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Skull Island
Gunpei Ikari
Portrayed By: Miyavi
Appeared In: Kong: Skull Island
A World War II Japanese pilot who got stranded on Skull Island with Lieutenant Hank Marlow.
- Actor Allusion: Miyavi was cast as the Big Bad (who was also an Imperial Japanese military member during World War II) of the 2014 film Unbroken.
- Fire-Forged Friends: Upon crashing on Skull Island, Marlow and Gunpei's first reaction upon seeing each is to fight to the death. But after their encounter with Kong, the two set aside their differences to survive on Skull Island together, with Gunpei teaching Marlow some Japanese and how to fight with a sword. Before Marlow departs the village, he pays a tearful tribute to his deceased friend.
- Katanas Are Just Better: He wielded a Type 98 shin-guntō that, despite being a cheap, mass-produced sword, was more-than effective at slicing up monsters without rusting, breaking, or losing its edge for 28 years.
- Killed Offscreen: He was killed by Skullcrawlers at some point during the 28-year time skip.
- Weapon Tombstone: His shin-guntō sword serves as a grave marker until Marlow reclaims it as a memento of their friendship.
The Iwi
Appeared In: Kong: Skull Island | Skull Island: The Birth of Kong | Kingdom Kong | Skull Island
The human natives of Skull Island. They worship Kong as a guardian god and fear the Skullcralwers. They took in Marlow and Gunpei and later provided shelter to half of the Monarch expedition.
- Adaptational Heroism: Unlike the hostile natives in previous Kong movies, who ranged from being violently xenophobic to savage brutes, the Iwi are civilised and friendly to visitors once they realise they aren't a threat.
- Adaptation Relationship Overhaul: In most King Kong films, the natives of Skull Island are equal parts revering and terrified of Kong to the point they make sacrifices to hopefully sate him. Here the Iwi and Kong are outwardly friendly to each other, the former seeing the big ape as a benevolent guardian deity and the latter actively protecting the natives from dangerous predators.
- Action Survivor: While not shown in the film, it can be assumed they are this since they live on the island.
- The Monarch Files on the Leafwing say they hunt Leafwings and ground up the wings to use as a drug. Considering how dangerous they are this makes the Iwi badass for actively hunting them.
- Bus Crash: In Godzilla vs. Kong, and more explicitly in its novelization, it's stated that all of them except Jia have been wiped out as far as Monarch can tell due to the Perpetual Storm surrounding Skull Island closing in over the island. Kingdom Kong elaborates on this, revealing that the storm collapsed after getting exposed to a remnant of the storms King Ghidorah created, and that said storm also drew Camazotz out of Hollow Earth, with his rampage speeding up the demise of Skull Island. However, Kingdom Kong and the Kong: Skull Island Cinematic Adventure sourcebook both contradict the movie and novelization accounts, claiming that most of the Iwi were evacuated and resettled by Monarch instead of perishing.
- Color-Coded for Your Convenience: The younger tribe members who hunt and gather food have yellow tribal body paint while the elders have blue.
- Conflict Killer: Implied in the sourcebook for the tabletop game Kong: Skull Island Cinematic Adventure: the Iwi have to survive together in a Death World where humans are quite low on the food chain, and the sourcebook states that they were never witnessed having any violent altercations with each-other.
- The Dreaded: They dread the Skullcrawlers (known to them as Halakrah, though they scarely speak that name) and they regard Godzilla's species as a malevolent Draconic Abomination.
- Future Primitive: In the novelization, it's stated explicitly that they were the last survivors of the ancient Hollow Earth civilization which existed more than ten-thousand years ago. But after arriving on Skull Island they regressed to a largely tribal scavenging lifestyle.
- He Who Must Not Be Named: Their name for the Skullcrawlers.
- Hidden in Plain Sight: They managed to get the drop on the expedition team by having a few members in mud or clay stand among the ruins like statues.
- Honor Before Reason: In the Godzilla vs. Kong novelization, it's indicated they could've survived had they listened to Monarch's pleas to relocate as the Perpetual Storm swallowed up their homes, but they refused to move from their village until it was buried by a mudslide and all but a handful were dead.
- Lost Tribe: To be expected since their home was thought to be a myth until it was found.
- Malevolent Masked Men: In Skull Island (2023), the Iwi we see are all wearing red-and-yellow full-face masks and hoods over their heads, which creates a bad In-Universe first impression of them whenever Charlie encounters them: first when an Iwi herds Charlie into the Hawk's clutches to be taken to Kong's home, then when several Iwi catch Charlie in a snare and intend to see him punished for offending and endangering Kong.
- Spikes of Doom: They built walls of spikes around their village to keep out Skullcrawlers. Fresh blood can be seen on most of the walls.
- Suddenly Speaking: The Iwi almost never speak when they're onscreen, being The Voiceless in Kong: Skull Island, although Marlow indicates that they do speak offscreen. In later appearances...
- Aaron Brooks' expedition in Skull Island: The Birth of Kong are surprised to encounter an Iwi boy named Ato who speaks English, having learned it from the previous visitors to Skull Island.
- In Skull Island (2023), the Iwi who herds Charlie towards the Hawk is dead silent throughout the task. Later, when an angry group of Iwi string Charlie up, Charlie is stunned to hear an Iwi woman speaking for the first time, in English, as she tells him he'll suffer for his transgressions against Kong.
- The Voiceless: Marlow points out they rarely speak. Given where they live, this is probably to avoid unwanted attention from the island's super predators. The Godzilla vs. Kong novelization indicates it's probably also because Kong literally can't form human words and communicates with the Iwi via sign language instead.
Ato
"Greetings, searchers. You have come at last."
Appeared In: Skull Island: The Birth of Kong
The leader of the Iwi during Aaron's 1995 expedition to Skull Island. He takes them in after Kong saves them from their violent run-in with Death Jackals.
- Accidental Pervert: When Riccio suggests the team get body painted for the Iwi rituals, Ato enthusiastically agrees and tells the rest of Aaron's team to take their clothes off. They are not amused. Justified in a rare realistic example, the Iwi are an isolated tribe.
- Harmful to Minors: Since he was born and grew up on Skull Island, this is a given. He's no stranger to the mutilated remains of Skull Island's predators that his people's savior Kong slays. The same probably can't be said for him witnessing people murdering other people when Riccio murders two of his compatriots, including shooting Evelyn Matemavi in front of them and a screaming Aaron cradling her corpse. At the graphic novel's climax, Ato witnesses the Mother Longlegs swarming into his village and slaughtering his people in incredibly gruesome ways.
- Killed Offscreen: Since Jia is the Sole Survivor of her people by the time of Godzilla vs. Kong, it can be assumed that this fate befell him.
- Pistol-Whipping: In issue 4, when Riccio says the wall protecting the Iwi village must come down, Ato pleads against it and gets pistol-whipped across the face by Riccio.
- The Voiceless: Subverted. His father learned English from Marlow, who in turn taught Ato English.
- Young and in Charge: He's like eight-years-old, at max.
Jia
Portrayed By: Kaylee Hottle
Appeared In: Kingdom Kong | Kong & Me | Godzilla vs. Kong | Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire
A young Iwi girl who forms a close bond with Kong, communicating with him via sign language.
- Awesome Anachronistic Apparel: Jia wears modern clothes in combination with her Iwi maiden shawl and a necklace of Leafwing fangs.
- Badass and Child Duo: Kong has taken her in under his personal guard since the rest of her tribe apparently perished amid Skull Island's destruction. Jia is a young girl who trusts and believes in Kong unconditionally, and accompanies him wherever he goes throughout the film, and she's able to secretly and mutually communicate with him via sign language. A well-meaning Nathan thinks Jia can manipulate Kong to Team Kong's agenda once the extent of her bond with the primate is revealed.
- Brainy Brunette: Like the majority of the Iwi, she has dark hair, and what she lacks in a scholary intellect, she makes up for with a tentative awareness and understanding of Kong's feelings and mental state which the rest of Team Kong lacks.
- Brutal Honesty: She's described in the novelization as being "blunt and literal" when she says something.
- Disability Superpower: Being deaf gives her an enhanced sense of touch, being able to feel the vibrations of Godzilla's roar through a ship bulkhead before the ship's hi-tech instruments detect him, and later feeling Kong's weakening heartbeat through the earth when he lies dying after Godzilla has defeated him.
- Dislikes the New Guy: She's at first wary of Nathan and judges him to be a coward, but she warms up to him over the course of the story. And he still has no idea what the sign Dr. Andrews told him means "brave" really means.
- Forever War: Discussed by her in the novelization. She sees the blood feud between Kong's kind and Godzilla as this.
- Freudian Slip: Inverted in the novelization, where she seemingly almost tells Dr. Andrews during a What the Hell, Hero? that the latter isn't her mother but stops herself.
- Girls Love Stuffed Animals: Has a doll of Kong that she made by hand and takes with her everywhere, even to the Hollow Earth.
- Harmful to Minors: Since she was born and grew up on Skull Island, this is a given. She watched the now-desperate man-eating predators and the natural disasters caused by the Perpetual Storm closing in claim all of her loved ones sans Kong, she and her surrogate mother both almost drown together in the Tasman Sea during Godzilla and Kong's first fight, she has a couple life-threatening close calls with Warbats and Hellhawks where they slaughter the adults around her (graphically in the case of the Hellhawks), and she has an aerial view of Godzilla beating her beloved Kong to near-death before she personally confirms from ground zero of the aftermath that Kong is dying.
- Held Gaze: Kong and Jia have a tendency to personally lock eyes with each-other when Kong leans down to look at her. The novelization notes that this is Kong's way of telling her that he, as gigantic as he is, can see her and is glad of her presence.
