NOTE: This only talks about the incarnation of Gargorgon in Ultraman X as the various incarnations in recent appearances like Ultraman R/B and Ultraman Trigger did nothing too heinous in the baseline. Therefore only the information of Gargorgon's incarnation in Ultraman X should be placed here.
That one eye looks familiar somehow... Wait a minute... *SMG0 vibes*
Don't mind me, good people, I just came back from yet again to present you all another Ultraman candidate. This one is rather easy to read but I wouldn't say it's the most interesting candidate from one of its Neo Heisei installments, sure, this one could count as one of the few PE potential candidates I find boring so far yet, call me hypocritical, but to the least of those worries it gave me an opportunity to ensure how exactly a three-headed medusa-like Kaiju did so many horrible things in just one two-parted episode.
Anyways, let's settle this quick. I present you everyone, Gargorgon.
What's the Work?[]
Ultraman X is the third installment of the long-running Tokusatsu series, Ultraman, within the Neo Heisei Phase to the franchise. The story revolves across years ago starting with a fight between a digital giant of light and a being of void power.
Daichi Ozura, now a member of XIO, has been chosen by the same being whose named Ultraman X, both are destined to unite as one and defeat their world from Seijin criminals and Kaiju that would cause destruction across earth. However, they are in need to face beings such as Juda Specter and the main enemy of the series, Greeza.
Who is She? What has She Done?[]
Gargorgon is the main antagonist of the two-part Ultraman X episodes, "The Man with the Memories of a Planet" and "An Oath Beyond Worlds". Gargorgon is an evil, greedy, and intelligent Kaiju that petrifies innocent beings for her own concepted desire for power. She is responsible for the mass petrification of Planet Gold, Te Ru's home, and the archenemy of Te Ru himself.
While her origins are completely unknown, it was stated by Te Ru that Gargorgon had once visited Earth and petrified most of its citizens to feed off the energy from them and sank said civilization beneath the sea. Then around sometime five years ago, Gargorgon arrived at Planet Gold to feed off the energy from its population, already turning them to stone (which explains the Rudian not responding to Gargorgon's presence). Gargorgon would kill off most of the civilization alongside its capital, one of the victims petrified was Te Ru's sister, which he screams out in despair before finding a surviving Rudian Spark Doll. He would then end up escaping and becoming the last of his kind.
Upon tracking down Rudian's energy on Earth after years later of Te Ru being under amnesia and hiding the Rudian Spark Doll, Gargorgon arrives int search for Te Ru. However, with the help from Daichi and X to assist him in eliminating the threat for good, Te Ru activates Rudian once more with Daichi transforming into X as both the giants began attacking and fighting Gargorgon in the process. But while the fight went on, Gargorgon began shooting out lightning as XIO fired everything they got back at the serpent Kaiju as X tries to fire lightning using the Cyber Eleking armor to finish it off.
However, it immediately backfires as one of her heads bit X and proceeds to unleash powerful lightning strikes at them. It was only at that moment would Gargorgon have her way against X as he physically tortures him, just then Rudian shoots under Te Ru's control to save X. However, Gargorgon prepares to petrify Rudian before X sacrifices himself alongside Daichi when saving him, as to now would Ultraman X be turned into a statue. Te Ru and Rudian immediately depart due to running out of energy in themselves before X and Daichi give them Gargorgon's weakness to him telepathically.
Gargorgon fled to the stars and recharge her powers for a while. She would then transmit a message to XIO and Earth under translations saying that if they don't surrender and hand over Te Ru, she'll petrify all of humanity into stone if they don't meet her condition under forty-four minutes and half an hour. However, the commander of UNVER insists on bombing multiple nuclear warheads, known as Perseus, at her. However, Te Ru tried to warn them that it would only feed Gargorgon more power from the nuclear energy the warheads hold, and true to his word, it destroyed them while feeding off its energy.
Later on, all of XIO and Te Ru worked together to make preparations for defeating Gargorgon to undo X's petrification. Rudian would appear to fight Gargorgon once more with Te Ru piloting it, acting as sacrificial bait into saving X as both the giants fought one another, firing missiles and lightning at each other respectively. Even when the members of XIO prepared, Gargorgon overwhelmed both Te Ru and Rudian as both their energy ended up getting absorbed by it as both immediately turned to stone as a way to avenge his kind.
Just before it was the end for them and X, all members of XIO at once fired at Gargorgon's eye, destroying it completely as X and Rudian, even Daichi and Te Ru were de-petrified at once. As then X and Rudian both have the upper hand of defeating Gargorgon once more but she ends up regenerating her eye. Just as she was about to aim her petrification at them, X activated his Cyber Bemstar armor to absorb the petrification and reflect it back to Gargorgon, petrifying her instead. Te Ru would use Rudian finish her off, finally ending her greed for energy and reign for good.
Although the Kaiju was defeated, Te Ru has been left a surviving member of the Alien Gold race.
Heinous Standards[]
The standards in Ultraman X shouldn't be much more problematic in comparison to its respective Kaiju and Seijin antagonists. This is certainly accurate because most Kaiju, again, always cause destruction while the Seijins there committed rather generic/standard villainy under criminal basics. Though to the least of it, in-universe, Greeza, the main antagonist sets the standards here but for references and re-evaluated evidence, comparisons from other villains are in need to measure first.
