Kaiju
The Kaiju are gigantic monsters under the command of the Mole Man. They were discovered close to the Labyrinth and dealt with by the Fantastic Four and the Manhattan Clan.
Only one Kaiju was named in the comic: Spitter.
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Production Background
Kaiju is a Japanese term that is commonly associated with media involving giant monsters. A subgenre of science-fiction, more precisely monster films, its widespread contemporary use is credited to tokusatsu (special effects) director Eiji Tsuburaya and filmmaker Ishirō Honda, who popularized the kaiju film genre by creating the Godzilla franchise and its spin-offs. The term can also refer to the monsters themselves, which are usually depicted attacking major cities and battling either the military or other creatures.
Godzilla (1954) is often regarded as the first kaiju movie. When developing it, Honda and Tsuburaya drew inspiration from the character of King Kong, both in its influential 1933 film and in the conception of a giant monster, establishing it as a pivotal precursor in the evolution of the genre. Kaiju are often somewhat metaphorical in nature; Godzilla, for example, initially served as a metaphor for nuclear weapons, reflecting the fears of post-war Japan following the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the Lucky Dragon 5 incident. Other notable examples of kaiju include Rodan, Mothra, King Ghidorah, Gamera, and King Kong.
Within the Marvel Universe, kaiju can refer to group of variously diverse monsters that the Mole Man often uses at his command that were originally created by the Deviants. It is worth noting that one of the Kaiju bore a strong resemblance to Marvel's alien dragon: Fin Fang Foom; but it wasn't identified as such in the comic book.
See Also
- Kaiju at Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