- Hero of Another Story: Or at least protagonist. While she is a prominent supporting character in Godzilla vs. Kong, the children's book Kong & Me is from her perspective, showing them exploring Skull Island with Kong looking out for her.
- Hiding Behind the Language Barrier: Uses this to call Lind a coward directly to his face.
- Kid with the Leash: Discussed after it's revealed that Kong understands sign language and listens to her. Ilene immediately shoots that idea down, but eventually Jia does end up giving Kong nudges in the right direction.
- Last of Her Kind: It's mentioned that the Iwi tribe has been wiped out prior the events of Godzilla vs. Kong, leaving Jia as the last member of her tribe. Kingdom Kong and the sourcebook for Kong: Skull Island Cinematic Adventure appear to directly contradict this, stating that Jia's kin were evacuated when Skull Island was doomed.
- Like a Daughter to Me: Dr. Andrews is her guardian after the rest of the Iwi were apparently wiped out, and it's implied (particularly in the novelization) that she views Jia as a daughter.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: In the novelization; when the bio-dome, and with it the last piece of Skull Island's ecosystem, is destroyed, Jia cries for the very first time since Andrews met her, and afterwards she rejects Andrews' attempts to comfort her for a few days. She's also tearing up when she senses Kong's heartbeat fading, and when urging him after he's revived to be careful when fighting Mechagodzilla.
- Parental Abandonment: Dr. Andrews mentions that both Jia's parents died when the Perpetual Storm overtook Skull Island, leading to Andrews becoming Jia's guardian and Kong in his own way doing likewise.
- Protectorate: The trailers for Godzilla vs. Kong note that both Dr. Ilene Andrews and Kong himself form a protective bond with Jia, to the extent it's emphasized that she's the only human Kong trusts.
- Speaks Fluent Animal: Played With. She can mutually communicate with Kong via Iwi sign language, including complex communication such as telling Kong that Godzilla is not the enemy and Mechagodzilla is the real enemy.
- Sympathy for the Devil: The novelization of Godzilla vs. Kong reveals that Iwi culture views Godzilla's species as a malevolent Draconic Abomination. But upon learning that Godzilla is the last known individual of his kind — just like Kong — Jia reacts with sadness.
- What the Hell, Hero?: In the novelization, she chews Dr. Andrews out for repeatedly drugging and chaining up Kong, pointing out that it's only justifying Kong's distrust of Monarch instead of making him think he can open up to Andrews' efforts to communicate, and also for acting like she and Monarch know what's best for the King of Primates better than the King himself does.
Annie
"Are all boys as useless as you?"
Voiced By: Mae Whitman
Appears In: Skull Island
A teenaged feral girl who's been stranded on a similarly monster-populated island near Skull Island for ten years, before mercenaries kidnap her from her home, setting off a chain of events that leaves her stranded on Skull Island itself. She has a close bond with Dog.
- The Beastmaster: She's managed to tame and form a profound bond with a giant, dog-like creature that she named Dog, on account of them banding together in their youths for survival after both were orphaned. However, she makes it clear that she can't outright force Dog to do something if he decides he doesn't want to do it or is too scared, in which case she often has to trick him into it via such methods as feigning urgent distress.
- Black-and-White Insanity: Downplayed Trope.
- Family Eye Resemblance: She has the same amber eyes as one of her parents: her mother, Irene.
- Feuding Families: Inverted. Annie's father and Dog's were trying to kill each-other, leading to a Mutual Kill. Amid the fallout, the two opponents' newly-orphaned offspring bonded with each-other and became inseparable.
- Garden Garment: Downplayed Trope. She's a Wild Child who's scavenged clothing mostly consists of garments that were clearly made in the civilized world, except for a semi "mini-cape" she wears around her waist that's made of ferns.
- A Girl and Her X: Though she's quick to point out that he's not a pet, she does have a monster dog; named Dog, as a companion.
- Jungle Princess: Of Annie's Island.
- No Social Skills: Having been without human contact for about a decade she never gained any real social skills.
- Tracking Device: Unbeknownst to her, the handcuffs which the mercenaries slapped on her, and which remain stuck on her wrists despite the chain being broken, have a tracker in them which the mercs are using to track her whereabouts across Skull Island and anticipate her movements during a direct confrontation.
- Wild Child: Annie has been shipwrecked on an island close to Skull Island for more than a decade with nobody but Dog for companionship. Thus, at age 16, she has a tendency to act somewhat immature and socially inept.
Island Girl
"My king."
Voiced By: Fryda Wolff
Appears In: Skull Island
A girl of apparently Spanish origins note who lived on Skull Island with her peoplenote . She developed a close friendship with Kong some time before Annie, Irene's group, and the crew of the Once Upon a Maritime arrived on the island.
- Affectionate Gesture to the Nose: She places her palm against Kong's nose with her dying breaths, acknowledging her close Titan friend as her king.
- Died in Your Arms Tonight: She dies while Kong's holding her in his hand due to the injuries she gained from the Kraken's attack.
- Shout-Out: Seeing as how this isn't the first Significant Green-Eyed Redhead to have a close relationship with Kong this could mean that the Island Girl is a reference to Lua.
- Significant Green-Eyed Redhead: Has bright green eyes and red hair and is major part of Kong's backstory in Skull Island.
Eco-Terrorists
In General
A skilled international paramilitary team of armed mercenary cells, who follow Alan Jonah in the belief that releasing the dormant Titans is the key to restoring the natural order.
- All Your Base Are Belong to Us: They directly attack and take over two of Monarch's Titan-containing outposts so they can loose the Titans inside. The first sign of the eco-terrorists' presence at Outpost 61 is when the security system malfunctions and Dr. Mancini suspects sabotage, before the doors to the main lab explode and the mercs gun down everyone in sight whose last name isn't Russell. The group proceed to Outpost 32 to awaken Ghidorah, gunning down all the staff there, before Emma's treachery is revealed and the eco-terrorists blow Ghidorah loose, causing the base to collapse.
- Bald of Evil: With Alan Jonah the trope is downplayed, as he has a balding spot on his head courtesy of being played by Charles Dance and is one of the most evil human characters in the MonsterVerse. A notable bald woman is among Jonah's Mooks who is seen in the background throughout the film, and the Mook who talks in the scene where Jonah's men hack into Outpost 56's systems is shown in other scenes over the film to have a bald scalp underneath the beret if one looks out for him.
- Bomb-Throwing Anarchists: Overlapping with Western Terrorists. They're ultra-radical eco-terrorists who want to commit acts of mass genocide and destruction in order to alleviate the strain that humanity is putting on the environment; releasing the Titans is their plan to achieve this end.
- Crazy-Prepared: They're almost-constantly step ahead of the heroes, marking them as one of the MonsterVerse's more competent and independently-dangerous human threatsby far. Monarch's G-Team have seen through their Yunnan decoy and caught up with them in Antarctica before they've finished freeing Monster Zero? Jonah fluidly gives his men an order to keep them busy before said troops launch a devastating ambush on the G-Team, clearly showing that the eco-terrorists were prepared for the possibility of Monarch catching onto them.
- Evil Is Not a Toy: They're indiscriminate in which Titans they choose to set loose on the world for their plan, not considering the possibility that some of the Titans' awakened presences will be even more destructive for the world than humanity are (just like the MUTOs were). They even go as far as releasing the Alpha Titans first, when the ORCA which they need to control the Titans can't dominate so much as bargain with or piss off the Alphas. The result of this methodology is that the second Titan the eco-terrorists awaken, Ghidorah, is a hostile Alpha who dominates the other Titans for himself and sets about sterilizing the planet instead of healing it. The ensuing catastrophe still isn't enough to convince Jonah or his soldiers that they should help Godzilla, Mothra and the rest of the cast to stop Ghidorah from killing everyone, as they prefer to hunker down in their bunker against the coming apocalypse for as long as possible.
- Evil Versus Oblivion: Defied by all of them sans Emma Russell. Emma is ready to make a Heel–Face Turn once she realizes King Ghidorah isn't just bringing Gaia's Vengeance but is instead liable to wipe the Earth clean of all life as we know it, and she tries to warn Jonah that they've fucked up by awakening Ghidorah. However, Jonah hates humanity so much that he refuses to lift a finger to try and stop Ghidorah, instead hiding himself and his mercs away whilst the apocalypse is escalating. In the novelization, Jonah goes even further out of his way to stop Emma from trying to hinder Ghidorah's rampage. Ultimately, Jonah and his mercenaries are the only human party in the movie who don't come to Godzilla and Mothra's side against Ghidorah and his Titan army at all, staying out of the conflict.
- The Guards Must Be Crazy: Late in the film, Jonah's men who are guarding the ORCA all conveniently take a break all at once, leaving the device unguarded and allowing Madison to easily snatch it and waltz out the front door with nobody to stop her. Better yet, nobody discovers that the device was stolen until Jonah sees a news broadcast about the monsters ceasing their attacks, which alerts him that Madison stole the device and used it. Downplayed in the novelization, which reveals they do leave someone behind to guard the ORCA, but Madison dispatches said guard when she's caught.
- I Have Your Wife: Subverted. Besides kidnapping Emma Russell to seemingly be the group's Reluctant Mad Scientist, Jonah also kidnaps Madison at the same time. Mark observes in the novelization that the logical assumption for why Jonah took Madison too is to use her as leverage to make Emma comply. In reality, Jonah and his group took Madison because both she and Emma were already in on the eco-terrorists' agenda.
- Karma Houdini: After personally slaughtering dozens of people and causing millions more deaths around the world (nevermind their leader's intention to let King Ghidorah destroy the Earth), all of the eco-terrorists barring the late Emma and Asher escape being killed or arrested amid the chaos. The movie ends with the group still at large when Jonah and several of his mercenaries collect Ghidorah's leftover severed head in The Stinger.
