Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire: Who Is Tiamat?

Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire brings back the two titular titans but also introduces new kaiju to the MonsterVerse. In addition to the Scar King and the icy Shimo, Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire delivers a handful of other Titans, who mostly appear on screen to get absolutely destroyed by Godzilla. Among the newcomers to Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire is Tiamat, a sea dragon that appears in a key battle in the movie. But even if you’ve seen every MonsterVerse movie you may be asking yourself, who the heck is Tiamat? To answer that we must get into major spoilers for Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire!

As the MONARCH team works to figure out what the psychic signals coming from Hollow Earth mean, on the surface Godzilla is journeying from place to place and collecting nuclear energy. He does this by first attacking a nuclear plant and absorbing its materials, but from there he heads to a unique place, the Arctic circle. At the top of the world is another titan, Tiamat, who we learn is in the one spot on Earth where they can absorb the sun’s radiation uninterrupted. This is beneficial to Godzilla because he needs to store as much energy as possible for the fight that is in front of him. 

This ability by Tiamat allows them to fire a powerful beam similar to Godzilla, which at first seems like it would come in handy in a fight under the water in the Arctic circle. Granted, Godzilla makes a quick meal out of them and ends his rule in the Arctic quickly. As the pieces of Tiamat float to the surface, Godzilla takes his place in her spot and begins to absorb more energy.

Who is Tiamat?

Historially, Tiamat is one of the primordial beings in the Mesopotamian religion, where she’s described as being like a sea serpent, which is the same characteristics that apply to them in Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire. The first appearance of Tiamat in the MonsterVerse was in the pages of the graphic novel Godzilla Dominion, where her appearance remains nearly identitcal to how it is in Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire.

Like most of the Titans/Kaiju featured in the MonsterVerse, Tiamat is an original creation, though based in anicnet mythology. Tiamat has no previous appearances in TOHO feature films or other MonsterVerse movies for that matter. After the events of Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire they probably won’t, unless they can figure out how to stitch themselves back together. 

The epic battle continues! Legendary Pictures’ cinematic Monsterverse follows up the explosive showdown of “Godzilla vs. Kong” with an all-new adventure that pits the almighty Kong and the fearsome Godzilla against a colossal undiscovered threat hidden within our world, challenging their very existence-and our own. “Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire” delves further into the histories of these Titans and their origins, as well as the mysteries of Skull Island and beyond.

Directed by Adam Wingard, Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire stars Rebecca Hall (Godzilla vs. Kong, The Night House) as Dr. Ilene Andrews, Brian Tyree Henry (Godzilla vs. Kong, Bullet Train) as Bernie Hayes, Dan Stevens (Legion, Beauty and the Beast), as Trapper, Kaylee Hottle (Godzilla vs. Kong) as Jia, Alex Ferns (The Batman) Mikael, and Fala Chen (Shang Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings) as the Iwi Queen.