King Ghidorah (Showa)

King Ghidorah (also known as Ghidrah) is the three headed dragon who acts as Godzilla's archnemesis and a monster from the Godzilla movie series.

Showa Series
When he first appeared, King Ghidorah was an ancient evil from space that had devastated many planets and wiped out hundreds of civilizations. Eventually, Ghidorah found his way to Earth on a magnetic meteorite and attacked Japan, devastating much of the countryside. He then came to face off against the team of Godzilla, Rodan, and Mothra who defeated him and drove him back into space. Later, Ghidorah was revealed as pawn of the alien race, the Xilians, the inhabitants of the newly discovered Planet X. These aliens wanted Earth's water resources and tricked the Earthlings into giving them the opportunity to take control of Godzilla and Rodan. Luckily the humans managed to free the monsters from the Xilians control and, after a battle with Godzilla and Rodan, Ghidorah headed back into space. At one point, Ghidorah came to challenge Godzilla and other Earth monsters who managed to defeat and seemingly kill him. Later after being revived by the Nebula M Spacehunters, the king of terror was partnered with Gigan by the Nebula M Spacehunters and fought against Godzilla and Anguirus, only to be defeated again.

Heisei series
Time-travelers (known as Futurians) from the 23rd century came to the present so as to stop Godzilla from ever existing, by taking the Godzillasaurus that would become the King of the Monsters out of time and away from the hydrogen bomb that would create Godzilla. However they left behind three little creatures called Dorats, which would fuse together and mutate into King Ghidorah. The Futurians then used this new monster to attack modern day Japan. However King Ghidorah was defeated by a reborn Godzilla, now bigger and more powerful than ever before, due to exposure to nuclear waste and an encounter with a nuclear submarine. Though he seemed to win at first, Ghidorah was defeated and had his middle head blasted off. His body fell into the ocean and remained there for hundreds of years, but this left Godzilla free to attack Japan. However one of the Futurians, who had a change of heart, went to the future, where she recovered Ghidorah's body and used it to create Mecha-King Ghidorah, a cyborg built on the monster's body with a mechanical middle head, solar paneled wings, and a futuristic arsenal of weapons. Mecha-King Ghidorah fought Godzilla and managed to capture and stun the King of the Monsters with its capture cables. It carried him out to sea and, after getting hit point blank by an atomic fire blast, both fell beneath the ocean.

Millenium Series
In the Millenium series, Ghidorah was one of the three guardians of legend that protected the Japanese isles. Godzilla returned and began attacking Japan, but was repelled by the three guardian monsters, Ghidorah, Baragon, and Mothra, and the Japan Self-Defense Forces. Eventually Ghidorah and Mothra were the only monsters left to fight Godzilla and Ghidorah was knocked out by the King of Monsters, while Mothra was slain by him. But her essence revived the dragon monster and it was down to just Godzilla and Ghidorah. The two fought, but Ghidorah was destroyed by Godzilla, though the spirits of the guardian monsters were able to stun the monster long enough for the military to use a weapon capable of destroying him.

Powers
In his basic form, Ghidorah can fly at Mach 3, fire lightning like blasts called gravity beams out of his mouths, and generate hurricane winds from his wings. In the Millenium series, he could also use an electric bite attack. As Mecha-King Ghidorah, he could fire capture cables from his chest, which would shock whatever they caught and a laser beam out his middle head and fly at Mach 4.

Other versions
Ghidorah is unique in that many monsters similar to him and with similar names appear throughout numerous kaiju movies. These may be other creatures of his species and are Desghidorah, Grand King Ghidorah, and Keizer Ghidorah.

Trivia

 * King Ghidorah is one of the most popular monsters in the Godzilla movies, second only to Godzilla himself.


 * King Ghidorah appears in two different Courage the Cowardly Dog episodes. In the first, he appears when Le Quack turns on the TV and in the second, when Courage opens a door to reveal King Ghidorah behind it. He appears in two more episodes.


 * King Ghidorah also makes a cameo in South Park's Imagination Land Trilogy.


 * King Ghidorah and the other Ghidorahs bear a slight/strong resemblance to Asian dragons, but without mustaches, arms, ears, thin bodies, or beards.