- Knight Templar: All their distinguished members are convinced that massacring members of the pro-Titan but less-misanthropic organization Monarch, and allowing potentially billions of people to become collateral damage when they set over a dozen Titans loose on the world is worth saving the world from mankind's fatal mistakes in how we treat the environment. Asher in the novelization has a conversation with Jonah which indicates he genuinely believes the latter's cause is for the greater good; fallen Monarch operative Emma Russell is the most apologetic over the atrocities the terrorists are committing, and she firmly draws the line when she realizes King Ghidorah will eradicate all humans and will exacerbate instead of repair the ecological destruction; while Alan Jonah, who is less genuine in his end-goals' altruism (and all but admits outright in the novelization that he's doing everything just to satisfy himself), insists that literally any sacrifice is worth permanently eradicating humanity's worst evils from the planet's surface. In the novelization, Jonah religiously describes the eco-terrorists' cause as "the one true church".
- Nature Is Not a Toy: They think they can level the global socio-political playing field by forcibly awakening the Titans and trying to manipulate their actions using the ORCA. It's heavily implied in the King of the Monsters Creative Closing Credits that even if they hadn't fucked up by awakening the hostile alien Ghidorah, their plan to control the Titans instead of letting the Titans sort themselves out would have still spiraled out of control, albeit without the same risk of global multicellular extinction that Ghidorah presented.
- Punch-Clock Villain: The novelization portrays the subordinate mercenaries in such a light. During the Osprey ride to Outpost 32, they're chuckling and talking with each-other like ordinary work buddies, until it's time for them to massacre another Monarch outpost, and then they become all-business; something which greatly disturbs Madison. Asher in the novel makes it clear that while he believes in Jonah's cause and will kill as many people as Jonah tells him to, that doesn't mean he'll enjoy it.
- Renegade Splinter Faction: Zig-Zagged. The Godzilla vs. Kong novelization states that Monarch suspect the Titan poachers in Godzilla: Dominion and the novel's prologue, who tried to capture Na Kika before Godzilla destroyed their oil rig, might have been a rogue splinter group from the eco-terrorists — this theory is one of the many things that Mark Russell is sceptical of in the book. The poachers' interest in exploiting the Titan's biological materials for profit in the novel's prologue is similar to how Godzilla: King of the Monsters stated the eco-terrorists fund their operations by trafficking Titan DNA, but unlike Jonah's group, the poachers are entirely self-serving and have no higher end-goals beyond making themselves a good buck.
- Restart the World: The Misanthrope Supreme form. These Bomb-Throwing Anarchists believe that Humans Are the Real Monsters for all the atrocities humans have committed against each-other in war, and for all the abuse humanity is inflicting on the environment which is currently pushing the world towards the worst mass extinction since the end of the dinosaurs. As a result, the eco-terrorists with the help of a rogue Monarch scientist want to set all the accounted-for Titans loose on the planet in one fell swoop so that the creatures can decimate human civilization and usher in a world where humanity isn't the dominant species. The eco-terrorists' leader Jonah doesn't really care whether that new world is a balanced world where the Titans have renewed the environment, or a dead, charred world under King Ghidorah's rule; so long as humanity has been decimated and so long as the eco-terrorists themselves get to sit out the apocalypse in a Monarch bunker for as long as possible.
- Short-Lived Aerial Escape: Narrowly subverted in Antarctica. After they blow the glacier holding Ghidorah, they get back on their stolen Monarch Osprey and start getting the hell out of dodge with Ghidorah waking up. Thanks to Madison rebelling while everyone else is off-guard and trying to save the heroes' lives with the ORCA, Ghidorah almost shoots the eco-terrorists' Osprey out of the sky, but Emma shuts the device down and Ghidorah turns his attention back to the human heroes while the terrorists escape.
- Swiss-Cheese Security: Their bunker outside of the Boston metro area. The security presence is so poor that Madison is able to snatch the ORCA from the control room, exit the bunker, hike all the way to the control room in Fenway Stadium, and set it running before Jonah and Emma even realize it's gone. In the novelization she is caught by one guard, but shocks him into unconsciousness with a stun gun before he can stop her.
- Taught by Experience: They conquer the first two Monarch outposts via bypassing the security protocols with Emma's aid, massacring every Monarch operative in their way, and setting the Titans loose; but after Monarch catch up to them early at the second outpost and almost neutralize them altogether, the eco-terrorists promptly go for a different approach at target number three. Instead of invading the outpost physically (which is what Monarch are initially expecting them to do), the terrorists remotely hack into its containment systems to loose Rodan, whilst bouncing their signal off of multiple satellites so that Monarch can't trace where they're broadcasting from. Monarch are completely taken by surprise, and the hijacking of the outpost is a complete success.
- Villain Ball: For some odd reason, all of them allow Madison unsupervised free reign of their base. Which leads to Madison being able to steal the ORCA — the device they've been using to awaken the Titans — when they leave it in a insecure room.
- Villains Out Shopping: Downplayed in a deleted scene, where Jonah and his Mooks are watching Madison training in kickboxing the way you'd probably watch a small show in the village square if you lived without TV or wi-fi and didn't have much better to do.
- Western Terrorists: A paramilitary eco-terrorist group whom fund their operations by trafficking in the new Titan DNA black market, and are looking to commit mass terrorism and global genocide in the name of stopping humans' unsustainable over-exploitation of the environment at any cost. Jonah even compares them to a church in the novelization. Despite the organization being international/nationless, the members whom we see are predominantly light-skinned, all the ones who speak during the film are either British or American; and furthermore, the end credits list several of the backgrounded members' names and they're all names of distinctly British origin.
- Would Hurt a Child: Their plan to manipulate the Titans calls for the mass endangerment of billions of people around the world, children included. In the novelization, they garner extra points when Jonah gives an order that Madison Russell is to be executed via throat-slitting if Emma steps out of line, and neither the soldier being given the order nor any of Jonah's other subordinates protest.
Alan Jonah
See his page.
Asher Jonah
Portrayed By: Jonathan Howard
Appeared In: Godzilla: King of the Monsters
Jonah's second-in-command.
- All There in the Manual: Most of what we know about him, including when and how Jonah hired him, comes from the Novelization. His first missions with Jonah were attacking a chemical plant in China, and another assignment involving game hunters in the Congo. The book also confirms he is not related to Jonah, despite him being called "Asher Jonah" in the film credits for some reason.
- Boom, Headshot!: Courtesy of Colonel Foster.
- Evil Brit: Like his boss.
- In-Series Nickname: "Ash" for short.
- Mook Lieutenant: Not quite The Dragon due to getting sniped in his second scene, but he is Jonah's right-hand man and the leader of the other henchmen.
- Morality Pet; Alongside Jonah's deceased daughter, he is one of the only two human beings Jonah had any compassion towards.
- One-Steve Limit: Averted. He has the same last name as his boss. Though as noted they're not related.
- Punch-Clock Villain: In the novelization, he flat out tells Jonah he'll do anything he says, including killing people, but that he still dislikes doing it and he is concerned that it's becoming easier for him to deal with the guilt.
- We Hardly Knew Ye: He's only in two scenes before getting killed, and is, in fact, the only one of Jonah's Mooks who dies in the movie at all. That said, he gets some much-needed backstory and character development in the novelization by Greg Keyes.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: Like his boss, he is hellbent on saving the planet by any means necessary.
- What Measure Is a Mook?: Jonah liked him immensely, and is quite upset by his death in the novelization, surprising Madison who didn't think he cared about anything or anyone beyond his and Emma's twisted version of saving the planet. That said because Jonah is very mission-oriented, Asher quickly becomes a Forgotten Fallen Friend. The novelization, however, flat out states what was left of Jonah's humanity died with Ash.
Apex Cybernetics
In General
- Adaptational Mundanity: Similarly to the eco-terrorists in Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019), Apex Cybernetics seem like an adaptation of the Human Aliens of the old Toho movies as actual humans. Their hi-tech resources, their construction of Mechagodzilla, and their efforts to cage and/or control the Kaiju — breeding and enslaving Skullcrawlers as cannon fodder, and trying to turn Ghidorah's undead remains into a part of their anti-Godzilla superweapon similarly to how earlier incarnations of Ghidorah were the mere puppets of human aliens' invasions, even Bernie Hayes and Ren Serizawa's respective musings in the novelization that Apex might use the remaining Titans as their slaves — all bring the Toho human aliens to mind.
- Ambition Is Evil: Though they justify their atrocities and attempted atrocities with the ideas that they're returning complete control of the world to mankind and are creating a more secure line of defence against Titan attacks, Walter Simmons' overall behavior, and also the gaping holes in their argument such as Madison points out, betray their true colors. Apex want to upstage the Titans' power just to prove that they can, they want to be hailed and glorified by the world as heroes, and it's also implied they want to overpower the Titans before any other organization can beat them to the prize and steal their glory. Apex don't care one whit for the millions of civilians whom they callously and knowingly put in Godzilla's warpath as part of their Engineered Heroics. It's furthermore implied in the novelization, and explicitly confirmed in the art book, that Apex intend to take over the world for themselves after usurping Godzilla.
- Bad People Abuse Animals: A monster variation. They're breeding Skullcrawlers in captivity and then throwing them at Mechagodzilla as target practice. Using captive Titans in such a way as this is something Monarch would never even consider doing.
- Big Bad Wannabe: They wish to be the ones that annihilate Godzilla, Kong, and all other Kaiju to insure humanity becomes the dominant species on Earth, but their own technology backfires as related to Too Dumb to Live, they uplinked King Ghidorah's mind to Mechagodzilla and thus are killed off by their own creation. Maia Simmons and her own army of men on the other hand are swiftly eaten or crushed to death by Kong and Hellhawks.
