by franzilla » Fri Feb 27, 2004 7:16 am
Spacegodzilla most certainly DID NOT have regenerative abilities, and guess what? How this stupid fanboy myth continues to live on is beyond me.
The whole thing obviously started with GvsMechaG and that whole "second brain miraculous recovery" thing and spiraled out of control from there. First off, the "regeneration" of the brain was not due to any advanced regenerative powers of Godzilla, but to the life energy/radioactivity/whatever you wish to call it given off by his good buddy Rodan in his final, heroic moments.
Things got really nutty with Marc Cericeni's well done novels for young adults (12 & 13 year olds) published by Random House in the late nineties. In the first book, titled "Godzilla Returns" if i remember correctly, the whole "Godzilla is actually harmed by all those rockets and missles and shells fired at him, but he possesses a tremendous regenerative quality that allows the wounds to heal so quickly that it looks as if no damage has been done" thing was first mentioned. So credit Marc with the regenerative thing, although he might have got it from a darkhorse comic (but I have the whole series 0-whenever it got cancelled plus his DH origin book and the WONDERFUL Color Special, and never recalled this happening).
ENTER Godzilla 2000: Millenium. NOW THIS is an actual FILM (albeit poor one) that features this power. I'd assume that they lifted it from the Random House books. So from pretty much here on out, people assume that since its in this movie, G has the regenerative abilities in ALL his appearences, which is totally bunk. Our favorite monster doesnt even necissarily have this ablity in the rest of the Millenium G films: GxM or GxMG and SURELY NOT GMK, which I'll get to in a bit. Remember it's not even the same continuity, just because the same suit is used, it does not mean that all the same rules apply.
So the question still remains:
Q. WHY DOES GODZILLA SEEM IMPERVIOUS TO CONVENTIONAL WEAPONRY AND COME OFF AS NIGH INDESTRUCTABLE?
A. BECAUSE HES ONE TOUGH SON OF A "OH GODZILLA! WHAT TERRIBLE LANGUAGE!"!!!! Just like he's always been! I remember about the time GMK came out, on the Kaneko website they had these monster bios listing each kaiju's powers. One of Godzilla's was "Extremely tough hide makes him vertually indestructable." FINALLY, back to the basics! I was thrilled.
So there it is, fellow and esteemed G-Fans. Now before you all start arguing back about "Biollante's vines went through his hands and he healed" and so on and so on, OF course he healed! He's an animal when you get down to it. You go stick a pencil through your palm and give it some time. It'll heal. Godzilla does heal, probably at a faster rate than an un-mutated creature, but it certainly does bug me when fans make him out to be some 200 ft. kaiju version of Wolverine.