With the Fantastic Four gearing up to confront Galactus in the Fantastic Four: First Steps film, there’s plenty of chatter about exactly what role the World Devourer might play in the MCU. After all, fans spent years watching Thanos rise in power and reunite dozens of MCU heroes for an epic final standoff. Many want to see Galactus in a similar role, but he’d be wasted as a looming threat.
Galactus has no agenda, no goal, beyond his continued survival.
Every superhero movie needs a bad guy. That’s the tried and true formula, and Fantastic Four: First Steps shouldn’t be the exception. Fans already know that Galactus, the massive cosmic being known as the Devourer of Worlds, is set up as the film’s major threat.
Yet, to call him a ‘villain’ in the same vein as Thanos fundamentally misunderstands who and what he is. Galactus is not a villain with a philosophical agenda. He is a force of the universe, a being so powerful that entire planets are a mere meal, and First Steps needs to communicate that level of terror.
Galactus Shouldn’t Be the Next Thanos, He Should Be Much Worse
The MCU Must Embrace the Cosmic Horror and Unstoppable Force That Makes Galactus Truly Terrifying
Understandably, some fans are calling for Galactus to bring the sense of impending doom they felt with Thanos, who (both in the MCU and comics) took time to gather the Infinity Stones and centralize his power. It took the combined might of nearly every hero to bring him down, and on paper, Galactus seems to fit that bill perfectly.
To play off the Devourer of Worlds as some sort of methodical villain with an end goal of destruction completely misses what makes him terrifying in the first place. However, with the Power Cosmic and eternal hunger, every world and civilization is practically meaningless to a being like Galactus. The horror that follows him is something Thanos could never achieve.
The Earth, let alone the individual people who inhabit it, is infinitely small in comparison to Galactus. If he is the metaphorical boot of the universe, the entire planet is the ant cowering beneath it. To downplay that and turn it, instead, into a build-up that everyone has a chance to unite against takes away from what the F4 face.
Galactus has committed atrocities on a scale that most traditional villains can simply not even imagine. The number of deaths in the World Devourer’s wake is immeasurable. The combination of sheer, widespread devastation and the speed at which it happens is essential to bringing Galactus to new movie audiences. Just a few of his worst acts illustrate the point.
Galactus Isn’t a Villain (He’s a Cosmic Extinction Event)
The MCU Must Show That Galactus Doesn’t Conquer Worlds… He Erases Them Without Mercy
Galactus didn’t earn his ‘Devourer of Worlds’ title for nothing. He has destroyed countless civilizations across the Marvel Universe in his quest to sustain his immense cosmic energy, doing so by feeding on the life force and energy of entire planets. This is often done without regard for the sentient beings that inhabit them.
The earliest example of the horror Galactus can bring is the planet Archeopia, a peaceful and scientifically advanced civilization that was completely annihilated to facilitate Galactus’s rebirth, essentially being wiped out of existence to become fuel. Over the eons, worlds like Zenn-La and many unnamed planets have fallen, many of which tried to resist but were powerless against his godlike abilities.
There’s no way to sugar coat the fact that his actions have led to the extinction of billions of lives and sparked incredible fear across the universe. Entire civilizations have risen and fallen because of his hunger, with the only warning being the appearance of his Herald, the Silver Surfer. Galactus has no agenda, no goal, beyond his continued survival.
That’s the only way to correctly portray him on screen: a presumably unstoppable force who does not attack with a personal agenda and cannot be swayed by the bravery of heroes alone. He is not Thanos, or anything like him. He’s Galactus, an inherently unique and terrifying concept all his own, and that’s exactly what audiences need to see.
Consuming Planets Isn’t the Only Thing Galactus Is Capable Of
From Sakaar to Skrullos, the MCU Must Show How One Cosmic Hunger Reshapes the Universe
There’s no way around the idea that consuming a planet is bad news for anyone living on it. Although Galactus can technically sustain himself on uninhabited planets, and many of his Heralds do their best to find such worlds to satisfy their Master, the World Devourer has still taken untold lives.
MCU fans might recognize a few of the subjects of his greatest comic hits. Galactus consumed the planet Sakaar, which was both the setting for Planet Hulk and featured heavily in Thor: Ragnarok, taking many lives in the process. Additionally, to save his own life, he devoured the Skrull homeworld, Skrullos, which expanded a war already ravaging the universe.
Actually, consuming a planet is sometimes only the first wave of impact. If Galactus doesn’t manage to destroy the entirety of his species, they are left to fight for survival, often without anywhere to go. In the case of the Skrulls, that meant expanding to Earth and continuing with bloodshed that had already extended beyond Skrullos before its destruction.
Although he’s only a single being, Galactus wields the power to change the course of the entire universe with a meal, and rarely does he have any cause to consider the effects of his choices. He knows only his own hunger and the drive to satisfy it, and everyone else is at the mercy of that endless vacuum.
Galactus Must Be Established as the MCU’s Most Terrifying Force of Nature
The Fantastic Four’s Debut Should Showcase the Cosmic Horror That Sets Galactus Apart from Every Other Villain
To properly bring Galactus to the screen, it’s essential to communicate the idea that he is an existential threat far beyond ordinary villains. Conquest and revenge aren’t his focus. It’s survival at any cost. His presence should be terrifying, as it embodies the fragility of life itself.
In First Steps, the Fantastic Four are still new to the scene. They’re fresh, untested heroes, and they need to prove exactly what they’re capable of, both to the world and to themselves. The film cannot be the starting point of a Thanos-type threat, both because it’s the wrong fit for the team and because Galactus is something more horrifying.
Fans deserve to feel the full weight of the F4’s journey and the price of failure. To do that, Galactus must set up as a showcase of cosmic-level, incomprehensible fear. By giving Galactus gravity as an immediate threat that cannot be ignored, Fantastic Four’s debut will be unforgettable for old and new fans alike.