- Connected All Along: A reveal later in the movie — that they have the skull of Ghidorah's leftover severed head from Godzilla: King of the Monsters, which they're using as part of Mechagodzilla's brain — indicates that Apex probably had offscreen interaction with Alan Jonah and his eco-terrorist paramilitary before the movie began. The novelization elaborates, stating that Walter Simmons purchased Ghidorah's remains from an international criminal who contacted him; one who's all but stated to be Jonah (an ironic interaction, given that Jonah and Apex's respective objectives and their respective worldviews on humans and Titans are very diametric).
- Contrasting Sequel Antagonist: As the chief human antagonists of Godzilla vs. Kong, Apex contrast Alan Jonah's eco-terrorist organization who filled that role in the previous movie. Jonah's group's goals were seeing the Titans reclaim the planet from humanity and restore the human-ravaged natural order, while Apex's goals are killing or enslaving all the Titans in order to prove humanity's technological superiority and make humans "the Apex species" on Earth. Jonah's group were an underground paramilitary terrorist force, whereas Apex are a highly-futuristic corporation who have a legitimate front and a moderate public image which helps shirk off suspicion.
- Corporate Conspiracy: Bernie describes Apex's mysterious Mechagodzilla project as this, and it's rather accurate. They're secretly building Mechagodzilla with Offscreen Villain Dark Matter so they can be the architects of human domination over all the Titans, and when their work provokes Godzilla into a rampage, Apex take advantage of the ensuing public bewilderment to make it seem like Godzilla has turned on mankind and Mechagodzilla is necessary to fight back against the Titans.
- Cut Lex Luthor a Check: They're looking to build a Humongous Mecha which can enable its human controllers to successfully fight on the same level as the Titans, and instead of selling it to Monarch or even the military for the trillions of dollars that such parties would be willing to pay for such a thing, Apex plan to use their creation in a gigantic and horrifically amoral Engineered Heroics scenario in order to kill Godzilla themselves and then rule the world, because the company is run by a delusional Corrupt Corporate Executive with a desire to usurp Godzilla as the apex lifeform.
- Devil in Plain Sight: When Godzilla attacks Pensacola, he only focuses his destruction on Apex Cybernetics' local facility (something which a national TV report observes), and he causes very few deaths for a Titan of his power before departing. And yet no-one in the world except for Team Godzilla thinks they should actually be subjecting Apex to scrutiny and work out why Godzilla targeted their factory, when the much wilder and less rational assumption that Godzilla has turned evil for no reason is on the table (bear in mind that previous movies made it clear that this Godzilla always has a reason for attacking). Worse yet, the fact it's obvious to anyone with half a brain cell that Godzilla had something against Apex's factory specifically doesn't stop Monarch from partnering up with Apex to try and take Godzilla down, by following a plan that Apex themselves set forth. In the novelization, one of Bernie's podcasts reveals that Apex have a consistent pattern of building their facilities in places already occupied by Monarch with a military presence, and yet no-one finds it suspicious that the corporation would need to do this. Really, humanity has no-one but themselves to blame for how much death and destruction in this movie could have been avoided but wasn't.
- Didn't Think This Through: They're incredibly arrogant, and inconsiderate of their own limitations if not outright blind to them; but according to Jared Krichevsky
, Apex's Mecha is likely vulnerable to an EMP. Remember back in Godzilla (2014), when Hokmuto and Femuto's EMPs made military equipment including fighter jets spectacularly fizz out and fall like flies instantaneously? Now remember that one of the Titans Apex want to annihilate or enslave is Barb, a MUTO, plus there's a significant probability that there'll be even more bio-electrical Titans emerging in the future which Mechagodzilla could get pitted against. Yeah. Apex are as good at making snazzy tech as they are at humiliating themselves. - Double Meaning: The company's name superficially refers to their knack for developing state-of-the-art cybernetics and leading groundbreaking technological advances, but the hidden second meaning is that it also refers to the company leaders' intentions to make humanity the sole unchallenged apex species of the Earth by using cybernetics to conquer the Titans (Alpha Titans in particular) and then rule the world themselves. See Walter Simmons' entry here for another example.
- Dystopia Justifies the Means: It's implied in the movie that Apex, led by a Not-So-Well-Intentioned Extremist who has a sociopathic and narcissistic pathology, want to create a world where they have corporate hegemony and they've been hailed as heroes for supposedly ending a city-destroying disaster that they, in actuality, deliberately engineered for this very purpose; where Godzilla has been murdered and the world celebrated; and where all the Titans are either extinct or in chains and where humans consider themselves the master lifeform on Earth (note: even without the first two, this last part isn't nearly as good or benevolent a thing in the MonsterVerse as it might be in most other Kaiju settings). The art book Godzilla vs. Kong: One Will Fall — The Art of the Ultimate Battle Royale explicitly confirms it and provides this quote:"Apex's goal in building Mechagodzilla is ostensibly to fight fire with fire, shutting down threats by using the only thing that can go toe to toe with a Titan. In the long term, however, Apex and its CEO Walter Simmons are looking to establish a new era of corporate dominance. 'Mechagodzilla would basically be the largest policeman ever created,' says writer Zach Shields. 'This giant apex predator would be under Apex control, so by proxy it would be either the world's policeman, or a bully.'"
- Engineered Heroics: In the wake of Godzilla's unexplained hostility, Apex claim to the world that they're going to put a permanent stop to him. It's ultimately revealed that Apex are directly and knowingly responsible for provoking Godzilla's attacks in the first place, because Godzilla can sense the part-Ghidorah Mecha they're building as a rival to his dominance whenever its signal activates, and Apex are taking advantage of Godzilla's reactions to turn a confused human race against him and to justify Mechagodzilla's construction as an anti-Godzilla weapon – basically, Apex are making it look like the chicken (an aggressor Godzilla) came before the egg (Mechagodzilla) when it's actually the other way round. What's worse, it's implied in the movie (and all but confirmed in the novelization) that Apex are intentionally ensuring Mechagodzilla's signal draws Godzilla to densely-populated urban areas including Hong Kongnote so as to maximize the carnage and further make Godzilla look bad. The novelization also confirms that Apex genuinely didn't know until after Godzilla's first attack that the Mecha's signal was going to provoke Godzilla, but Simmons was nevertheless all too happy to exploit it.
- Evil Counterpart: To Monarch. They're both organizations with futuristic hi-tech, bases and outposts on multiple continents, and an active interest in the Titans and the Hollow Earth. But whereas Monarch are mostly naturalists, are highly reverent of the Titans, care about human lives, and attempt to preserve the peace between man and Titan; Apex are modernist human hubris personified, they're solely committed to overpowering the Titans in the name of "humanity", they don't give a damn how many civilians have to die in the crossfire for their Engineered Heroics, and they actively go looking to start a fight against Godzilla unprovoked. This is somewhat lampshaded as an In-Universe case in supplementary MonsterVerse materials; which state that Apex have been shadowing Monarch everywhere that the latter organization had a presence for years, and the sourcebook for Kong: Skull Island Cinematic Adventure makes Monarch and Apex out to be sister organizations ever since the events of Godzilla (2014).
- Evil, Inc.: Type 2. They're a hi-tech corporation invested in the fields of robotics, neurology and A.I., with facilities on U.S. and Chinese soil, and they're the vessel of a Corporate Conspiracy to build a Titan-killing Mecha (callously and knowingly putting millions of civilians in Godzilla's crossfire in the process) so the company can kill Godzilla and usurp him as the dominant force on Earth. Worse yet, they have the astonishing arrogance and stupidity to think they can use a human-hating Draconic Abomination's undead remains as the brain of their Mecha and just expect it to do what they say without any unexpected side-effects. When Apex's own actions instigate Godzilla's rampage, true to corporate form, Walter Simmons who's masterminding their Evil Plan takes advantage of it to make the public think Godzilla has made a Face–Heel Turn and that Apex will be humanity's savior instead of the ones entirely responsible for the mess in the first place.
- Evil Is Not a Toy: They used King Ghidorah's remains in Mechagodzilla, thinking they could use him as a telepathic controller for the robot. Turns out, Ghidorah's consciousness still exists in his remaining bone and nerve tissue, and the moment Mechagodzilla is powered up with an eldritch power source, whatever's left of Ghidorah's consciousness possesses it and turns on Apex. It's also hinted that whatever remained of Ghidorah's mind/s might've been active the entire time before the Hollow Earth energy source enabled it to turn Mechagodzilla into Ghidorah reincarnated; with the Ghidorah skull's Ghostly Wail when it's found by Team Godzilla in the movie, and with how Mechagodzilla or its parts are twice shown signaling Godzilla when Apex aren't doing anything and the parts are supposed to be inactive (implying that what remained of Ghidorah was deliberately signaling Godzilla to try and resume their clash for dominance).
- Evil Reactionary: Zig-Zagged. They're aggravated that humanity officially can't call themselves the top species on Earth anymore after the Titans' existence is revealed, and they want to re-establish humanity as the supreme force on Earth by killing and usurping the King of the Monsters, not giving a damn about how beneficial Godzilla's reign has been due to him making the other Titans rejuvenate the ecosphere and leave human population centers alone. That having been said, Walter Simmons does love waxing lyrical about going "forward" and about how overpowering the Titans is the next stage in mankind's development, with the novelization revealing Ren Serizawa shares these particular thoughts.
- False Flag Operation: It's revealed that they're secretly conducting one of these. After Godzilla attacks Pensacola seemingly unprovoked and destroys an Apex facility, Simmons takes advantage of the resulting shift in public opinion to declare Godzilla is a threat to humanity rather than a guardian, and that Apex are going to take him down for good. In actuality, Apex are the ones who provoked Godzilla to attack in the first place, and now they're planning to deliberately repeat the incident on a much larger scale by covertly luring an aggravated Godzilla to Hong Kong (putting eight million people in the line of fire), where they intend to fight and kill him using Mechagodzilla. By making it appear to the world that Godzilla has suddenly decided to terrorize humanity, Apex will be able to justify Mechagodzilla's creation and their plan to topple the Alpha Titans (which they started mainly out of obscene ambition married to a sense of pride based on a monstrously-warped take on humanism) as a necessity, with no-one realizing they were actually the ones behind Godzilla's new aggression.
