Decades before Marvel wowed audiences with wide-scale team-ups in Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame, there was Toho's Destroy All Monsters, which was at the time, the biggest crossover movie ever made. The classic 1968 Godzilla movie accomplished something that few films in the history of cinema have been able to achieve.

What's so noteworthy about Marvel's Avengers films is that they're so much more than just movies packed with big-name superheroes from Marvel Comics. They tie together various other Marvel movies and unite them for epic team-ups. Avengers: Endgame, for instance, included characters from Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, Ant-Man, Guardians of the Galaxy, Doctor Strange, Spider-Man: Homecoming, and Black Panther. Having all of these stories represented in one movie is perhaps the biggest part of Avengers: Endgame's appeal.

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The scale of Infinity War and Endgame is considered by many to be unprecedented, but there is one film that comes close, and it was released 50 years before Infinity War even hit theaters. In 1968, Toho released Destroy All Monsters, a movie which united Godzilla with Rodan, Mothra, Anguirus, Kumonga, Gorosaurus, Manda, Varan, Minila, and Baragon for a showdown with his greatest enemy, King Ghidorah. What's so impressive about Destroy All Monsters is that it's more than just a monster mash-up of Godzilla characters. It's a crossover of epic proportions that draws upon several Toho properties from outside the Godzilla franchise.

DESTROY ALL MONSTERS (1968)

Like the heroes of the Avengers movies, none of the kaiju were created for Destroy All Monsters. They all debuted in different films. Manda was in 1963's Atragon, Varan was the titular villain in Varan the Unbelievable, Gorosaurus was a foe of King Kong in King Kong Escapes, and Baragon was the antagonist in Frankenstein vs. Baragon. Kumonga, Minila, and Anguirus were supporting characters in previous Godzilla movies, and both Mothra and Rodan had their own solo films prior to meeting Godzilla.

Seeing so many monsters from different movies appear together on the same screen is what makes Destroy All Monsters such a fun film, even if it makes for a lop-sided final battle. While Thanos was able to give the heroes all they could handle at the end of Endgame and nearly win, Ghidorah's situation was far less optimistic. Ghidorah stood no chance against all of them, and the creative use of teamwork used by Godzilla and his allies -- such as the monsters holding down Ghidorah while Gorosaurus delivers a brutal kangaroo kick against King Ghidorah -- created one of the most enjoyable fight scenes in the history of monster movies.

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