Mold Specter, the same Mold from Andro Melos, wishes to go back to his original intentions alongside Gina, his sister, into conquering the cosmos once more, starting with X's Earth. However, even with all resources intact and attempting to revive the Spark Dolls to create an Kaiju Army, this still fails the standards for Mold. Not to mention he and his sister still care about Juda after his death.
Greeza, the one who claimed to "set" the standards as he was said to have destroyed the lives of three planets to gain energy and attempts to destroy the entire solar system under said motive. Due to having resources of being a literal Eldritch Abomination and void-related abilities, not to mention mutating into even stronger forms that nearly killed X and transmuted Kaiju using its Dark Thunder Energy to brainwash them under his grasp would make him stand out.
However, this should be carefully noted at best as Greeza's destruction on all three planets is outright offscreen villainy, therefore he does not set the standards at all even if they were mentioned, so he arguably fails somewhat. Another thing to know is that Greeza arguably has Moral Agency issues given its roar represents psychotic giggling, but it is only considered minor instead of intelligence since it lacked any evidential piece of intelligence or speaking, unlike Gargorgon.
Zaigorg, the final antagonist of the series, was an ancient evil sealed by Ultraman Tiga years ago when Zaigorg boiled the Earth to a crisp when surrounding almost near the close factures of the land using its Bloody Flooding. Zaigorg was then freed when the stone in the temple that sealed it was taken by a foolish, greedy treasure hunter named Carlos Kurosaki. While at first Zaigorg was seen as another generic Kaiju, Zaigorg has managed to disable X in their first battle and has created around five Tsurugi Demarga to destroy each country nations simply out of pure spite and sadism (though near to an attempt to mass murder or populicide). Given from its roars, if one can hear carefully, he can be heard laughing evilly.
Unlike Greeza's roar that had simple psychotic giggling, Zaigorg's roar is sounded a lot more specific, meaning it has intelligence, even by this case, it's still arguable by choice. However, the main issue with Zaigorg is that its actions still fail in comparison to Greeza (despite the offscreen villainy for obvious reasons) or if anything, could fail to Gargorgon at best. Its actions to endanger lives and attempted mass populicide on each country, while seemingly unique, doesn't make Zaigorg more unique in the standards since it does not have a clear suggestion if the intention was supposive. Not to mention it had one comic relief where it had cotton candy in its mouth when Rui used the Musketty to attack and there's a chance, for once, Zaigorg's attempted mass populicide might as well be Fridge Horror for now until I re-evaluate the latter because of my foggy memory.
Then we got Gargorgon, to a surprise, she manages to stand out in the standards, given she was stated to be a world-destroyed who absorbs energy from other beings for her own need of power through greed. Additionally to her resources being a medusa-theme Kaiju whose intelligence and can absorb anything to increase her strength, it makes more powerful than any Kaiju X and Daichi faced, even X himself admitted to this.
Plus, her annihilation on Planet Gold specifies how much of a threat Gargorgon cemented through this. Even though her petrification on Earth was implied, not most of her crimes are offscreen as we see Te Ru's sister turned to actual stone right in front of him and presumably all of his people in the Planet Gold's capital, where many Rudians weren't activated when Gargorgon was right in front of them. This indicates that Gargorgon has already petrified Te Ru's people and killed all of them in the process, it should also be worth noting that petrification is a rather unique crime for her to stand out. Additionally, the onscreen effects of what she did to Te Ru's sister and making him the last survivor on Planet Gold makes this personal for Te Ru, creating a measurement of personal villainy to her actions.
Not to mention she also attempted to mass petrify all of Earth if they don't surrender Te Ru to her, even going as far as to petrify both X and Rudian, that had Daichi and Te Ru to begin with before all of that is undone when she is shot in the eye. Though her eye is the main source to de-petrify her victims, it wouldn't say the least for Te Ru's sister and his people since they're already dead in her hands as we see no evidence if she de-petrified alongside X and Daichi, despite remaining ambiguous of what happened, it can be assumed it was too late. Regardless of that, being petrified into stone in such a painful process is still a fate worse than actual death.
In conclusion, she still manages to have some of her worst actions onscreen and has personal villainy compared to other villains of the series, especially to the importance of Greeza's actions being offscreen and Zaigorg's actions failing to stand out. Meaningly, she stands out with ease.
Mitigating Factors[]
Gargorgon is motivated by greed for power and energy from other beings, she basically lacked anything that is redeeming to her characteristic, especially for being an evil kaiju.
However, you can argue that her subtitle is the "Petrification Evil Monster", but it does not explicitly mean she lacks an proper Moral Agency since this case could be the same way as Gamos had. In addition, despite her origin being completely unknown, she still manages to have a clear personality to her Moral Agency as she telepathically messages all of humanity, even XIO, to head over Te Ru or she'll petrify them all. This proves she doesn't lack a personality and has intelligence in the end, but regardless, she chose to do wrong under circumstances to her motivations of absorbing energy.
Final Verdict[]
This makes me want to propose a Formality Post Proposal for a certain snake witch (take note, I'll be doing it sometime in the future). But in my regards, out of any Ultraman X antagonist, she clearly stands out for having enough screen time for her actions and her Moral Agency, so I think she's a yes.