- Feeling Oppressed by Their Existence: Simmons and Ren's Muggle Power ultimately comes down to this. For all their delusions that Mechagodzilla is necessary for mankind's survival among the Titans, ultimately they just can't accept the idea that humanity isn't the sole dominant species on Earth; not because of casualties or survival, but because of pride. Unlike the eco-terrorists in Godzilla: King of the Monsters, who were provoked to action partly because of the government's folly, Apex's justifications are ultimately hollow: Titans like Godzilla and Kong are already fulfilling the defensive role that Mechagodzilla was built for, and the world would still be in a better place with humans and Titans at peace if Apex had never acted, but Apex just couldn't leave well enough alone.
- Final Solution: The pre-release early plot summary for the movie indicates Apex wholly intended to exterminate the other Titans around the world after killing Godzilla, like what The Government wanted to do in Godzilla: King of the Monsters (in which case, Apex have had an even bigger Ignored Epiphany response to the human-Titan coexistence in King of the Monsters). In the movie proper, it's unclear what Apex's plans for the other Titans were beyond using the perceived need for a better defence against the creatures as justification for building Mechagodzilla, although Simmons' remark that "there can only be one Alpha" heavily implies he intends to murder Kong after Godzilla just for being an Alpha. In the novelization; Bernie speculated in one of his earlier podcasts that Simmons wanted to control the Titans if possible and summarily wipe them out if he couldn't do that, and Ren himself is unsure whether the Titans will be eradicated outright or "repurposed for human ends" in enslavement.
- Futuristic Pyramid: The above-ground part of their main headquarters in Hong Kong looks like someone took the trope page's image, slightly recolored it and slapped it atop a mountain. Symbolically, this resemblance to an Ancient Egyptian sculpture is quite fitting for a Nebulous Evil Organization whom are characterized by and criticized for the same kind of arrogance that Percy Shelley's Ozymandias criticized the titular, long-gone Ancient Egyptian pharaoh for.
- Greater-Scope Villain: The novelization reveals they provided the military with parts that were used in the Oxygen Destroyer prototype's construction before it was launched in Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019), making Apex partly responsible for enabling Ghidorah's global takeover of the Titans which caused untold death and destruction on a global scale and almost led to the eradication of all complex life on Earth.
- The Horseshoe Effect: Their Muggle Power agenda to see humanity returned to the top of the food chain and all the Titans enslaved or killed makes them diametrically opposite to Alan Jonah and his Eco-Terrorists from King of the Monsters, but they do have a couple things in common: their actions risk causing the end of the world, and they don't care how many people have to die to get what they want.
- Karma Houdini Warranty: An In-Universe case in the Godzilla vs. Kong novelization. The novel reveals they were not only responsible for helping the military build the Oxygen Destroyer which ultimately enabled Ghidorah's Near-Villain Victory, but they likely had Sara Hayes murdered in a traffic accident to cover it up, yet Simmons' money and influence has ensured the company didn't face any form of justice. Roll around to the story's present day and Simmons, Ren, and likely a lot of the other bastards who were in on Apex's immoral conspiracy are killed by the monster they've brought to life; and although the company's fate after Mechagodzilla's death isn't revealed, it's more than likely they'll be put out of business for good once their conspiracy and crimes against humanity are exposed.
- Labcoat of Science and Medicine: During the attack on Apex's Pensacola factory, Bernie spots and follows several scientists in white labcoats whom are running to "Level 2" instead of the designated Titan shelters which the menial staff are headed to. Notably, whilst the scientists disappear afterward, the secret door they go through ultimately leads Bernie to the room where Mechagodzilla's optic is being stored, implying that these scientists were involved in Simmons and Ren's secret Mechagodzilla project.
- Lethally Stupid: They're so blinded by hubris, they legitimately thought that they'd have no problem using King Ghidorah's remains to control MechaGodzilla. As a result, instead of getting a Mecha that only causes as much damage and death as Apex want for their Engineered Heroics and their plan to upstage the Titans, Apex get a Mecha that threatens all of humanity and potentially all life on Earth like its past life did. The novelization furthermore reveals that Apex's experiments causing Godzilla's first attack on their Pensacola facility, which claims several lives and causes localized property damage, was a genuine accident on their part before they caught on and deliberately repeated the results.
- Let No Crisis Go to Waste: The novelization reveals that Apex indirectly helped the military try to kill the Titans by helping them build the Oxygen Destroyer before the events of Godzilla: King of the Monsters, which Bernie regards as Apex capitalizing on the threat the Titans posed. The novel also reveals that Mechagodzilla's signal instigating Godzilla to attack Apex's Pensacola facility was a genuine accident on Apex's part, but afterwards, with the whole world misinterpreting Godzilla's attack and believing he's gone bad; Apex are all too happy to intentionally repeat the results in a more densely-populated city, so that Godzilla's name will be smeared even further before they set Mechagodzilla on him.
- Look on My Works, Ye Mighty, and Despair: Apex Cybernetics are pretty much human hubris personified. They believe they'll be able to make humanity the apex species of the planet and retake it from the Titans by creating their own Titan in Mechagodzilla, and their genuinely-groundbreaking technological advancements have inspired such overconfidence that they wholly believe they can safely control eldritch Black Boxes which they incorporate into their tech after gaining a surface understanding of them. In practice, Apex can barely get their creation running without relying on the aforementioned Black Boxes as shortcuts, and once they do, mixing a truly eldritch power source with an undead Draconic Abomination leads to the latter taking over the machine immediately and destroying Apex.
- Macross Missile Massacre: Their HEAVs mount pretty sizable racks of missiles that can damage Hollow Earth monsters as large as Warbats.
- Make It Look Like an Accident: They're not known to abuse their employees or innocent civilians directly (keyword) in the movie, but in the novelization, it's believed by Bernie that they arranged the car collision which killed his wife Sara, an Apex employee, because she stumbled on their secret contract to supply the military with a component for the Oxygen Destroyer before the events of King of the Monsters.
- Manipulative Bastard: Their plan relies on manipulating Dr. Lind into leading them to the Hollow Earth energy source, and taking advantage of Godzilla's Pensacola attack to paint Godzilla as a menace. The former is necessary to activate Mechagodzilla, and the latter is necessary to justify Mechagodzilla's creation and Apex's Muggle Power plans to the world. Apex actually succeed in both these goals at first, and are only undone by their own stupidity and arrogance in thinking that being "monkey see, monkey do" with materials straight out of a Cosmic Horror Story wasn't liable to backfire.
- Meaningful Name: A tech company that prides itself on leading technological advancement called Apex Cybernetics. Their name has two other, more sinister meanings underneath, analogous to the sinister Corporate Conspiracy they're hiding beneath their benevolent image: "Apex Cybernetics" also refers to the conspiracy's intent to make humanity the supreme species of the planet using their technological prowess, and it refers to their intention to create the new "apex" predator in the form of Godzilla's cybernetic successor. Considering what Walter Simmons is like, and the implications that Apex specifically want it to be themselves before anyone else who overpowers the Titans as the greatest force on Earth, the "Apex" in their name can also be read as the company's leaders wanting to become more powerful than any government or nation on the planet by eclipsing the Titans.
- The Mole: The novelization at one point mentions that Apex have several moles in Monarch.
- Muggle Power: Apex's Corporate Conspiracy is spearheaded by people who feel humanity should be prioritizing becoming the most unchallenged species on Earth over coexisting peacefully with the Titans, after the creatures' emergences (particularly King Ghidorah's reign of terror and the aftermath) knocked our view of ourselves as the supreme species down a peg. Apex want Option 1, mixed with at least some of Option 2 if not the full package: their Evil Plan is to first build an anti-Titan Mecha in Godzilla's image equipped with enough firepower to challenge and kill Titans on its own, then use it to kill Godzilla and replace him. Simmons' "there can only be one" remark heavily implies Apex would've afterwards gone on to murder Kong just for being an Alpha Titan using their Mecha.
- Murder by Inaction: They deliberately engineer the deaths of thousands in population centers via Godzilla's rampage, and plot to provoke him into killing millions more in Hong Kong before letting Mechagodzilla loose on him so Apex will be viewed as "saviors", all without a second thought.
- Nebulous Evil Organisation: Bernie Hayes' frantic broadcasts prominently paint Apex as this, and it turns out he's quite right. Under CEO Walter Simmons' design, Apex are secretly building Mechagodzilla using Ghidorah's undead remains; aiming to kill and usurp Godzilla as the most powerful force on Earth out of humanism-based pride and ambition (despite how beneficial his presence has been to the world and despite him saving humanity from certain extinction), and having no moral objections to putting millions of people around the world in harm's way for the sake of their Engineered Heroics. Ironically, the novelization reveals that Simmons is a huge fan of Hayes' podcasts, one of the reasons he spares Team Godzilla after they infiltrate the Hong Kong facility.
- Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Minor case in the novelization. The novel reveals that activating Mechagodzilla for the test run in Hong Kong diverted Godzilla from investigating the Vile Vortex in Antarctica which Kong had just gone through. Had it not been for this, Godzilla would've likely pursued Kong's trail through the Antarctica Vile Vortex, trashing the Monarch outpost surrounding the Vortex on the way and thus causing more casualties and property damage.
- Not-So-Well-Intentioned Extremist: The Godzilla vs. Kong art book One Will Fall – The Art of the Ultimate Battle Royale explicitly confirms the movie's implications that Apex's claims to be ensuring humanity's advancement and protecting us from future Titan attacks are nothing more than a thin excuse for their true motivations: to Take Over the World after they've overpowered the Alpha Titans.
