And that leads us to the events in Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, which supposedly occurs in either 2027 or 2029. We’ll find out soon enough. This Titan-sized visual timeline is now available to download over on our Patreon! While you’re still here, please don’t forget to like, subscribe, and use that word ‘continuity’ in your comment if you’d like to be entered into our giveaway! Also, check out and follow Continuity on either Facebook, Instagram or Twitter! I’ll reveal the winner in our next video, so keep those notifications on. Also, I’d like to shout out my collaborator and proofreader, Ecko, as he brought some things to light that I either totally missed or overlooked. I’d also like to thank KDM for his guidance on placing the new film, and Greg Keyes for helping explain his point of view as an author of several Monsterverse books. You guys rock. Thanks so much for watching! Long live the timeline.