A bunch of nerd friends and I were having a debate on the new Galactus. Without spoiling anything, the character underwent a major change (and a bit of retconning) in this week’s Ultimates #2. He went from being a supremely powerful cosmic threat to…uhm, that thing he is now (that I won’t reveal so as not to spoilarz you). Then again, was Galactus ever that much of a cosmic threat? Sure, he ate the occasional planet every now and then, but he got his ass handed to him every time he tried to eat Earth. During the debate, one of my friends said, “Galactus is just a cosmic jobber! It’s about time they made him interesting.”
As a fan of pro-wrestling and comics, I loved that he combined those two worlds. And he has a point. Galactus was beat up by his former herald, the Silver Surfer — a low-level employee! Reed Richards (Mr. Fantastic of the Fantastic Four) scared off Galactus by showing him the Ultimate Nullifier. He didn’t even have to fire it up or shoot out a warning blast. Galactus turned tail at the mere sight of a weapon. If that doesn’t scream galactic pussy then I don’t know what does.
To keep going with the analogy, Galactus eating random planets is like getting a WWE win on SmackDown or a pay-per-view pre-show. In the Marvel Universe, that’s pretty much all Galactus has ever accomplished. He’s never gotten the comics equivalent of a big win on WWE Raw or a PPV main event victory. As large as he is and as menacing a headdress as he wears, it appears that Galactus is nothing more than a giant, purple jobber. Has he ever posed a real threat to the heroes of the Marvel Universe? Will he ever? In the immortal words of the late, great Gorilla Monsoon, “I find that highly unlikely.”
What’s your take on Galactus? Is he a menacing cosmic force? Or the comics equivalent of Mark Henry? Leave a comment and let me know (please!).