- Offscreen Villain Dark Matter: They have the resources to build a trans-Pacific underground tunnel system with futuristic car-pods linking their facilities on different continents, anti-gravity vehicles, and a 466-foot-tall Humongous Mecha that's armed to the teeth with missiles, rocket launchers, plasma punches, and an all-destroying laser beam, in complete secrecy. It’s explained in the novelization that, along with being a successful tech-company, more than half their income comes from the military-industrial complex.
- Powerful, but Incompetent: Comparative to the guerrilla eco-terrorists from Godzilla: King of the Monsters. Apex have far more resources as a leading hi-tech corporation 20 Minutes into the Future, as well as a decent public image; yet unlike the eco-terrorists, whom were able to think on their feet against Monarch, deployed contingencies when Monarch came close to catching onto them, and technically achieved the best of their end-goals in a roundabout way; Apex place all their eggs in one basket, they have no in-case-of-emergency backups (at least not any that come into effect), and they're defeated entirely by their own hubris (without the heroes needing to do anything) when their arrogance leads them to unwittingly unleash the mirror opposite of what their agenda was all about upon Hong Kong.
- Pride: They have a particularly bad case of this even by the standards of their setting, which is made all the more prominent by the fact these guys surface as a threat after the events of King of the Monsters (which were overall a lesson in humility for most of the human race). Apex's technological prowess and incredible advancements have made them hubristically cocky; believing they're going to be the ones to overthrow Godzilla and outpower all the Titans on Earth by building Mechagodzilla in the Titan Top God's image, and assuming that everything will go according to plan even when they use Ghidorah's still-telepathically-active alien skull as the core of Mechagodzilla's brain and the Hollow Earth's element as a power source, without properly understanding how either one works. Combining these three things results in Ghidorah essentially becoming reborn within Mechagodzilla and slaughtering Apex using their own weapon, destroying their Muggle Power plan.
- Private Military Contractors: According to the Kong: Skull Island Cinematic Adventure sourcebook, Apex hire contractors and mercenaries among their staff stationed on Skull Island.
- Propaganda Machine: Unlike in the film, the novelization version of the commercial playing in their Pensacola headquarters has a bit more emphasis on painting the Titans as a threat needing to be conquered.
- Purple Is Powerful: Their Hong Kong headquarters where Mechagodzilla is hidden has red and blue lighting which creates an overall faux purple hue. Meanwhile, Simmons' control room and the room where Ghidorah's decapitated skull is stored and acting as the Mecha's neural system are respectively lit by purple light, emphasizing how Simmons thinks he's the one on top of everything and how Ghidorah's lingering consciousness is on top in actuality. Make no mistake, Apex might be in possession of a lot of power, but they're staggeringly incompetent and irresponsible with it.
- Remember the New Guy?: The Godzilla vs. Kong novelization and the Kong: Skull Island Cinematic Adventure guidebook both state that Apex have had a history with Monarch for years, the latter work in particular making Apex and Monarch out to be sister organizations since the masquerade-ending events of 2014: Apex have handled Titan-related infrastructure and technology whereas Monarch have handled defence, Apex have done contract work for Monarch (which is implied to have contributed to Monarch's radical advancement and new resources in-between Godzilla (2014) and Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019)), and Apex have shadowed Monarch everywhere the latter organization built an outpost or ventured inbetween 2014 and 2024. Despite all the above, there is absolutely no reference to Apex existing in Godzilla: King of the Monsters nor its associated spin-offs (not even during the global Titan crisis with King Ghidorah), nor are Apex referenced in either of the Godzilla vs. Kong prequel graphic novels. The closest we got to a direct Apex reference in the pre-Godzilla vs. Kong MonsterVerse was early mentions of Ren Serizawa by name and relation only, in the Godzilla: King of the Monsters supplementary materials.
- Research, Inc.: They're highly successful in technology and neurology. They've developed maglev (magnetic levitationnote ) train technology for transporting their supplies across continents, the gravity inversion-surviving HEAVs, and Mechagodzilla plus the psionic uplink technology which pilots it (with a major organic Black Box).
- Screw the Rules, I Have Connections!: The novelization mentions that the military provide over half of Apex's funding and that the company avoided any legal punishment for their shared part in the Oxygen Destroyer's Epic Fail due to a combination of the government's desire to cover up their own blunder and Simmons' wide influence.
- Screw the Rules, I Have Money!: This and Screw the Rules, I Have Connections! above are mentioned in the novelization as the reasons why they weren't brought to justice years before the events of Godzilla vs. Kong.
- Self-Disposing Villain: Apex are defeated by their own hubris, with the heroes not needing to do anything to stop Apex specifically from winning. Apex's plan was doomed from the moment they incorporated Ghidorah's skull as the core of Mechagodzilla's brain, which results in Ghidorah's subconsciousness taking over the Mecha and destroying Apex as soon as the Hollow Earth's energy source is added to the mix as a necessary fuel source. Essentially, Apex sabotaged themselves before the movie even started.
- Start X to Stop X: How do they prove that they're out to defend humanity against Titan attacks and minimize the collateral? Why, by actively looking to start a fight with Godzilla (the one Titan besides Mothra who's interested in preserving the world at large as humanity knows it), disrupting five years of entirely-beneficial peace between man and Titan, and going out of their way to knowingly put millions of civilians unnecessarily in the crossfire as part of their False Flag Operation. Madison straight-up calls Simmons out on this.
- Swiss-Cheese Security: They have terrible security, with Team Godzilla having little trouble sneaking through their facilities. Of course, given their supreme hubris, this is completely in-character.
- Taught by Experience: Implied in the official novelization. It's heavily implied there that before Mechagodzilla was built, Apex first attempted to realize their ambitions to dominate the Titans by contributing to the Oxygen Destroyer's creation (and we all know how well that turned out). It appears the hard proof that only Titans can kill other Titans is the one lesson from the events of Godzilla: King of the Monsters that Apex really internalized, leading them to attempt achieving their goals by creating their own artificial Titan instead.
- Theory Tunnel Vision: They carry the ideals that Godzilla is the main threat to the world, that mankind both can and needs to subjugate or destroy all Titans for the sake of our survival, and that our civilization's technological achievements make us the true apex of evolution; past the events of not just Godzilla (2014) but also Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019), events which all but disproved all three of those views. It's implied that rather than admit nature is NOT within man's control after all and that Godzilla really is our civilization's best shot at survival, Apex have simply rationalized the events of 2019 as proof that humanity's safety is in even deeper shit than was initially thought.
- Too Dumb to Live: One of the biggest cases in the entire MonsterVerse.
- Their idea of achieving their goals to reclaim the Earth from Titans and become glorified for it? It's to build an Ultimate Destroyer on par with the two toughest known living Titans on Earth, and use the undead skull of Ghidorah – an extraterrestrial Draconic Abomination whose Bizarre Alien Biology demonstrably violates the known laws of science even by the Titans' standards and a known Omnicidal Maniac who actively wants Titans to wipe the Earth clean of life – as the core component of the machine's brain! Because that couldn't possibly go wrong or have unforeseen consequences in any way, right? It's not like the Ghostly Wail of Ghidorah's roar that the wired-up skull is producing even before the Hollow Earth energy is synthesized is a possible red flag, is it? The trope name doesn't begin to cover it.
- During Godzilla's Pensacola attack, two Apex guards who catch Bernie running up a restricted corridor immediately stop him to demand he show them his clearance credentials (this when Bernie was just about to go back the way he came). Bernie promptly lampshades the trope by calling the guards out on how they're putting that at the top of their immediate priorities while Godzilla himself is rampaging in the area — the guards don't take Bernie's point, and guess whose Breath Weapon turns the guards into collateral damage five. Seconds. Later.
- Tunnel Network: Apex's facilities are secretly linked up by trans-continental underground tunnels, which they use to clandestinely transport cargo on magnetic levitation trains, including Mechagodzilla's giant optic and the eggs of Skullcrawlers which Apex are illegally breeding. This network links Apex's Pensacola factory to their Hong Kong HQ, and it apparently also links up with other Apex facilities in other places like Roswell.
- Ungrateful Bastard: They don't give a damn that Godzilla is the chief reason why they along with the rest of humanity haven't already been wiped out by the MUTOs or especially by King Ghidorah, nor do they care that Godzilla will continue defending humanity as long as they're a part of the world's natural order. To them, Godzilla is nothing but a Boss Battle to be surpassed in order to prove Apex's human superiority.
- Unwitting Pawn: It's ambiguous to what degree, but at best they gave Ghidorah's dead spirit a happy accident when mixing the hydra's skull with the Hollow Earth energy caused a Soul Fragment to slip into Mechagodzilla; or at worst, Ghidorah was active, psychically corrupting an oblivious Ren, and waiting to receive its new body the entire time, while Apex blatantly ignored the red flags signifying the hydra's lingering sentience. In any case, Apex thought they were building a superweapon with which they could conquer the world in the name of making humanity "the apex species", when in reality they were unwittingly bringing back the most murderous and anti-human Titan of them all from the moment they decided that using Ghidorah's skull as an organic supercomputer was a good idea.
- Van Helsing Hate Crimes: Early plot summaries for Godzilla vs. Kong indicate Apex's actions would've escalated into a straight-up indiscriminate genocide of every last Titan on Earth if he hadn't lost control of Mechagodzilla, and if Apex had succeeded in killing and replacing Godzilla. Simmons' comment that there can be only one Alpha when confronted by Madison on his crimes implies he also intended to murder Kong, along with any other Alpha Titans that he found, so that Mechagodzilla would be unchallenged after killing Godzilla. In the novelization, Bernie speculates that Simmons plans to exterminate any Titans his creation can't control, and enslave the rest.
