Long Lost Godzilla Ally Desperately Needs to Return

Across his seventy years of feature films, Godzilla has gone through a slew of phases. From a walking metaphor for the nuclear bombs dropped on Japan, to a heroic character for young children, to an ambivalent presence in the MonsterVerse. It’s the trait about Godzilla that makes him so beloved and timeless: his malleability. Filmmakers have routinely found ways to make Godzilla the hero, the villain, or simply a force of nature, usually in ways that feel distinct from each other.

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A key element of Godzilla’s lore that comes and goes along with these varying takes on the character is his allies. Sometimes, Godzilla works alone, but sometimes he needs another giant monster to team up with so they can battle another kaiju and protect the Earth. Across the decades, Godzilla has had many pals, from Anguirus and Rodan to, most recently, Mothra and Kong. But there’s one Godzilla ally who has been missing for over fifty years on the big screen, and it’s time that the movies bring back Jet Jaguar to fight alongside Godzilla.

Godzilla Needs to Bring Back Jet Jaguar

It would be totally understandable for fans of recent Godzilla movies to have no clue who Jet Jaguar even is, since the character has only one film appearance across the entire canon of Toho’s kaiju. To date, Jet Jaguar’s only appearance on the big screen came in the 1973 film, Godzilla vs. Megalon, where he eventually teamed up with Godzilla to stop the titular foe.

Unlike other Godzilla allies, Jet Jaguar isn’t a monster at all, but a robot. Created by Goro Ibuki, the robot’s purpose is never really explained in the film, but he possesses the ability to grow from human size to stand alongside Godzilla, which augments his strength, of course. Jet Jaguar can also fly and fire missiles/lasers out of his arms, all of which make him a pretty distinct friend to Godzilla. Before they team up, though, Jet Jaguar not only manages to withstand Godzilla’s atomic breath but is capable of leveling the kaiju with one punch

All of this is well and good, but it doesn’t acknowledge the key piece of Jet Jaguar and Godzilla’s teamwork that fully defines the one film they share: the iconic Godzilla dropkick. As the pair fight Megalon, himself a giant, bug-like kaiju with drills for hands, they eventually get the drop on him, and Jet Jaguar holds Megalon’s arm back, leaving him open to attack from Godzilla. Seeing the opportunity, Godzilla gives Jet Jaguar a thumbs up, steps back to get a running start, and then slides on his tail to deliver a dropkick to Megalon’s body. Even better? He does it a second time.

The reality of Jet Jaguar is that the character’s creation was done to capitalize on the success of other tokusatsu superheroes and robots, like Ultraman. Even more unusual is that he was created thanks to a fan context, with an initial design by a fan augmented to become the character that we know and love. This, combined with Jet Jaguar not being an actual kaiju, are two things that make him one of the most unique characters in the entire Godzilla library. So, where is he?

Two Things May Be Stopping Jet Jaguar’s Return

If you haven’t ventured into the classic Godzilla movies, you wouldn’t even know that Jet Jaguar exists. Though the character has appeared in video games like Godzilla: Save the Earth and Godzilla Unleashed, plus countless comic books, and even a major piece of the Godzilla Singular Point anime series, he has been gone from the big screen for fifty-two years. In that time, Godzilla has fought against and befriended King Kong multiple times, even bringing in other Toho icons like Mothra and Rodan to fight alongside him again.

There are probably two reasons that Jet Jaguar has seemingly been quietly retired from Godzilla movies. The first is a tonal one. When Jet Jaguar first appeared, it came at a time when the Godzilla franchise had transitioned into something very similar to a Saturday Morning Cartoon. Godzilla himself had become a hero, defeating the bad guys and protecting the Earth with his friends in tow.

In the time since then, Godzilla movies coming out of Japan have gone back to the roots of the character as an evil figurehead that causes destruction and not protection. 2016’s Shin Godzilla not only delivered the scariest design for Godzilla, but positioned him fully as a walking natural disaster. 2023’s Godzilla Minus One followed suit, and not only became the highest-grossing Godzilla movie ever but the first to win an Academy Award.

As a result, a sequel is coming later this year, which makes it seem like the destructive take on Godzilla will continue to be the defining one for years. That means there’s no room for a colorful and fun robot sidekick to stand alongside him.

That said, the MonsterVerse version of Godzilla from Legendary does seem to fit the bill of a version of the character that not only has a slightly more colorful demeanor (he was literally pink in the last movie) but also one that has friends (he’s set to team up with Kong for the third time next year). The trouble, of course, is that Legendary’s deal with Toho for their MonsterVerse movies and shows does not appear to be some all-encompassing deal that allows access to any and all monsters.

To date, across all the movies and shows, the MonsterVerse has only included five Toho kaiju (Godzilla, Mothra, Rodan, King Ghidorah, and Mechagodzilla). This seems to imply that the studio needs to make specific deals with Toho before adapting a classic kaiju for their new franchise, instead deciding to make all-new giant monsters that fit into their films and TV shows (which they can then make toys of and not pay a premium to Toho). As a result, Jet Jaguar may fall pretty low on the list of kaiju the team at Legendary wants to bring to the franchise when compared to other major missing characters like Anguirus, Gigan, or Destoroyah.

It’s worth noting, though, that Jet Jaguar did kind of make a comeback in a short film, the non-canon Godzilla Fest 4 short, titled “Operation Jet Jaguar.” For the time being, this appears to be the closest we’ll see to Jet Jaguar in a new Godzilla film. Given the evolution in tone of the MonsterVerse over the past six years, look me in the eyes and tell me that you don’t want to see Jet Jaguar appear alongside that version of Godzilla and hold back a monster so that he can slide on his tail and dropkick them. You can’t.