Published Jan 30, 2026, 10:00 PM EST
Bill Dubiel is a veteran writer, editor, and college professor based in Buffalo, NY. He has been a Senior Writer with Screen Rant since 2023. You can usually find him at a late-night double feature including the newest horror movie and latest Oscar bait.
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The Legendary Monsterverse is set to expand once again with Godzilla X Kong: Supernova in 2027, which will see the world's two most famous monsters take on the cosmic villain SpaceGodzilla. Their first two joint adventures satisfied fans of both monsters, but were largely Kong-centric stories. Supernova appears poised to shift the focus back to the King of the Monsters, but it will still rely heavily on Kong.
Monsterverse fans have still clamored for solo movies for both Kong and Godzilla despite the success of the team-up concept. Godzilla has an entire rogues' gallery of famous foes that can be licensed from Toho, but Kong has far more potential with original monsters like Skar King or the Skull Devil as opposed to throwing him against known monsters like Gigan, Hedorah, or Titanosaurus.
Fortunately, the expanded media of the Monsterverse has already introduced an incredibly interesting Titan that could act as the perfect cinematic foe for Kong. As entertaining and well-done as the Monsterverse movies are, some of the most intriguing battles and concepts from that world have been introduced outside the movies, and that includes a unique and terrifying threat from Skull Island.
The Fungoid Titan Yuggoth Can Control Other Monsters
The tie-in comic series Return to Skull Island picks up Kong's story following the events of the Netflix animated prequel series Skull Island, in which Kong battled and defeated the sea Titan known as the Kraken. Poisoned and weakened from his battle with the Kraken, a new challenger rises on Skull Island: Yuggoth, a shapeshifting humanoid Titan covered in fungi, who just returned to the Monsterverse in the recently released series Escape from Skull Island.
With a name inspired by Lovecraftian horror, the threat from the ultra-aggressive Yuggoth comes from its ability to poison and enslave the creatures of Skull Island using the spores it emits from its body. While the spores don't work as effectively on larger Titans like Kong, Yuggoth is also comparable to Kong in size and speed. It can also regenerate limbs, as it did when Kong ripped off its leg in battle.
As essentially a living fungus belched forth from the Earth, Yuggoth wouldn't last long against Godzilla's atomic breath. However, he's the perfect villain for Kong given that he poses a legitimate threat to the great ape. The Skull Island narrative takes place in the 1990s, after the events of Kong: Skull Island but before Godzilla's re-emergence in 2014, but in the story's current state, Yuggoth is very much alive.
The fungoid Titan is a denizen of Skull Island, with the implication being he's a product of the island itself, but a portal to the Hollow Earth would allow him to gain access to Kong in the Monsterverse's present day, and provide him with far more (and far deadlier) creatures to "enthrall" to do his bidding and send after Kong. Yuggoth would be the perfect villain to keep the story centered on the Hollow Earth, and allow for the cinematic exploration of far more territory there.
Yuggoth Makes For An Intriguing Godzilla X Kong Villain (Pending A Power-Up)
There is a route to Yuggoth becoming a veritable threat to both Godzilla and Kong, but it would require some evolution on his part. As it stands in the 1990s, Yuggoth can't control massive Titans like Kong or Godzilla, but if he were to develop the ability to enslave some of the non-Alphas on the surface, he would suddenly be a very real threat.
Yuggoth would never need to present himself to Godzilla and Kong; rather, he can control other Titans like Behemoth, Amhuluk, the terrifying Abaddon, or any of the as-yet-unseen monsters like Leviathan or Bunyip. Toho has never been afraid to use mind control on kaiju, albeit aliens are usually the culprit. Mind control via a Titan's natural spores fits the Monsterverse's Hollow Earth narrative much more cleanly.
First Film Godzilla
Movie(s) Godzilla, Kong: Skull Island, Godzilla: King of the Monsters, Godzilla vs. Kong, Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire
English (US) ·