- Viler New Villain: Compared to the eco-terrorists from Godzilla: King of the Monsters, Apex are also entirely willing to put millions of innocent people in mortal peril order to further their own ends, and they're also led by a dangerous and ultimately self-centered Not-So-Well-Intentioned Extremist. However, the eco-terrorists at least had a legitimate provocation with their pointers that the idiotic and/or misguided government and military were about to try exterminating the Titans (which would have likely spelled more trouble than it's worth for humanity in the bigger picture), and Monarch wasn't doing enough to stop that from happening; and the eco-terrorists are presented as having a point in the end about the benefits of Titans returning to the world. Apex on the other hand have taken virtually nothing away from the events of Godzilla: King of the Monsters (which proved that humans can coexist with Titans if they learn to respect nature more), starting an unprovoked and costly war with Godzilla for entirely impractical and petty ambition, and the film doesn't present them as having any legitimate points in their defensive arguments: they're just a chauvinist Evil Reactionary organization driven by petty, pointless, overbloated pride, and the world would still be in a better place if they'd never acted.
- Villainous Underdog: The enemy who they want to usurp is Godzilla. Without Mechagodzilla, Apex are just an Evil, Inc. of hubris-filled god-wannabes led by a Too Dumb to Live egotist.
- Villain with Good Publicity: Downplayed. On the surface, they're a legitimate company who are respectable enough to avoid suspicion from Monarch and the world, and they're successful in several fields. That being said, the novelization reveals they have a shady history and are regarded with misgivings by many people in Monarch due to the two organizations' past shared involvement part in creating the Oxygen Destroyer, which led to Ghidorah's apocalyptic Titan-rampage.
- We Have Become Complacent: Discussed in the novelization. Bernie thinks most of Apex's run-of-the-mill engineering staff are little more than unquestioning worker-bees who don't ask questions. While he might have a point, this guy also believes the government are covering up the existence of Santa's elves at the North Pole, so...
- What Happened to the Mouse?: The movie doesn't reveal what happens to Apex after Mechagodzilla's destruction, but it's likely that they'll be facing many lawsuits and a public investigation over their activities which could result in them being shut down once the extent of their crimes is exposed. With Walter Simmons and his associates dead and exposed, their names and legacy are now permanently disgraced.
- Wrong Genre Savvy: They seem to think they're in a Pacific Rim-style kaiju movie where the giant monsters are evil invaders stealing the world from humanity, and humanity must build human-piloted Humongous Mechas as a deterrent, with Apex viewing themselves as the resident Creature-Hunter Organization. However, Apex are completely ignorant of the events of previous movies (particularly Godzilla: King of the Monsters) which have proven that Godzilla is more or less on humanity's side and that the Titans can peacefully and beneficially coexist with humans; and Serizawa's speech about how "the arrogance of man is thinking nature is in our control and not the other way around" (and the evidence in the previous movies' events to back that up whenever the military presence tried neutralizing the Titans on their terms) is an aesop which flies completely over Apex's heads. Apex believe that possession of a Black Box more or less equates to complete mastery of it, unaware that they're actually just a bunch of high-caliber hubrists who are destined to shoot themselves in the foot. They also seem to be clueless about how in the previous MonsterVerse movies, the Titan Big Bads' awakenings were all caused by humans (a mining company, Packard and the eco-terrorists) not letting sleeping dogs lie, and Apex are now repeating the pattern. Though Apex view themselves as heroes saving the world, it cannot be overstated how transparently despicable their actions are to anyone who isn't deluded to hell and back: completely disregarding the millions of civilians they put in the crossfire unnecessarily, firing the first shot against Godzilla in the middle of a beneficial peace between him and mankind, and lying to the world about their criminal role in Godzilla's rampage for the sake of turning their campaign to murder Godzilla into a giant False Flag Operation.
Walter Simmons
See his page.
Maia Simmons
Portrayed By: Eiza González
Appeared In: Godzilla vs. Kong
An Apex Cybernetics executive who joins Team Kong's efforts to enter the Hollow Earth.
- The Beautiful Elite: Like father, like daughter, although in her case it's a bit downplayed by her attitude. She's the heiress of a corporation worth billions, she's played by the stunningly-beautiful Eiza González, and she wears a couple trendy articles of clothing over the movie. Unlike her father, Maia is a haughty Rich Bitch who has the bare minimum in sophistication even before things start going to pot.
- Brainy Brunette: Very much averted. She has dark hair like most of Team Kong's actual smart people, yet despite Maia's ability to spout out every technical detail about Apex's HEAVs, she proves to be very harebrained when in a crisis: jumping on the idea to dump Kong into the ocean in order to end Godzilla's attack even though this would also irreparably derail their mission, and causing her own death by having her HEAV's pilot shoot at Kong in a pathetic attempt to avoid certain death.
- Daddy's Little Villain: She's the daughter of Walter Simmons, and she's in on her father's Evil Plan.
- Dehumanization: She doesn't have much respect or high regard or any fondness for Kong, preferring to derisively call him "the monkey".
- Dirty Coward: Downplayed. At the first sign of Titan-sized mortal danger, she panics to the point self-destructive stupidity, losing almost all practical forward-thinking cognitive function. During Godzilla's first attack, the moment Maia realizes that he's after Kong, she demands they dump Kong into the sea and let Godzilla have him – not only does this piss off Dr. Andrews, but Maia forgets amid her panic that without Kong to lead her to the Green Rocks' main outlet, her entire mission will be completely ruined there and then if they lose Kong. When Kong turns on Maia and the flesh-eating Hellhawks descend, Maia at least has enough nerve and loyalty to wait until the data transfer of the Green Rocks is complete before she turns tail; after that, she sprints straight for the nearest HEAV and is reduced to frantically screaming at the pilot to get her out of danger now, and her harebrained order that her HEAV shoot at Kong instead of simply flying around him to the escape route gets her embarrassingly killed.
- Evil Wears Black: Downplayed. Before donning the black-and-gold HEAV jumpsuit, she's always wearing a plain black top, often underneath a coat or jacket. She's also one of the bad guys, like her similarly black-clad father.
- Freudian Excuse: Implied. She was raised from birth by a corporate tycoon to think like him and does most of what she does to earn her father's approval. Considering said father is also a complete sociopath, it's not a surprise in hindsight that she ended up the way she did.
- Humble Pie: Subverted. After Godzilla's attack on the fleet impresses on her what kind of situation she's in (during which she went into a harebrained panic and suggested dumping Kong into the ocean), Maia appears to tone down her stuck-up attitude a little. Later, the moment Maia gets what she needs to complete her mission, she doesn't hesitate to betray Team Kong; arrogantly asserting that her father will get what he wants and that they can do whatever they want with the Hollow Earth's energy source now, and ultimately she causes her own death through sheer stupidity by establishing herself as a threat to Jia while Kong was standing right there.
- Informed Ability: Despite being described by her actress as "a very smart woman behind a company", it really doesn't come across. She's quick to demand in a panic that Monarch dump Kong into the ocean so Godzilla will stop attacking their fleet, forgetting how that would make it more difficult for her to reach the Hollow Earth's energy source, and then there's her infamous Too Dumb to Live. This might have something to do with the movie's storyline getting recut and changed in post-production, as Word of Saint Paul has it that Maia's role was very different in the original story.
- Jerk With A Heart Of Jerk: At first, she's a condescending and smug Rich Bitch who derides Kong as "the monkey". But she does show concern for Jia's wellbeing a couple of times, demonstrating a potential soft spot for children compared to adults, and her bad attitude seems to gradually mellow over the course of Team Kong's journey. Then she betrays the team in cold blood in the Hollow Earth, not batting an eye as her armed Apex escorts hold all of them (Jia included) at gunpoint, and leaving them all to die without hesitation when panicked.
- Karmic Butt-Monkey: She's not nearly as steely as her father believes her to be, and it shows – of course, since she's also an obnoxious, stuck-up Rich Bitch, to say nothing of her villainous actions, her misfortunes are quite satisfying. After the bridge of the naval carrier is temporarily flooded, the camera focuses on a drenched Maia standing on her own, vomiting seawater. After the HEAVs cross the Vile Vortex's boundary into the Hollow Earth, Maia is the only one onboard Team Kong's HEAV who needs to make use of a barf bag due to the effects of the trippy ride; an occurrence which Nathan predicted precisely before they went in. To say nothing of the embarrassingly comical way that Maia causes her own death.
- Karmic Death: A matter of minutes after she betrays Team Kong and the Big K himself so she can power up Mechagodzilla (abandoning Team Kong to fend for themselves against the Hellhawks), Kong himself foils her escape and kills her. What's more, she treated Kong with Dehumanization throughout the movie, and if she hadn't ordered her HEAV's pilot to shoot at Kong in a senseless panic in an attempt to get him out of their escape route, he probably would've let her go. When Kong peers into her HEAV with one eye in irrefutable intelligence before he crushes it, it's like he's giving her the middle finger for her earlier behavior before she goes up in flames.
- Light Feminine and Dark Feminine: The Dark Feminine to Dr. Andrews' Light Feminine when they're working together on the Hollow Earth expedition. Compared to Andrews, Maia is played by the stunning Eiza González and always wears something that fits nicely around her form throughout her screentime, she's confident (at first), but she's also rude, aloof, and all she cares about is completing the mission her father gave her; betraying the rest of the team once they get in her way.
- Like Father, Like Son: She shares a lot of traits with her father, Walter: they're both arrogant, lack any respect for Titans (at least in her case she has no respect for Kong), and have a sense of self-entitlement. They are also both Too Dumb to Live; while Walter gets himself killed by Mechagodzilla thanks to his own hubris in thinking that he fully understands how to use it, Maia gets herself killed not long before when she threatens Team Kong right in front of Kong and not even bothering to capture Jia in case Kong tries to attack the HEAV she's in, and then, she has her bodyguards shoot at Kong to "get him out of the way", which angered Kong to the point he crushed her and everyone else inside her HEAV in a fiery inferno.
