A Brief History of Quetzalcoatl as a Monster

The Mexican hero/god Quetzalcoatl has a long and complicated legacy in the history and mythology of Mesoamerica but a surprisingly short one in global popular culture. Over the centuries, he has appeared in many forms and gone by many names, all some variation on "Feathered Serpent" and the worship of a plumed snake god goes back thousands of years and is one of the constants that run through most of the cultures of the region. However, unlike characters from Greco-Roman, Norse, or even Egyptian mythology, Quetzalcoatl hasn't really made his way onto the pop-cultural landscape in a big way. That said, the Feathered Serpent has made a few interesting appearances over the years, and his monstrous interpretation in City of the Gods: The Return of Quetzalcoatl is far from the first time he has appeared in a modern sci-fi or horror context.



Quetzalcoatl as a monster is kind of a no-brainer. The fact that it hasn't really appeared much in movies and television is more a tribute to Hollywood's laziness and cultural myopia than anything else. A "feathered serpent" pretty much guarantees you a cool monster and one does not have to search far to find hundreds of interesting and monstrous visual representations of the god in Mexico alone. Even a brief read into his histories reveals several rich back stories heavy with tragedy and story potential. A handful of movies and TV shows have made use of the character over the years with mixed success and never in any real depth.

From The Flying Serpent. Quetzalcoatl makes a gravity-assisted kill.

An interesting early appearance is in the 1946 film, The Flying Serpent, if only because monster films were few and far between in the '40's. In this film, a demented archeologist discovers Quetzalcoatl, the "Killer Aztec Bird God," and discovers that he can sic the monster on his enemies by planting the creature's feathers on them. The ensuing horror leads his daughter to make the historically obtuse comment, "I wish there was no such thing as an Aztec Indian!" The small, turkey-like creature in this movie leaves a whole lot to be desired and the monster usually travels by zipping down a clearly visible line at its enemies.

From Star Trek: The Animated Series

Amazingly, Quetzalcoatl managed to escape the 1960's without appearing in a Japanese-style giant monster movie despite being so very kaiju-friendly. Mexico did not go in the direction of other countries like Korea, England, Italy, and jump on the '60's giant monster bandwagon. It's a sad thing that we didn't get to see lucha libre wrestlers in rubber costumes duking it out in a miniature Mexico City set. The Feathered Serpent did, however, appear in an episode of the animated Star Trek series.

He made his next and to-date greatest movie appearance in the 1980 horror film Q: The Winged Serpent, which avoided the difficult issue of people having to say, "ket-zal-ko-atul" when they were in line to buy their movie tickets. Q is a schlocky but fun exercise in horror exploitation and features a winged-serpent (not feathered) that has made its nest in a Manhattan skyscraper. This version of Quetzalcoatl was beholden to wild-eyed Aztec cultists. The monster in this movie is a little disappointing and has none of the Mesoamerican pizazz you would expect from the character. This Quetzalcoatl doesn't even have feathers but instead leathery reptilian wings.




Decades later, in the wake of the disappointing American Godzilla movie, there was a rather good animated spin off series that managed to capture the feel of old-school Japanese Godzilla movies. It pit the spawn of the American Godzilla (now with Atomic breath and a more appropriate attitude) against a stable of new giant monsters. One of which was a spin on Quetzalcoatl. In the "Bird of Paradise" episode, Quetzalcoatl was nesting in a Central American volcano and was appropriately feathered, although red. At the very least, this incarnation of the monster brought it tangentially into the Godzilla universe and is the character's first honest-to-goodness appearance as a genuine kaiju.

Finally, in 2008, we have the SyFy movie, The Lost Treasure of the Grand Canyon, which is all kinds of bad. It is not bad in the mind-bogglingly self-aware sort of bad like Sharktopus or Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus; it's just regular bad. In this period movie, archeologists discover a lost Aztec city in the Grand Canyon (!), guarded by, you guessed it, Quetzalcoatl. This version of the monster is vaguely avian, vaguely reptilian and vaguely mid-1990's-CGI looking. Again, kind of monochromatic with no feathers.



In handling the character in City of the Gods, my goal was to reconcile the major mythic and historical interpretations of Quetzalcoatl into one character. I wanted to tell a kick-ass giant monster story, but also to make use of the hero's deep and often tragic history. While mythology is very hot right now in movies, books, TV, and video games (seriously God of War, Percy Jackson, Clash of the Titans, Thor and many more on the way) usually this is drawn from the Greek or Roman tradition. With City of the Gods, I really wanted to deal with a characters and situations that have been overlooked by pop culture. Hopefully you'll find it to be a fun and satisfying sci-fi romp but also one that does justice to this great character from world mythology.



Patrick Garone
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