I understand that Galactus is a force of nature, beyond good or evil. What I don’t get is why as soon as his herald says he’s on his way the whole all the heroes and villains don’t drop everything to try and stop him. I have a memory of Dr. Doom helping the FF against him, but I’m not sure about that. Wouldn’t Dr. Octopus, The Leader, The Abomination, The Puppet Master, ect. have just as much stake in the outcome as anyone?
- Supervillains don’t play well with others.
- Supervillains tend to be very shortsighted about the long term (Doom is an exception).
- None of the villains you mentioned could do anything meaningful about Galactus. This is true not only for most villains, but most heroes as well. Daredevil, Luke Cage and Iron Fist are not going to oppose him. Spider-Man only shows up 'cause he’s so popular.
The first time the FF ran into him the Watcher cheated on his oath to help the Earth, or the world would have been gone. It takes superscientists, sorcerers supreme, Nth level mutants and cosmic beings to get into the game.
Those were just the first villains who came to mind. Brute force is obviously of no use against Galactus. The Leader has mental powers, though. I don’t think the Lizard qualifies as a super scientist, but what about Green Goblin? And sitting on their hands while Galactus prepares to consume the planet’s life force is beyond short sighted.
Norman Osborne is insane. When he’s the Green Goblin he enjoys terrorizing people, and an exploding jack-o’lantern is nothing to the Big Purple Dude. When he’s himself he’s a halfway decent businessman, but all (repeat: all) of his big plans fall to pieces eventually.
Mainly it’s a matter of the fact that it’s the superheroes’ comics and not the villains, so there is usually no interest on the part of the writer to involve them. Loki, maybe, or Doc Doom, even Magneto, but not the lesser beings. When DC comics had its last Crisis before Flashpoint and the New 52 reboot, bands of supervillains did band together, but not to stop the Crisis menace: they were involved in serious looting and trying to take over the main cities, however temporarily.
It might just be pragmatism on the part of the villains. They count on the superheroes to save the world just like everyone else does. Out of self-interest, they won’t get in the heroes’ way while they’re saving the world but they won’t see a need to offer assistance anymore than you or I would.
But as long as the heroes are busy saving the world and aren’t doing their usual crime fighting, the villains are going to take advantage of the opportunity and commit some crimes.
The only two times I remember Galactus attacking (Within my comic reading period) there was very little time to mount a defense. The only reason they won the second time was cause Galactus was almost exhausted.
Would, say, Magneto even necessarily be aware of what was going on until it was almost over? Or would he hope Galactus would be weakened enough by FF that he could swoop in after they were vanquished and be given the keys to the city (or world)? At the time he arrived on the scene wasn’t he the first comic character with godlike powers? I won’t speculate on who would win a fight between Galactus and Big G God, but what about a fight between Galactus and Satan? The Prince of Darkness might not take kindly to a cosmic force moving in on his territory.
Marvel’s answer to Satan, Mephisto, is really hard to predict. He might want to oppose Galactus, because if earth goes, he loses lots of potential future souls to beguile. But…if Galactus eats the earth, all the unsaved souls fall to Mephisto now, not later. He might take the long view…or he might just greedily slurp down the sudden windfall.
He tends to be relatively passive anyway. By and large, people go to him; he doesn’t come to them.
My guess is that most of the high-level villains, like Dr. Doom, would be boarding their escape rockets and heading for Shi’ar space.
Galactus and God? Stan Lee could wipe out Galactus without a second thought. I don’t know that Satan has ever made an appearance, but the ‘devils’ that have pretended to be Satan, like Mephisto? They wouldn’t stand a chance.
Nah, I mean the Devil of Christian mythology. The thing is, I don’t know that he has powers beyond tempting people to do evil. Of course since he’s not a material being he couldn’t really be destroyed by Galactus either. Maybe being able to assume different forms could help him. And the Devil of “Sympathy for the Devil” is one bad dude, although he pretty much gets others to do his dirty work.
Galactus has tussled with other primal forces of nature. Galactus’ ace card is that he comes from before the creation of our universe and is therefore above and beyond anything else in the universe.
I suspect if Marvel ever had them meet they would take the following approach: Neither can actually harm each other, so how could they fight? Can sunlight beat up wind?
Didn’t the sun take on the wind in one of Aesop’s Fables? Perhaps it would end up taking the form of a wager.
The reason I posted this, besides the fact that I’ve wondered about it for a while, is that last night I dreamed that Galactus had arrived to make a meal of our orb’s life force. He agreed, however, to wait until after the December holidays. He made this announcement on the big screen at Times Square while wearing a Santa Hat over his headgear.
Owen Reece might be able to send Galactus packing. Beyond that requires writer intervention.
At least according to some interpretations, Satan is King of all the material world. Galactus would only be following his commands. It’s like asking if Satan could have stopped Pol Pot: Satan sent us Pol Pot in the first place.