Apple TV+ released episode 1, season 1 of its Monsterverse spin-off, Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, on January 12, 2024. The show chronicles humanity's uneasy adaptation to the existence of giant-sized monsters on Earth, with no answers to how these monsters came to be. These monsters are what make up the Monsterverse as produced by Legendary Pictures, and viewers of the show get to see new ones like Frost Vark and Brambleboar.
The show follows half-siblings Cate and Kentaro Randa as they first discover that their father, Hiroshi, isn’t who they think him to be. Joined by Lee Shaw, they travel the world to find him, uncovering family secrets and find out how they are tied to Monarch, a mysterious 55-year-old company dedicated to the study of these massive monsters, especially Godzilla.
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What Exactly Happened on G-Day?
Although Monarch already had advanced knowledge of Titan existence, the rest of the world had been spared the gruesome realization that humans were now on the endangered species list, on a planet that they thought was theirs to rule. But this changed when a massive unidentified terrestrial organism (M.U.T.O.) in hibernation is awoken by human activities. This in turn awakens her mate halfway across the world and causes the pair to start making their way toward each other, leaving destruction in their wake.
The M.U.T.O.s cause Godzilla to show himself to the world in San Francisco, where he fights the mating pair while withstanding artillery from the US Navy. The Battle of San Francisco reduced the city to near rubble, causing the authorities to permanently evacuate the area. This battle and the ensuing destruction and loss of human life are the known as G-Day.
This day also marks Cate Randa’s first contact with Godzilla when he plows through the Golden Gate Bridge, inadvertently sending a bus full of her pupils to their deaths in the water below. Likewise, the incidents of G-Day set Hiroshi Randa on his mysterious mission, causing him to abandon his family.
How Does Time Work in Axis Mundi?
Bill and Keiko Randa, along with Lee Shaw tracked radiation to Kazakhstan in 1959 in hopes of discovering a Titan, losing Keiko to a swarm of Endoswarmers. 53 years later, Lee Shaw, May Olowe-Hewitt, and Cate Randa go down the same pit. That pit turns out to be a portal between the Hollow Earth and the surface above.
They find themselves in a place that isn’t Earth as they know it. Lee tells May that he has been here before, on an exploratory mission in 1962. He warns her that time works differently where they are, which explains how he looks 20 years younger. An unaged Keiko saves Cate from the Brambleboar, and Lee hides. From behind a tree, he explains that the warp in space-time is caused by gravitational distortion to a now distraught, but understanding, Keiko.
She likens where they are to a patchwork quilt, containing pieces of Earth as they know it. She then tells them that where they are isn’t where the Titans come from, but more like “a place between places.” She calls it Axis Mundi, which Cate translates to “the pole between heaven and Earth.”
It is unclear how time works between Axis Mundi and the surface earth. Mere days in Axis Mundi equal years on Earth. That phenomenon that shows itself again when Keiko, May, and Cate arrive on the surface two years after Cate, May, and Lee go through the Kazakhstan rift, despite spending what seems to be half a day in Axis Mundi.
What Happened to Lee Shaw?
Father and son Kurt and Wyatt Russell play Lee Shaw across two timelines. Wyatt plays the young lieutenant whose assignment to protect Dr. Keiko Miura morphs into something far more important. Kurt plays the man who has lost so much, and is unhappy with the work the people in charge of the organization he helped found are doing today. He seizes the opportunity to act when the Randa kids come calling with questions and moves to stop the Titans by destroying the rifts.
Lee's plan sees him, Cate, and May fall through a portal and be reunited briefly with Keiko, but he sacrifices himself so that the others can escape. This leaves a big question unanswered: What happened to Lee Shaw?
While it is possible that he rides on the resulting aftermath of a Titan (maybe Godzilla) reentering the rift and is sucked back to the surface, like in 1982, there is also the probability that he might have simply fallen to his death. One other possible outcome is that Monarch/APEX, armed with new information concerning Axis Mundi and how to navigate the portals, mounts a rescue mission for him.
APEX Cybernetics: Friend or Foe?
The mysterious organization known as APEX Cybernetics (formerly AET Cybernetics) appears throughout Monarch: Legacy of Monsters’ 10 episodes. They appear to have sinister motives, and are content to sit in the shadows until it is time to strike. They hire the tech-savvy May through Brenda, their vice president, to "write code." She intentionally corrupts the company’s research database as revenge when she discovers that her work is being used to carry out unethical experiments on animals.
APEX tries again to recruit May to spy on her friends and Monarch in exchange for a clean slate. May declines, but is still freed when Natalia Verdugo, the deputy director at Monarch, makes a mysterious arrangement with APEX, which APEX believes they can exploit to be fruitful for their own ends. APEX’s sinister nature is supported when the Monarch escape pod carrying Keiko, May, and Cate re-emerges on the surface at an APEX-controlled research facility on Skull Island just before Kong shows up. This implies that there has been a power coup that has seen APEX usurp Monarch’s position as sole authority on Titan studies.
Godzilla and the Ion Dragon
Monarch: Legacy of Monsters replaced Titan brawls with documenting their impact on humanity. A long-awaited moment finally takes place when Godzilla battles the Ion Dragon in the final episode. It is a short fight, however, with Godzilla making short work of the Dragon in record time.
He cooks the Dragon with his atomic breath, burning it badly before ripping off one of its wings and tossing its remains into the rift. Although this one battle does little to sate the viewer’s appetite for Titan clashes, it makes a point of reiterating Godzilla’s might and position as the King of the Monsters.
