Meganulon

Meganula
Meganula
Toho character
First appearance	Godzilla vs. Megaguirus
Species	Prehistoric Dragonfly
Affiliation	Mutants
Length	2 metres (6 ft 7 in)
Weight	1,000 kg (2,200 lb)
Wingspan	5 metres (16 ft)

Meganulon
Meganulon
Toho character
First appearance	Rodan
Species	Prehistoric Insect
Affiliation	Mutants
Length	2–8 metres (6.6–26.2 ft)
Weight	500–1,000 kg (1,100–2,200 lb)

Meganulon (メガヌロン, Meganuron) are fictional characters that were Paleozoic giant insects reanimated by mining operations in Kitamatsu village, Kumamoto Prefecture, in the 1956 kaiju eiga Rodan. The Meganulon made a return in the film Godzilla vs. Megaguirus after a 44-year absence.

Appearance

Meganulon are prehistoric insects which resemble gigantic earwigs, they are green-gray in color and have two large pincer claws on each arm. The Meganulon from the 1956 movie Rodan were very big and bulky, with dragonfly faces. When the Meganulon made their second appearance 44 years later in the movie Godzilla vs. Megaguirus their bodies were slender and brown in color. The new Meganulon maintained their sharp pincers on each arm.

Powers and abilities

The Meganulon from the showa era did not have any powers or abilities other than their ability to lay dormant in suspended animation for millions of years. The Meganulon from the millennium era however had a variety of abilities. They were able to scale walls with ease, and when attacking would fire a thick black liquid poison from their mouths to blind and disorient their prey, much like the Dilophosaurus from Jurassic Park. The Meganulon were able to flood almost 90% of the city where they hatched, it is unknown if they produced the water from within their own bodies or if they simply backed up the sewer systems causing water levels to rise rapidly. The latter seems most likely.

Origins

Showa

In the film Rodan, Meganulon slaughtered several people working in a mine. Many of the Meganulon were killed in a mine shaft by a number of workmen. A mine collapse followed, separating engineer Shigeru from his fellow miners and police. Before finding his way out of the mine, Shigeru witnessed the hatching of Rodan, who began to devour the comparatively tiny Meganulon. The event traumatized Shigeru and he briefly suppressed the memory. It is believed that all the Meganulon were devoured by Rodan, and none remain in the mine.

Millennium

The Meganulon return in the Millennium film Godzilla vs. Megaguirus. During the testing of a weapon called Dimension Tide a device in orbit around earth which could fire black holes anywhere on the planet, a giant prehistoric dragonfly enters the present due to the weapons side effect of leaving a worm hole to an unknown location in time. The creature deposits a single egg before returning to its own period through the wormhole. A young boy finds the egg and takes it with him when he moves to Tokyo. The egg starts oozing a strange liquid, so the boy throws the egg in the sewer. The egg, actually a mass of hundreds of eggs, splits up and starts growing. The eggs hatch into Meganulon that come out of the sewer to feed. They flood a huge portion of the city and begin to moult on the sides of buildings, sprouting wings and stingers, becoming Meganula.

Meganula

When the Meganulon moulted they became Meganula, creatures resembling prehistoric vicious dragonflies. They had massive pincer claws and a thin stinger on their abdomen. After their evolution into Meganula the creatures set out to find the biggest source of energy they could find. They attacked Godzilla, during his battle with G-Graspers. Many were killed by Godzilla and the Dimension Tide Gun, but a few managed to drain some of Godzilla's blood which they gave to their sleeping mighty queen, Megaguirus. In doing so the Meganula died, but their deaths were not in vain for their massive queen would arise once again.

Film appearances

Rodan (1956)
Godzilla vs. Megaguirus (2000)

References