- My Nayme Is: Subtitles and credits spell her name as "Maia," not the slightly-more-common "Maya."
- Oh, Crap!: When Kong grabs her HEAV and looks right in at her (after she's shot at him and threatened Team Kong in front of him no less), Maia has a look on her face that screams, "Oh, fuck". Cue her Undignified Death.
- Pet the Dog: During Godzilla's attack on the fleet, she's the first one to run to Jia's aid when the girl and Dr. Andrews barely escape drowning.
- Rapid-Fire "No!": Her last words during her Undignified Death.
- Replacement Flat Character: She serves as one to Madison Russell. Although the two never meet, like Madison was in Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019), Maia is also the daughter of the human Big Bad Wannabe who is responsible for kicking off the film's Kaiju crisis, and she is secretly in on her parent's Evil Plan. But whereas Madison had the morals and personality traits to have a Heel Realization about her mother's actions and rebel against her, Maia remains unwaveringly loyal to her father's actions.
- Rich Bitch: She waves her father's company's technology in everyone's faces, belittles the rest of Team Kong for being comparatively primitive, and overall does not exude a friend-making attitude. Her attitude seems to mellow as the mission goes on, particularly after Godzilla's attack on the fleet gives her a wake-up call about what kind of situation she's in and how being amidst battling Titans isn't something she's cut out for handling, but she still betrays the team.
- Shooting Superman: Infamously so. In a thoughtless panic, she orders her HEAV's pilot to shoot at King Kong to get the latter out of their way while they're trying to flee.
- The Team Benefactor: She and her father are to Team Kong as Miranda and the Illusive Man are to the Normandy crew respectively: Walter is providing the expedition with the HEAVs necessary to access and even stand a chance at braving the Hollow Earth, but Maia represents Apex on the team whilst Walter doesn't physically join them in any capacity.
- Too Dumb to Live: She tends to lose common sense and give in to plain panic whenever she's in a life-threatening situation, but she has two counts of this trope in short order in the Hollow Earth. Her betraying Team Kong in front of Kong was not a good idea, nor was her ordering her pilot shoot at Kong in a panic to try and get him out of their HEAV's way.
- Undignified Death: Her death is about as funny as it is cathartic. After she pisses Kong off and after she orders her pilot to shoot at him, the retaliating Kong easily grabs her HEAV and glares in at her, causing her to proverbially shit her pants. She spends her last seconds crying out at her impending doom with a panicked Rapid-Fire "No!" before Kong crushes the HEAV in a casual, almost bored-looking manner and it explodes.
- Ungrateful Bitch: She and everyone else on the ship carrying Kong would have drowned when Godzilla capsized it if Kong didn't flip the ship back over. Despite that, she still belittles him, and she even orders her pilot to shoot at him to get him out of her way.
- "Well Done, Daughter!" Girl: Implied in the movie. She's part of the mission to the Hollow Earth on the behalf of her father (whom the movie shows is a manipulative sociopath), and she even betrays and threatens Team Kong so she can complete her mission that will enable Walter to realize his ambitions, summarizing her actions as "My father gets what he wants." In the novelization's expansion, however, Maia implies that she resents her father and is merely waiting until the day she'll inherit his corporate empire.
Ren Serizawa
See his page.
Other Characters
Akio
Portrayed By: Jake Cunanan
Appeared In: Godzilla
A young Japanese boy who's separated from his parents on a monorail in Honolulu just before Godzilla and the male MUTO surface.- Adaptational Dumbass: In the film he's quite keenly aware of his surroundings, whereas in the novelization he doesn't seem to notice that he's been separated from his parents.
- Kid Amid the Chaos: He gets separated from his parents due to a mundane incident with a train's automated doors shutting on him, prompting Ford to watch out for him until they can get him back to his parents. Then Hokmuto shows up, and Ford ends up saving this boy from a potentially grievous death.
- Protectorate: He's one for Ford in the brief time he's in Ford's custody during the kaiju incident.
Bus Driver
Portrayed By: Dee Jay Jackson
Appeared In: Godzilla
A bus driver transporting children across the Golden Gate Bridge amidst the San Francisco evacuations, when Godzilla arrives.- Badass Driver: When Godzilla arrives at the Golden Gate Bridge just after the driver has been told to turn around, he manages to drive his vehicle full of kids through police and military barricades in the middle of an explosive skirmish between Godzilla and the Navy. He gets off the Golden Gate Bridge just before the massive Kaiju barges through it.
- Heroic Bystander: He's clearly just a civilian, yet the moment him and the bus full of kids he's transporting are caught between Godzilla and military gung-ho, he puts the pedal to the metal and gets them all to safety like a champ, despite the many obstacles in his vehicle's path.
Josh Valentine
Portrayed By: Julian Dennison
Appeared In: Godzilla vs. Kong
A young boy who allies with Madison and Bernie in their investigation of what is causing Godzilla's rampage.
- Brainy Brunette: He has dark hair, and although he's a little bit timid and isn't on the same intellectual level as Bernie and Madison, he makes up for these things by possessing people skills which the other two both lack; coming in handy when Madison is trying to track down Bernie. Josh apparently pirates media during his spare time, and although his efforts to perform Hollywood Hacking on Mechagodzilla's satellite uplink are useless, he does resourcefully find a way to cut the knot with seconds to spare before Mechagodzilla would have killed Kong.
- Cowardly Lion: He's definitely the timidest member of Team Godzilla, and if the other two decide to approach something that looks ominous, he will be the one to complain about it and be the last one to step through. But that doesn't stop him sticking by his allies and making himself useful where he can. Notably, Madison gives him the choice to accompany her or back out before she heads off to find Bernie Hayes, and he goes along.
- Cutting the Knot: Josh and Bernie are unable to hack into Mechagodzilla's control board, and Bernie gets ready to chug the flask of whisky he keeps for his darkest hour, giving Josh the idea to just dump the alcohol into the control panel to short-circuit it.
- Establishing Character Moment: When we first meet him showing up to Madison's house with his brother's stolen van, he's expressing nervousness about being caught for the act (despite his brother being immediately implied to be someone who wouldn't even notice), and he questions why he and Madison have to get involved in the current Titan crisis. When Maddie looks him in the eye and asks whether he's coming or staying, Josh replies with a brave face and nil hesitation that he's most certainly coming with her — then he goofs up his attempt to look like a toughie while opening the van door.
- Hollywood Hacking: Subverted. He tries doing this to Apex's computers, but randomly typing in pass codes just gets him locked out of the system.
- Logical Latecomer: He protests and tries to warn the other characters, including Madison Russell from the previous film, when they're heading toward instead of away from something that any practical-minded or common-sensed person would consider ominous and dangerous.
- Mature Younger Sibling: His brother, who owns the van he steals for Madison, is apparently an oblivious Disappointing Older Sibling, whereas Josh is a sharp and weary kid.
- The Meddling Kids Are Useless: Subverted. Although him, Bernie and Madison infiltrate Apex Cybernetics' secret facilities to investigate their role in Godzilla's rampage, for most of the movie they're only a kind of P.O.V. character for the audience to watch the mystery gradually unveil through, and they fail to make any meaningful impact on the plot. That is, until Mechagodzilla, possessed by Ghidorah's subconsciousness, is about to kill Kong after Godzilla has been heavily weakened, and Josh is in just the right place at just the right time to sabotage the computer controlling the Mecha's satellite link once Bernie gives Josh an idea.
- Mundane Solution: In the novelization, Team Godzilla at one point comes to a locked door in the Apex HQ with a keypad, and when Bernie asks Josh if he can hack it, Josh proposes they just take a nearby staircase instead.
- Nerd Glasses: He has browline/chunky-black glasses, has stereotypical-nerd levels of timidness, and is a hacker (his main specialty is movie piracy).
- Only Friend: Sort of. It's hinted in the movie, and confirmed by the novelization, that Josh is the only friend or acquaintance Madison has managed to make who is in her age group, since Mark enrolled her in a high school where all the other kids ostracize or pick on her. However, it should be noted that Madison feels she has adult friends and peers within Monarch.
- Only Sane by Comparison: Played With. Compared to Madison and Bernie who head toward unknown possible danger without much second thought if they think it'll get them closer to the answers they're after, Josh as the token Cowardly Lion is keenly aware and willing to point out when heading this way or that way isn't a safe idea.
- Plucky Comic Relief: Inverted. He's a source of quirks and humor like Bernie, although he's not quite as wacky as the latter, leaving Madison as the only serious member of Team Godzilla.
- Spanner in the Works: Team Godzilla's only role up until the Final Battle against Mechagodzilla is discovering the conspiracy behind Apex, but when Mechagodzilla is reprogrammed by Ghidorah's consciousness, Josh narrowly prevents Mechagodzilla from successfully killing Kong by pouring Bernie's flask of alcohol on Mechagodzilla's controls. Had it not been for that, Mechagodzilla would've likely beaten both Kong and Godzilla and gone on to threaten the whole world.
- Street Smart: Funnily enough, he, of all people, stands out amongst Team Godzilla for showing shades of this. Despite his nerdy and timid appearance, Josh is person-savvy enough to know precisely how to get Bernie's whereabouts from a store clerk when Madison was struggling to get what they were after, he's good at Cutting the Knot on the fly (this trait of his narrowly derails a Ghidorah-possessed Mechagodzilla's near-certain victory at a time when Madison was helpless and Bernie was about to give up), and he exhibits a practical spatial awareness and cautiousness of danger when he's accompanying Madison and Bernie through Apex.
- You Talk Too Much!: Bernie tells him this word-for-word in the novelization.
