Could any version of Godzilla survive a Nuclear Bomb?

[GodzillaDude]

My brother (who doesn't know the slightest bit about Godzilla) and I were debating wheter any version of Godzilla could survive a nuclear bomb. I want to get some other opinions.

[TokyoVigilante]

No.

It there was a bomb dropped directly on him, the ar pressure would rupture his organs and the amount of heat would moreorless vaporize him.

If it was dropped near him, then you'd get mostly the same effects. Just not as sever.

[Toxic Toast]

The big G eats nuclear energy and can survive a black hole. A nuclear bomb would do nothing, at best, and make him stronger at worst.

[Armor Mothra]

I think he would probably absorb the nuclear energy and might even get stronger from it.

[HayesAJones]

It would definitively stop him for a while. After that though, he'd probably very, very slowly recover.

Hey, you know that wouldn't make a half bad ending for the new Legendary Pictures movie. Drop the bomb on him, show him a mangled, charred corpse, and then let the audience know that he's steadily regenerating, making his eventual return unenviable.

[HayesAJones]

It would definitively stop him for a while. After that though, he'd probably very, very slowly recover.

Hey, you know that wouldn't make a half bad ending for the new Legendary Pictures movie. Drop the bomb on him, show him a mangled, charred corpse, and then let the audience know that he's steadily regenerating, making his eventual return unenviable.

Once again, that's assuming Godzilla's regeneration is strong enough to heal injuries larger than a few puncture wounds. We've never seen Godzilla come back from a "mangled, charred corpse" so there's really no way of knowing.

Personally, I think a direct hit from a nuke would wipe him off the face of the earth.

Well, then that's a perfect place to expand upon, isn't it? People have always talked about using a nuke of Godzilla, but it's never actually happen. That would be a great way to experiment with the power and extent Godzilla's regeneration. And the Monster King is supposed to be an unstoppable force of destruction, so he's got to come back one way or another, so why not have fun with it?

And I'm not saying Godzilla would be up and walking within a few days/weeks. I meant years and years later. Plus, in-universe, that would give time to for the character study and analyze Godzilla and/or develop anti-Godzilla weaponry.

There's a lot of opportunity in dropping a nuke on Godzilla and I think it needs to be seized.

[Malchik]

The big G eats nuclear energy and can survive a black hole. A nuclear bomb would do nothing, at best, and make him stronger at worst.

A black hole is irrelevant. It has no known destructive power. Only the absorption of all matter and energy, we have no way of knowing for sure what it does.

I think he would probably absorb the nuclear energy and might even get stronger from it.

This was caused by natural fission of pure plutonium under birth island. We can see Godzilla's body does have it's limits before it can no longer digest large amounts of energy and it physically melts his insides. We can take for granted that Godzilla doesn't have an ability to actually stop the absorption of radiation, like all lifeforms.

[GodzillaDude]

Yeah and a little annoying too. It's funny the first few times they make Maguma out to be an unstoppable force but then it gets tiresome.

[Toxic Toast]

A black hole is irrelevant. It has no known destructive power.

A black hole has enormous destructive power. You can use this handy tool to calculate for youself. Even an extremely conservative estimate of scale of the Dimension Tide's black hole yields tidal forces far beyond the overpressure of any nuclear blast. Indeed, going by the G-graspers' simulation in Godzilla vs. Megaguirus, they expected Godzilla to be ripped into his component molecules before being sucked in.

Volcanoes, likewise, can dwarf nuclear weapons with their energy. The most powerful nuke ever had a yield of 50 megatons of TNT. Krakatoa's eruption unleashed 200 megatons.

I know the idea that nukes are unbearably strong is a popular one, but Godzilla has survived incidents that are unquestionably more destructive. There is no reason to think a nuke would kill him.

[DrunkenGamer]

Well it certainly would be a very good idea to kill him off with something that got him started; there's much irony in that.
You have to remember that Godzilla absorbed radiation from an H-Bomb, not the heat and inital blast. I'm pretty sure the impact would hurt him badly. If it didn't mangle his flesh, the concussion would turn his inards into a bloody hash.

So yeah.

[Mini-Godzilla]

Hmm....he survived in GMK when he essentially nuked the ground under his feet, didn't he?

[Malchik]

Hmm....he survived in GMK when he essentially nuked the ground under his feet, didn't he?

Even a TNT blast can produce a mushroom cloud. Godzilla didn't nuke the city.

[Chimpbot]

Also the heat of the nuke is equal to the Earth's core IIRC, and I think Godzilla will be burn alive maybe? Could other Toho monsters surrived a nuke like SpaceGodzilla?

They produce temperatures of around 10,000 degrees, but only for the first couple seconds.

Would he survive a direct impact? Probably not. Godzilla '84 did, however, address this very topic; nuking him would simply be out of the question. While Godzilla may be a "walking atomic bomb", he's certainly far more controlled than an actual atomic blast; the bombed area would be rendered uninhabitable and the fallout could easily drift to populated areas, depending on the weather patterns.
This method of stopping him could easily cause far more long-term damage than anything else.

