Skull Island has always been at the heart of the King Kong mythology for 94 years, but the Monsterverse has made it all the more important. Monarch: Legacy of Monsters Season 2 has headed to Skull Island, with Monarch and Apex taking advantage of it as one of the few places where it’s easy to open gateways into the Axis Mundi. In the Monsterverse timeline, Skull Island has been visited by many explorers who’ve been fascinated by the Titans. Unfortunately, the end of Monarch Season 2’s premiere saw a whole new Titan unleashed, one able to swim away at phenomenal speed.
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Attentive viewers will have noticed one major twist in Monarch Season 2, though. The opening title sequence offers hints about the show, prominently featuring Godzilla and Kong, as well as setting up seaborne adventures. Most striking, though, is an old newspaper clipping that features prominently – and that adds a whole new wrinkle to Skull Island’s mythology. It turns out that infamous island hasn’t always been there…
Skull Island Has Actually Disappeared Before
The newspaper headline alone is eye-catching: “The Mystery of the Missing Island.” According to the report, “A tiny speck of land in the vast Pacific Ocean has vanished, leaving behind a colossal question mark. Once a familiar sight for local fishermen, the island was a steadfast presence, a trusted guide across the open sea. But now, it’s gone – wiped clean from existence as if it were never there. No one saw it coming.”
Islands do sometimes vanish in the Pacific Ocean, of course. The so-called Pacific Ring of Fire incorporates countless volcanic vents, many of which build new islands; Bogoslof Island in the Aleutians is famous for emerging from beneath the waves during an eruption but soon eroding away. Sometimes an explosive eruption literally destroys an island, with such an eruption typically generating devastating tsunami waves (Krakatau, 1883 is the most well-known example, with only the outer rim of the island left by the eruption).
But neither is the case with this island. It’s clearly not one that has freshly emerged, because it was a trusted landmark. There’s no hint of an eruption large enough to destroy an island. Given this is being teased in Monarch, it’s surely Skull Island, but one other thing is missing from the undated newspaper entry – the stormwall that surrounds the island. This newspaper article simply adds yet another mystery to one of the Monsterverse’s greatest enigmas.
Why Did Skull Island Vanish?
It’s difficult to say what really happened to Skull Island in the past, but this is surely somehow related to Monarch Season 2’s main plot. The most likely explanation lies in an important clue offered in the novelization of Kong: Skull Island, which Dr. Andrews theorizing the island is in fact a part of the Hollow Earth that somehow emerged to the surface. If that is indeed the case, then it’s reasonable to assume Skull Island has at times emerged… and at times retreated back into the Hollow Earth.
That’s never happened before in the Monsterverse timeline, suggesting this newspaper clipping may predate the adventures we’ve seen before; there were reports Skull Island was visited as early as 1933, so it must have vanished and then returned sometime before then. But the absence of the stormwall is striking, perhaps hinting that Andrews’ theory is incorrect. It’s possible Skull Island was simply another island, that it was somehow drawn into the Hollow Earth, and then returned – in a very different state.
We can’t really speculate as to the mechanisms; the pseudoscience of the Hollow Earth is fresh and new, and nothing quite like this has been seen in previous Monsterverse-related movies. The most likely explanation is that a larger portal than ever seen before was opened, one so vast that its energy field literally drew an entire island into the Hollow Earth. But if this has indeed happened once before, it raises the disturbing possibility it could happen again.
Skull Island is a vitally important location in this franchise, key to understand the countless different Monsterverse Titans. Monarch Season 2’s opening sequence raises the thrilling possibility that the show could introduce new versions of Skull Island, locations where the Hollow Earth breaks through to the surface again. Only time will tell whether that actually happens.
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Official art by Bastien Lecouffe-Deharme -
A photo of the Retrovolt Arcade taken in 2017, showing several classic arcade cabinets and stools. -
Image Courtesy of MAPPA
