Marvel Just Revealed The Awkward Truth About Galactus
Galactus was introduced in 1966 as a godlike threat, but his most recent comic appearance suggests even Marvel's heroes are over him.
Warning: this article contains spoilers for Fantastic Four Antithesis #4!
Galactus was once one of the most feared entities in Marvel Comics but now... not so much. It isn't necessarily that the Devourer of Worlds' power has diminished since his first appearance, just that Galan of Taa has now been defeated many times and in many different ways. So much so, that even the heroes have taken notice of their newfound ease when dealing with this galactic threat. The heroes of Earth have gotten so familiar with the near-omnipotent villain that the awkward truth is he just isn't as big a deal as he used to be (despite still being physically enormous).
But it's not just the heroic quartet who have taken Galactus down a peg. Galactus has lost to Thanos, the Silver Surfer, and even Squirrel Girl! The enormous villain was once considered one of Marvel Comics' most terrifying, but with the development of new, more powerful Marvel villains such as the Black Winter, Galactus has been used as a punching bag too many times to keep his terrifying reputation. A villain who once threatened to devour the entire planet was recently captured by Doctor Doom in Dan Slott's run on Fantastic Four and used as a power source, one year before he was blown up by Gambit over in the alternate reality of Marvel Zombies: Resurrection #4, and only a few years after a gang of Earth heroes got together and changed his fundamental being, temporarily transforming him into the Lifebringer in Al Ewing and Kenneth Rocafort's Ultimates.
In Fantastic Four: Antithesis #4 by Mark Waid and Neal Adams, Reed Richards manages to wield the cosmic power of Galactus and become the new Devourer of Worlds. Mr. Fantastic believes that his responsibility as a hero is to get rid of Galactus forever by starving himself of energy, allowing the role to end with him. Galan of Taa, the mortal form of Galactus, is powerless against the new Mr. Fantastic, and Susan Storm and the other members of the team plead with Reed to abandon his mission. Sue exclaims, "don't tell me we're not strong enough to checkmate Galactus in some other manner," pointing out they just beat a being capable of defeating him and saying, "We've defeated Galactus before - we can do it again! There must be other ways to eliminate him!" It's clear from her words that the members of the Fantastic Four now truly believe that Galactus is a manageable threat, despite his apocalyptic depiction in the past.
Galactus is a classic Marvel Comic villain, but it seems the consensus (even among Marvel's writers) is that the not-so-jolly purple giant is not the threat he once was. Years of being used as the benchmark for every new cosmic power has lessened Galactus, and while books like History of the Marvel Universe have tried to underline his majesty, 2020 has seen Galactus outright killed by both Thor and the Immortal Hulk, cementing him as a problem for individual heroes in an industry that now saves it major threats for crossover event comics. It's a shame that Galactus has fallen so far since his first clash with the Fantastic Four, but Antithesis may mark the moment when even Marvel's characters stopped being truly fearful of the Devourer of Worlds.