Galactus



""Of all the creatures in the vastness of the Universe, there is none like me. I was present at the birth of the Universe, and I shall be there at its end. Though I ravage worlds to live, I bear no malice toward any living thing. I simply do what I must to survive. And why must Galactus survive? For, no matter how many worlds I devour ... How many civilizations I destroy ... It is my destiny to one day give back to the Universe – Infinitely more than I have ever taken from it. So speaks Galactus!""

- Galactus

Galactus is a Marvel Comics super-villain created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. He first appeared in Fantastic Four #48 (March, 1966).

Sole survivor of the universe existing before the Big Bang, Galactus is perhaps the most feared being in the cosmos. Untold billions of years ago, he was born the humanoid Galan on the planet Taa, a wondrous paradise of scientific and social achievement; however, his universe was in its final stages, with all matter plunging towards a central point via the "Big Crunch", collapsing into a new "Cosmic Egg", a sphere of disorganized, compact primordial matter. Galan, a space explorer, discovered a radiation-plague threatening all of Taa. Though he was initially scoffed at, the truth became clear as the people of surrounding planets perished. Despite the efforts of Taa's greatest scientists, no cure could be found, and the population began to die off. Galan convinced the handful of remaining survivors to die gloriously by flying a starship into the blazing cosmic cauldron. The others were killed by the intense radiation, but Galan was filled with new energy and saved by the Sentience of the dying universe. The sentient energy spoke to Galan as it brought him into the Egg.

With the next Big Bang, the Cosmic Egg matter exploded outwards, eventually condensing into stars and planets. The future Galactus and his starship were re-created simultaneously with the embodiments of Eternity and Death, though he drifted inert for billions of years while new life began to populate the universe. The starship crashed on an unnamed planet, where Ecce The Watcher saw its occupant emerge as raw energy. Ecce recognized the danger the nascent being would pose and could have destroyed him then, but instead chose to abide by his oath of non-interference. Launching his ship back into space, the being ejected its lifeless companions into the void, there to drift in endless flight. He then created a suit of armor to harness and regulate his awesome energies, and transformed his ship into an incubation chamber, where he spent countless centuries evolving into his current form. Eventually his craft again fell into orbit around a verdant planet, Archeopia. The advanced natives scanned the craft, detected its awesome energies, and wisely left it undisturbed.

Galactus initially went centuries between feedings, seeking out uninhabited worlds that could support life; but he gradually hungered more frequently, and began consuming inhabited worlds if he could find no others. He rationalized his actions by deeming himself a higher being, a belief made easier after learning of a prophecy that he would eventually compensate for all his destruction. In addition, he eventually encountered Eternity and Death, and the three beings hypothesized that Galactus represented a balancing force between the two opposites.

Lonely, Galactus created a being in his own image; however, while Galactus was content to survive, his creation craved conquest. The creation, becoming known as Tyrant, battled his creator in a struggle beyond description. Galactus eventually triumphed, possibly aided by the Spinsterhood order of women warriors, banishing Tyrant to parts unknown. Since then, Galactus has used many mindless servants, chief among which are the Punishers, possibly living beings enslaved or created by Galactus. Eventually, the world-devourer realized it was more efficient to send a herald to seek out worlds for him. His first herald was eventually cast out and imprisoned, presumably due to its corrupt and violent nature. This former herald, the Fallen One, escaped many times over the millennia, each time heading directly after its previous master, who always defeated it.

Galactus threatened to devour the planet Zenn-La, but was persuaded by native Norrin Radd to spare it in exchange for becoming a new herald. Galactus transformed Radd into the Silver Surfer, suppressing his morals so that he would lead Galactus to inhabited worlds when necessary, such as the planet of the symbiotes and the Kree planet Tarsis. The Surfer once even led Galactus into ending the threat of the murderous warlord Kallreich the Unconquerable by consuming a world he had invaded. When the Silver Surfer brought Galactus to Earth, despite the efforts of Uatu The Watcher to hide the planet, Alicia Masters reached Norrin's long-submerged emotions, convincing him to turn against his master. Galactus had easily overpowered the Fantastic Four, but the Surfer's power delayed Galactus' meal long enough for Reed Richards to present him with his first defeat. Uatu sent the Human Torch to Galactus' worldship to retrieve the Ultimate Nullifier, a device allegedly having the power to destroy even mighty Galactus; Reed used it to force him to spare Earth, but Galactus punished the Surfer for his betrayal by trapping him on Earth.

