Pokemon — Alolan Golem Shoots Its Young Out of Its Railgun

Everyone knows that some animal species will eat their young, but one popular Pokemon likes to use its pre-evolutionary form as literal ammunition. One of the highlights of ComicBook.com’s weekly Pokemon podcast A Wild Podcast Has Appeared is the PokeFact of the week, which provides useful and horrifying facts about the Pokemon we love. This week’s episode put the spotlight on Golem, one of co-host Jim Viscardi’s favorite Pokemon. However, the featured fact of the week was a bit disturbing, as we learned that the Alolan Golem often uses Geodude as ammunition for the rail gun-like cannon on its back. Although Geodude isn’t Alolan Golem’s preferred ammunition of choice, Golem often uses Geodude as a form of smaller ammunition when it needs to fire off multiple shots in a hurry.

Shockingly, Golem isn’t the only Pokemon that uses its pre-evolved form as a weapon. When Pokemon Sword and Shield first came out last fall, Dragapult became a fan-favorite thanks to its unusual design, which was a mix of a stealth bomber, a dragon, and a ghost. Dragapult’s signature attack was its Dragon Dart attack, which caused it to fire the two Dreepy resting within its exhaust port-like head folds like missiles. Since Dreepy is also a Ghost-type Pokemon, no Pokemon were harmed by the explosive attack, but Dragapult got a lot of flak for its willingness to shoot its young. Now it seems that Dragapult is just following the example set by Alolan Golem the previous generation.

To make up for Golem’s casual prolicide, host Viscardi attempted to note some of Golem’s other traits, such as Golem’s ability to shed its shell. While this seems like a trait more in line with snakes than rock turtles, real-life turtles also shed their shells in pieces to accommodate. Golem’s shell is also hollow on the inside, and it tends to have moss grow on its shell as it gets older. While Viscardi didn’t mention it on the podcast, Golem is also the only Gen 1 Pokemon that can’t be seen in the original three Pokemon games, meaning that you have to trade for it in order to complete the Pokedex. Even other Pokemon that evolve by trading like Machamp and Gengar appear as Pokemon owned by various trainers, but Golem apparently is even less popular in the Kanto region than Pokemon like Magikarp or Grimer.

You can listen to more PokeFacts every week by listening to A Wild Podcast Has Appeared, which appears wherever podcasts are found.