The Monarch: Legacy of Monsters Season 2 Finale has left a lot of new questions on the table, even after wrapping up the story arc of Titan X and its mad rampage across the globe. Along the way, the spinoff series continued to flesh out the details of how the Monarch organization (and its rival, Apex Cybernetics) discovered the existence of Hollow Earth, and its pathway from that realm to various “rift” spots on Earth’s surface, via the “Axis Mundi” realm.
So where does the story go from here? Legacy of Monsters has yet to confirm it Season 3 renewal, but the stage is certainly set for it to happen. Not only that, but Apple TV has already made moves to expand the franchise into a spinoff series, meaning that the Legacy of Monsters franchise is only growing. Read below for the full details.
If you’re worried about Monarch: Legacy of Monsters being canceled, don’t be. The main series may not yet have been renewed for Season 3, but Apple has already greenlit a prequel series (miniseries?).
The prequel series will focus on Col. Lee Shaw – the younger version played by Wyatt Russell. Legacy of Monsters Season 1 revealed that Lee Shaw had gotten trapped in Axis Mundi, losing 20 years on Earth (1962 – 1982). When Shaw returns to Earth in ’82, he’s kept hidden from a world that believes he’s dead, living in a Monarch facility until Godzilla’s re-emergence on “G-Day” inspires him to get active again. However, the prequel series reveals that Monarch gave Shaw some missions to carry out during his stay – including one during the height of the Cold War in 1984.
As the synopsis describes, “the spinoff series will follow the story of Colonel Lee Shaw (Russell), an American operative who, in 1984, went on a secret mission behind enemy lines in an attempt to stop the Soviets from unleashing a horrific new Titan big enough to destroy the U.S. and turn the tide of the Cold War.”
So, instead of continuing forward, the next chapter of Legacy of Monsters will jump backward. While most of the cast from the main show won’t be present in the spinoff, there are already many theories about how the prequel story could not only tie into the larger Monsterverse franchise but also reveal things that are pivotal to Season 3 of the main show.
In the Season 2 Finale of the main show, the Monarch team managed to lure Titan X back to Axis Mundi via the main rift junction located on Kong’s home turf of Skull Island. In achieving that goal, the team also gained a great deal of new knowledge about the Titans (like their system of “language”) and the realm they inhabit (Hollow Earth theory).
The present-day action of Season 2 was set in 2017, three years after the events of the Godzilla (2014) movie, and two years before the events of Godzilla: King of the Monsters. The Season 2 cliffhanger showed the Older Lee Shaw (Kurt Russell) duck Monarch and go on his own mission: tracking down the rogue Kentaro Randa (Ren Watabe), who has joined up with Isabel Simmons (Amber Midthunder), the adopted daughter of Apex CEO Walter Simmons.
Isabel and Kentaro tried and failed to capture Skull Island for themselves; it wasn’t enough to deter them from trying to access Axis Mundi and use it as a “time machine” for those willing to pay. Shaw finds out they have gone to a remote tropical jungle, and uses an old contact to follow. What he finds is an active volcano with the dreaded firebird Titan, Rodan, nesting in the lava.
Isabel Simmons and her crew were using tech (in part developed by May Olowe-Hewitt) that could artificially boost a Titan’s aggression, luring gatekeepers like Godzilla and King Kong into a fight for dominance. Rodan was a major supporting character in King of the Monsters, after Monarch scientist-turned-ecoterrorist Emma Russell (Vera Farmiga) awakens it to battle Godzilla and Ghidorah.
If we connect the obvious dots, it looks like Legacy of Monsters Season 3 would (at least in part) be about how Rodan ended up inside that Volcano in Mexico in 2019, lying dormant, after it is clearly awake and active in a remote jungle somewhere, in 2017. In the larger scheme of the Monsterverse timeline, Season 3 will presumably do a lot of backstory setup for Godzilla: King of the Monsters, as well as continuing to plant seeds for Godzilla vs. Kong (like Apex’s research).
The more curious question is whether or not characters from King of the Monsters end up appearing in Legacy of Monsters, should Season 3 happen. That list includes Game of Thrones star Charles Dance, who played eco-terrorist Alan Jonah, who is pivotal in turning Emma Russell, locating and freeing Ghidorah, and then delivering one of Ghidorah’s severed heads to Apex, who uses it to develop Mechagodzilla. Vera Farmiga’s Emma Russell is also on that list, as she is still a Monarch scientist in 2017, living with her daughter, Madison, who was played by Stranger Things star Millie Bobby Brown. Other prominent Monarch figures played by Zhang Ziyi, Thomas Middleditch, or Bradley Whitford are all possibilities for cameos, among other big stars.
Stay tuned to our continued coverage of Monarch: Legacy of Monsters, and if it gets renewed for Season 3.
Monarch: Legacy of Monsters streams on Apple TV. Godzilla x Kong: Supernova will be the next film in the Monsterverse franchise. Discuss it with us on the ComicBook Forum!