Soon after, Galactus sensed abundant energy sources within the enigmatic Black Galaxy, but Galactus was distracted when Dr. Doom usurped the Silver Surfer's power and crashed into Galactus' barrier; sensing this disturbance, Galactus scanned Doom, but found him beneath his notice and sent him back to Latveria. Galactus soon sent his Punishers to retrieve the Surfer from Earth; the Fantastic Four held it off long enough for the Surfer to escape into the microverse. Galactus forced them to help him find the Surfer, who located an uninhabited planet for him, after which he left the Surfer trapped on Earth for easy future location.

Galactus currently has a daughter, Galacta, who suffers from the same hunger issues that he has, but chooses to prevent the destruction of most forms of life by instead consuming malevolent sources that would end up destroying life if left unchecked.

Comics

 * Super-Villain Classics: Galactus the Origin
 * Galactus: The Devourer

Storylines
 * Fantastic Four #48-50 - Also known as "The Galactus Trilogy"
 * Secret Wars
 * Infinity Gauntlet
 * Infinity War
 * Ultimate Marvel miniseries Ultimate Nightmare, Ultimate Secret, and Ultimate Extinction; collectively the "Ultimate Galactus Trilogy" (though the Ultimate version's proper name is "Gah Lak Tus"). The Ultimate Vision miniseries spun off from this also has to do with Gah Lak Tus.
 * Marvel Zombies
 * Annihilation
 * Bullet Points
 * The Thanos Imperative
 * Chaos War

DC Crossovers
 * Darkseid/Galactus: The Hunger
 * Superman/Fantastic Four: The Infinite Destruction
 * JLA-Avengers

Film

 * Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer

Video Games

 * Silver Surfer: Galactus makes a cameo appearance in the 1990 video game, sending the Silver Surfer to the Magik Domain to collect the Cosmic Device.
 * Marvel Ultimate Alliance: Galactus is the boss of the "Skrull Planet" level. The Silver Surfer appears to fight alongside the heroes, dishing out the damage while the player characters activate three consoles that will overload Galactus's machines.
 * Marvel Super Hero Squad: The Infinity Gauntlet: Galactus is the boss of Episode 8: Taste of a Throneworld. Instead of fighting Galactus, the player characters must feed him tacos and ice cream while avoiding his attacks.
 * Marvel vs. Capcom 3: The final boss of the game, Galactus takes up the entire right side of the screen. In order to reach this fight, the player characters must defeat two randomly-selected "Heralds": silver versions of the game's playable villain characters.
 * Marvel vs. Capcom 3: Same deal, except there's now an unlockable mode where you play as Galactus.

Western Animation

 * Fantastic Four
 * Silver Surfer
 * The Superhero Squad Show

Galactus is one of the Trope Namers for:

 * Planet Eater

Other tropes in these series include:
"Galactus: Your power is great, master of Apokolips. But if in this you think you see a weakness in Galactus, you see no weakness but your own."
 * Above Good and Evil: Galactus is neither good nor evil. He is a natural requirement for the universe. Where-as Eternity represents the aspect of Life, and Oblivion represents the aspect of Death, Galactus represents Equity, maintaining balance between the two.
 * Advancing Boss of Doom: Type B in Marvel Ultimate Alliance. The heroes must run from Galactus as he destroys the platform behind them with each step. Eventually ends in a Pivotal Boss fight.
 * Back from the Dead: Galactus was actually killed once in the Marvel-616 universe. The universe would soon discover that the death of Galactus would unleash Abraxas, the anti-thesis to the cosmic entity known as Eternity. He is a Multiversal Conqueror who immediately proceeded to destroy alternate universes and the Galactus that existed in each of them. It took the combined force of the Fantastic Four and Galactus' own Ultimate Nullifier device to defeat Abraxas and bring Galactus back to life.
 * Beam Spam: One of his more annoying attacks in Marvel vs. Capcom 3. Galactus fires energy beams from his eyes and all ten of his fingers, filling the screen with a barrage of unavoidable firepower. All the player can do is block and suffer massive chip damage.
 * Casual Interstellar Travel
 * Combat Compliment: Usually only in the face of incredible power, like when he got hit by Darkseid's Omega Beams.

