Can Godzilla Survive a Nuclear Bomb Blast? Explained
One of the things that we know about the world of the MonsterVerse is that radiation seems to be a very important part of the survival of the different Titans that we see. There is no doubt that Godzilla, of course, is the alpha of the Titans and is undoubtedly the strongest out of all of the different creatures that walk the Earth. But while we do know that Godzilla is incredibly powerful, human weapons, such as the nuclear bomb, are also incredibly destructive as well. So, can Godzilla actually survive a nuclear bomb blast?
Godzilla feeds on radiation
When we first saw Godzilla in the MonsterVerse storyline, the first thing that came to mind was the fact that he and many of the different Titans walk the Earth are too big to be able to survive on this planet, especially because they need to eat a hefty amount of food on a regular basis.
Of course, the ‘Godzilla’ movie of 2014 was quick to allow us to understand that Titans, such as Godzilla, fed off of the planet’s radiation. At one point in time, they lived on the surface of the Earth when the planet had a radiation that was ten times higher. But they eventually retreated to the subterranean areas of the planet to get closer to the core to eat radiation.
In that regard, it goes without saying that radiation is the most important part of the lifespan of a Titan. We saw this in the first MonsterVerse movie when the male MUTO decided to cocoon in a nuclear plant in Japan so that it could eat the radiation coming from it. Then, during the latter portion of the movie, the radiation coming from a nuclear bomb was used as bait for the MUTO.
Meanwhile, in ‘Godzilla: King of the Monsters,’ the different government agencies all over the world tried to use nuclear weapons to lure Titans away from population centers, knowing that these creatures are attracted to radiation. Godzilla’s lair was also revealed to be an underground temple-like structure that is found deep in subterranean tunnels related to the Hollow Earth. The radiation in this area was high enough that Godzilla could simply stay there for sustenance without the need to feed off of the radiation from man-made power plants.
In short, the energy that comes from nuclear weapons and power plants is basically food for the Titans, including Godzilla. Thermonuclear energy is like candy to these creatures, and that means that the strongest energy source that man relies on is food for Godzilla and the other Titans on Earth. This explains why Monarch and Dr. Serizawa believed that using nukes on the Titans was a bad idea.
The pressure of a nuke may hurt but not kill Godzilla
Of course, we’ve seen time and time again in the storyline of the MonsterVerse that man wanted to use his most powerful weapon, the nuclear bomb, to try to resolve the issue related to the Titans. During the events of ‘Monarch: Legacy of Monsters,’ it was made clear that the US government was afraid of Godzilla upon learning of its existence, and that was the reason why, in 1954, the army decided to kill him using a nuclear bomb in Bikini Atoll.
In ‘Monarch,’ Dr. Keiko Miura wanted to stop the army from bombing Godzilla because she thought that the nuke was going to kill this amazing creature. The bomb detonated, as explained in the 2014 ‘Godzilla’ movie, as it was mentioned that Monarch and the government wanted to kill Godzilla but were hiding this fact from the public by saying that the nuclear detonations were just tests. Keiko, in ‘Monarch,’ believed that the bomb had killed Godzilla.
However, in the graphic novel ‘Godzilla: Awakening,’ it was revealed that Godzilla survived the nuclear attack while its enemy, the Shinomura, was destroyed. This means that while Godzilla and the Titans feed off of the radiation coming from a nuke, the thermonuclear blast can still hurt them due to the sheer amount of pressure generated by a nuclear blast. After all, the Shinomura died in that nuclear explosion.
In the 2014 movie, we can make the assumption that the military wanted to use a nuke on Godzilla and the MUTO, believing that the pressure coming from the blast would be more than enough to destroy them. Of course, Godzilla would have survived the blast, but the MUTOs, which aren’t as durable as Godzilla, would have been killed by the sheer pressure coming from the detonation.
Then, in the 2019 ‘Godzilla: King of the Monsters’ movie, it was revealed that an incredibly nuclear bomb would never be enough to actually kill Godzilla. The big lizard had been weakened by the oxygen destroyer that the military developed in an attempt to kill Ghidorah. Godzilla retreated to his lair in the tunnels of the Hollow Earth to try to recover by feeding off of the radiation there. However, Monarch realized that the radiation there would take years to help Godzilla recover, and that was why Dr. Serizawa knew that detonating a nuke was the best option.
Monarch and Serizawa detonated a powerful nuclear bomb right in front of Godzilla’s face to help him recover, as the thermonuclear radiation was more than enough to nurse the huge lizard back to health. As such, the pressure coming from the blast may have hurt Godzilla, but the radiation from the nuke was more than enough to allow his body to recover quickly enough.
What this means is that a nuke won’t really be strong enough to kill or even deal serious damage to Godzilla, even if the pressure coming from the blast was incredibly powerful. As seen in ‘King of the Monsters,’ Godzilla was able to brush off the blast of a nuke at point-blank range and was even stronger than ever due to the sheer amount of radiation that he absorbed from the explosion.
This suggests that Godzilla’s body is so strong and durable that it can withstand and survive the pressure coming from an extremely powerful nuclear blast. At the same time, the radiation emitted by a nuclear blast would simply cancel out whatever damage a nuke has done to Godzilla by allowing his body to heal at a rapid pace.
In short, a nuke would do more good than harm to Godzilla, as suggested by the events of ‘King of the Monsters’ when the big lizard was basically on steroids against Ghidorah after Serizawa’s nuke nursed him back to health. But that’s just Godzilla, as we know that the other Titans don’t have bodies that are built to survive the sheer force generated by a nuclear blast.
So, even if the other Titans can feed off of the radiation of a nuclear bomb detonation, their bodies are likely going to get destroyed by the pressure coming from the detonation before they can actually benefit from the radiation emitted by the bomb. Godzilla, on the other hand, is just built differently.
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