Galactus For Beginners
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Who is Galactus?
Galactus is the oldest living entity in the universe. In fact, he is older than our universe – he is the sole survivor from the universe that existed before our Big Bang. In his previous existence, he lived a life not unlike a human, but reborn in our universe, he is a God with seemingly limitless powers who is forced to devour living planets to receive the sustenance he needs to survive.
Because his existence is so far removed from that of any other inhabitants of this universe, he is beyond our concepts of “good” and “evil”. Billions upon billions of lives have been lost as a result of his feasting upon their planets, but he has no malice toward those beings, he simply does what he must to survive. The lives of those who live on the planet he consumes mean no more to him than the micro-organisms who live on our food mean to us.
Galactus was created by writer Stan Lee and artist Jack Kirby and made his debut in Fantastic Four #48 in 1966. For the first ten or so years after that he mostly just appeared in the pages of Fantastic Four and Thor, but eventually he became a popular character showing up in almost all corners of the wider Marvel Universe, especially the Cosmic Marvel Universe (the stories that take place in outer space).
Why do I care?
I always struggle when I try to explain why Galactus is my favorite fictional character, but I guess I mostly just love the idea of this giant God-like being traveling around in space in an absurd pink costume, so far removed from any life I can relate to. And I love the way when he shows up in a book, everyone knows they don’t stand a chance and that he is way out of their league. I find it interesting how he is such a huge threat to everyone, but isn’t really a villain or a hero. And I find his lonely existence heartbreaking and I love to see when he does make a connection with other beings.
Why does he look human?
Good question, Rob. But those are the kind of details yo have to read the books or this blog to find out. In John Byrne’s “Trial of Galactus”, it explains that he only looks that way to us and that other alien races see him differently.You can read more about that in my post WHAT DOES GALACTUS LOOK LIKE?
http://galactusimperative.blogspot.com/2011/10/what-does-galactus-look-like.html