"Narrator: A million and more alien eyes look upon him who is Galactus, and for each race the vision differs. For Galactus is truly no longer a being in the absolute, physical sense. He is as Odin named him, a force of nature. And each mind that views him struggles as best it can to perceive that unguessable force as an image it can comprehend."
 * Cool Helmet: The helmet of Galactus is easily his most recognizable feature. In Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, the cloud entity called Galactus takes on a familiar shape once the Silver Surfer reaches its center. The helmet itself becomes a prized possession of  in his Marvel vs. Capcom 3 ending.
 * His daughter Galacta also has a helmet modeled after his.
 * Cool Starship: Taa II, a ship as the size of a solar system.
 * Cosmic Egg: How he survived the last big crunch
 * Cosmic Entity
 * Defeat Means Friendship: After the combined forces of the Fantastic Four, The Avengers and Dr. Strange prevent a starving Galactus from destroying the Earth, Reed Richards shows the Devourer of Worlds mercy. In exchange, Galactus calls Richards "friend" before vowing that Earth need no longer fear his hunger.
 * Deflector Shields
 * De-Power: Reed Richards once built a weapon that stripped Galactus of the Power Cosmic, turning him back into the mortal Galan for a time.
 * Determinator: Tasked with finding a way to save Taa, Galan piloted his ship into the heart of a Big Crunch singularity as a last resort. Galan would not stop, surviving radiation that killed not only his shipmates, but most of the life in the universe. Eventually Galan gets the attention of the Sentience of the Universe, who merges with Galan to be reborn in the new universe as Galactus.
 * Galan became this again after being depowered. Initially considering his merging with the Power Cosmic as it seeks him out to be inevitable, he became inspired after seeing the people around him struggling against the inevitable to survive. He used the Four's teleportation technology to warp to another dimension in an attempt to escape the Power Cosmic. Galan knew it would find him again sooner or later, but he realized he had to try.
 * Doomed Hometown: The planet Taa, Galan's home prior to becoming Galactus.
 * The Dragon: Most heroes that try to fight Galactus must deal with his Heralds first.
 * Earthshattering Kaboom: In the comics, the battle between Galactus and Tyrant is said to destroy entire galaxies before its conclusion. In Marvel vs. Capcom 3, Galactus smashes the Earth between his hands if the player loses the final battle.
 * Enemy Mine: During Infinity Gauntlet, Galactus teamed up with Adam Warlock and other cosmic heroes to challenge Thanos. Later, Galactus worked with The God Squad to protect his food supply, not for the greater good.
 * Eye Beams: One of Galactus's most deadly attacks. In Marvel Ultimate Alliance, Galactus immediately knocks down any player character who attempts to fly.
 * Glowing Eyes of Doom
 * Green Lantern Ring: The Power Cosmic
 * Hand Blast: Galactus can project powerful energy blasts from his hands capable of knocking Darkseid off his feet.
 * Human Alien: Galan of Taa
 * Hyper Awareness: The Cosmic Awareness, which Galactus shares with his Heralds.
 * Idiot Plot: Pretty much every storyline he's involved in. He says he smart and advanced, yet he can't figure out that he could gain more energy by farming it, rather than just consuming it outright.
 * According to Annihilation, Galactus can only feed on cosmic energy, which doesn't exist in planets naturally - and the process which generates the cosmic energy requires the planet to be destroyed.
 * Immortality: Type I
 * Last of His Kind: Galactus is the sole survivor of a universe destroyed by the Big Bang. However, he recently conceived a daughter...
 * Life Energy: The life energy of planets is what keeps Galactus alive.
 * Mecha-Mooks: Galactus's Punisher robots