[miguelnuva]

didn't he absorb a nuclear bomb to get to 100 meters? anyway yes he would survive it would be like adding gas to a fire. either he becomes stronger or he goes into meltdown either way he'll survie the explosion.

[Toxic Toast]

The first is the fact the DT behaves nothing like a black hole in practice.

*shrugs* Lasers and masers don't fire visible explody beams, in practice. Many of the effects used to depict the Dimension Tide are different than what you'd expect from an actual black hole over Earth, but it's still stated to be and intended by the filmmakers to be a black hole.

Volcanoes release their energy over hours or days.

Indeed. And how long was Godzilla inside Mt. Mihara?

Godzilla '84 did, however, address this very topic; nuking him would simply be out of the question. While Godzilla may be a "walking atomic bomb", he's certainly far more controlled than an actual atomic blast; the bombed area would be rendered uninhabitable and the fallout could easily drift to populated areas, depending on the weather patterns.
This method of stopping him could easily cause far more long-term damage than anything else.

I'm sorry, I don't remember if this exchange is from the original or localized version of the film. I wonder, because it seems like a very flawed way of looking at the situation. Godzilla is like a walking atomic bomb that keeps going off. A single nuke could only be used once, against a single city. Godzilla can walk to a city and destroy it, then walk to another city and destroy it, then walk to another city and destroy it, then walk to... well, you get the idea. Atomic weapons have been detonated above ground more than a few times; the potential risk that maybe the fallout could make some people sick is far less than the near-certainty that Godzilla will continue to cost countless lives.

Throughout the Heisei and Millennium series, it is Japan's fondest wish that Godzilla would drop dead. Look at all the weapons they came up with to kill him: enormous mechs, man-made black holes, bacteria that eat nuclear energy, cannon that create absolute zero. I know modern Japan doesn't possess nuclear weapons, but it would be far easier to develop them (and probably easier still to convince the U.S. to drop a few on the big G) instead of inventing all this crazy crap. Their actions don't make any sense if all they need to do is nuke Godzilla while he's on a remote island and end his threat forever.

The Futarians almost definitely have nuclear capability and certainly aren't concerned about accidental damage to Japan, but what do they send back in time to kill Godzilla? A giant cyborg.

There are various alien races whose goal includes killing Godzilla. They have the technology to span the stars, but not to invent something mankind figured out back in the '40s?

Do all these people want to lose? If nuclear weapons were effective against Godzilla, it would be completely ridiculous for everyone to repeatedly forgo using them.

[Toxic Toast]

That's true, but after checking out that part of The Return of Godzilla I see it's not the only reason. The character who declines the use of nukes after a heated discussion, Prime Minister Mitamura, gives one of his reasons as "we have no proof that nuclear weapons will work."

This is just my interpretation, but I feel that Godzilla's revival by a nuclear airburst after the Super X had effectively defeated him was confirming that Mitamura wasn't just sacrificing lives for principles and that using nukes against a nuclear monster is generally a bad idea.

Anyway, Heisei Japan's reluctance to employ nukes doesn't carry over to other organizations like the black hole aliens and Futarians. Those groups believe that killing Godzilla is essential to their survival. If nukes would do the job, why don't they use them? (of course, you could always say "because there would be no movie if they figured it out," but I would like to believe that these enemy groups are not staffed by total idiots)

[Malchik]

This is just my interpretation, but I feel that Godzilla's revival by a nuclear airburst after the Super X had effectively defeated him was confirming that Mitamura wasn't just sacrificing lives for principles and that using nukes against a nuclear monster is generally a bad idea.

Yes, but what you are saying is flawed. Godzilla was revived by fallout. Never have we seen a nuclear detonation on Godzilla. Not once. An atomic blast can reach well over the temperature of the sun. That's over 6000 Kalvin. An atomic blast literally converts atoms back into an energy stage. And your missing the whole point behind Return of Godzilla and most of the Heisei series. Using such destructive devices breeds monsters. Godzilla was created twice in the King Ghidorah time line (read the Heisei time line theory). Destroyah was birthed the same way Godzilla was through an even more horrifying technology. Almost everything they did to destroy Godzilla had repercussions. If you use a nuclear device, you'll simply birth another more powerful monster.

Japan is holding out on the nuclear weapons from principle and this fear.

[Killswitch]

No. Not a direct hit. Not even a semi-near miss. Anyone that thinks otherwise has no grasp of the power of a nuke. The sheer force of the explosion would rip him apart.

I agree! Especially with the power of modern nuclear weapons.

[KaijuSapian]

The Heisei version of Godzilla was able to survive for days being submerged in a magma tube with the weight of a tectonic plate on top of him, only reemerge later from Mt. Fuji. The pressure and combined heat done there must have been absolutely immense, yet he walked out fine. Clean as a whistle. Not saying this counts as evidence to support he could survive a nuclear weapon, but it does show just how durable he really is. Its a testament to just how hard he is to kill.

[miguelnuva]

the earth's magma is hotter then the surface of the sun and Godzilla can absorb energy so Heisei atleast can survive it.