 * Won't Work On Me: In a big way. Galactus has even shrugged off Darkseid's Omega Effect.
 * But of course, Galactus himself is not immune to being No Sell'd.
 * One Hit KO: In Marvel vs. Capcom 3, Galactus will start using an instant knock-out attack when he's low on health. The only way to avoid it is to stun him before he can complete the long charge time for the attack.
 * Only Friend: Galactus' first post-Surfer Herald was the Xandarian Gabrial Lan, called the Air-Walker. He and Galactus became friends and its been insinuated many times that Galactus regrets not being able to save Lan's life.
 * Parental Abandonment: After creating Galacta and placing her on Earth, Galactus left for parts unknown to continue his own existence, with no intention of watching over how she developed. Galacta doesn't enjoy the fact that she's related to him, in fact she outright hates him because of what he does. However, in her greatest moment of need, Galactus shows Galacta that he still cares for her with what he would consider to be unconditional love by saving her from death by starvation.
 * Physical God: Considering that Marvel's standard gods need to Zerg Rush him to stand half a chance, this is probably an understatement.
 * Psychic Powers: His powers are beyond Human comprehension or imagination.
 * Reality Warper
 * Sealed Inside a Person-Shaped Can: Galactus is the can holding Omnicidal Maniac Abraxas sealed; he's so incredibly hungry that he needs to eat planets because most of his energy is going to keeping Abraxas locked up, and, as bad as Galactus is, Abraxas is worse. In another sense, the Galactus armor itself is a can; Galactus is said to look differently to each race that perceives him, and outside of the armor he's basically a blob of energy.
 * Sizeshifter: His physical size directly reflects his own strength and power. A severely weakened Galactus will be relatively humanoid in size.
 * Super Empowering: The Heralds of Galactus receive a portion of the Power Cosmic while they serve, usually granting them access to power greater than the majority of most Earth-based heroes. To put it another way, in the Galactus/Darkseid crossover The Hunger, the Silver Surfer hit a severely weakened Galactus with a full-power blast. Galactus shrugged it off like it was nothing and proceeded to beat the Surfer down in the dirt.
 * Superhero Sobriquets: The Devourer of Worlds, the World Eater, the Ravager of Planets
 * Super Strength: Virtually unlimited thanks to the Power Cosmic.
 * In the MURPG, it is straight-out unlimited. He can have as many points in whatever ability he wants, whenever he wants.
 * Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Another multi-universal devourer of worlds: Unicron the Dark God, the Chaos Bringer. When the Transformers' Marvel Comics series retooled Unicron's being and backstory, the similarities between Galactus and Unicron were so great that Unicron is often seen as the Transformers version of Galactus, right down to You Cannot Grasp the True Form. Unsurprisingly, this has led to many fanworks and fanwanks about a Galactus vs. Unicron showdown and their squabbling over worlds to devour. As far as motives go however, they couldn't be more different. Unlike Galactus, Unicron doesn't even need to eat worlds and only does it out of sheer hatred. Also, Galactus has to absorb biospheric energy from planets. Unicron literally just eats them and consumes their mass.
 * Teleportation: Galactus can teleport not only himself, but entire solar systems if he chooses.
 * Was Once a Man: Before merging with the Power Cosmic.
 * Weapon of Mass Destruction: During Annihilation, Annihilus planned to turn Galactus into a cosmic bomb capable of destroying all life in the universe and the Negative Zone.
 * The Worf Effect
 * You Cannot Grasp the True Form: From Fantastic Four V1 #262.


 * Subverted a bit, though; Galan is/was humanoid, so the Galactus that we see is perhaps closest to the real deal.