Death of galactus

[Guest gthureson]

I just feel like ranting on serious long term continuity problems with the way they offed Galactus in the last Silver Surfer series.  I don't know if they retconned/brought him back from the dead somehow, and in fact, I even missed the entire arc where they did the deed.   But I do know how they did it.

 

Bit of backstory.  We all know that Galactus and Silver Surfer were born out of the pages of the Fantastic Four.   In more than one of those early FF stories, there is a mention made of what is likely the most powerful weapon known in the entire universe, and it is in the possession of the world eater, mainly because he is afraid to ever have it used on him.

 

It is called....the Ultimate Nullifier.  Its a funky ass space gun.   It shows up in Marvel every know then, usually in conjunction with a Galactus appearance, and here is the schtick with it.    If you use it on somebody, it essentially obliterates them not just from the current time on...but back throughout their entire life!   It will be as if they never existed.

 

Which is why eggheads like Reed Richards might have threatened Galactus with it, but he would never *actually* use it, because the consequences of blowing away Galactus with the Ultimate Nullifier are so mind-boggling far reaching and unpredictable that Very Bad Things are likely to happen if you did it.

 

Fast forward.   The Silver Surfer series.  I think it was the last *evil* Herald Of Galactus (a fairly bland guy with an ax or something) who got jacked up past Herald status through a funky Galactus-device gets his hands on the Ultimate Nullifier and blows away Galactus.

 

Galactus dead.  Not even he will live after being shot with it.   I think it was all part of the story arc where Nova gets killed (and damn it, I liked her).  

 

Here is the problem.  A former *Herald* kills Galactus with it.   Galactus and his entire lifespan (supposedly existing from the universe pre-dating the Big Bang) is completed obliterated.  Therefore, he never goes to Zenn-La, he never creates the Silver Surfer, goes to earth....hell, he never creates a single Herald, including the one who killed him.   Meaning....

 

....there is never anyone to shoot him with damned Ultimate Nullifier.   Ergo, Galactus is still alive.

 

What I want to know, is did they ever even try to explain this?   Or do they just not build Ultimate Nullifiers like they used to?   Did what the UN do change at some point, just so they could write this story?

 

And how did something like this slip past the editor, who is supposed to bring niggling little plot points like this to his writer when they send story ideas down the pipeline to him?   Was Silver Surfer just not high on the checklist because it wasn't X-Silver Surfer-X, and so it was just, "What?  Galactus...Ultimate Nullifer?  Sure, sure.....there are no mutants in that story, it doesn't matter you do..."

 

Anybody?

[Guest Sassquatch]

Ah yes...Silver Surfer #109.

 

"The Death of Galactus"

 

The Herald who snuffed Galactus was Morg.

 

Galactus' death was never given any other explanation in the pages of Silver Surfer.  But in later issues of the Fantastic Four, they suggest that Galactus is in an other-dimensional flux, and may have found an endless supply of cosmic energy in Hyperstorm, the grandson of Sue and Reed Richards.

 

In What If? 81, Galactus was killed by Age of Apocalypse X-Men survivors.  It has been well established that Galactus is a fundamental component of the Marvel Universe, and that the Marvel Universe ceases when Galactus ceases, so one assumes that the AOA Universe simply stopped one panel after the end of that forgettable story.

 

This was one of the most bullshit issues/events in Marvel history.  That says a lot right there.  This type of event should have been hyped to the Heavens but was barely promoted.  The funny thing is that Galactus has not appeared in normal Marvel time and that is an achievement right there.

 

This was just a bad idea with unclear results.  Galactus was the one guy that you could not kill and forget about in the next issue.  But apparently Marvel figured they could.  

 

This was one of the few times in Marvel that I TRULY felt insulted as a comic book fan after reading this piece of crap.

 

This was bigger than anything that could've happened in Marvel and it was given NO mention at all in the other comics or in the ads or even fuckin Wizard.

 

Truly insulting.

[Guest MaskedDanger]

After reading that post, I think my head just exploded.

 

But seriously, that's actually an incredibly interesting point, G. Time paradoxes always interest me, and given how long Galactus has been alive (pre-Big Bang, like you said) this one should be a doozy.

 

I think a kind of cool way they could have handled this (I know I'll be so incredibly alone on this one) blows Galactus away, he gets all cocky and badass. At very least he cracks a smile, something to show he's happy with his accomplishment. Well, the celebration doesn't last for long (two pages at most, maybe) when he suddenly hears a voice behind him...the voice of Galactus. Galactus incapacitates him before he can fire again and explains the exact scenerio that you did, G; in other words, no Galactus, no heralds, no one to kill Galactus. But, the universe, needing that balance that Galactus maintains and sensing the absence of one of the strongest, most intergral parts to its structure, re-creates Galactus--powers, memories and all--in the very next instant. After all, Galactus really didn't DIE, right? He was merely made to never have existed (and as G pointed out there's a case to be made that that didn't even happen), so it's not cheating to bring him back. And right before Galactus spreads the herald's atoms across a galaxy, Galactus says to him: "This universe needs Galactus. But it will exist fine without you."  

 

I don't know, it probably reads like a massive cop out, but I think it would have made an interesting end to the story. Plus, it doesn't eliminate the threat that the Nullifier poses to Galactus. As long as someone else uses it (not a herald) it can still whack him.

 

But on to the topic of what ACTUALLY happened, how did Marvel get around the policy of "death of Galactus equals death of the universe" that they held for so long? That's why Richards saved Galactus's life once, because supposedly if the big G died they the universe croaked with him. I remember the Elders of the Universe tried to kill him because they wanted to kill this universe and start another Big Bang so they could become creatures like Galactus, or something like that. Anyone know?

[Guest gthureson]

As far as I can tell, they just sort of swept it under the carpet because it happened in Silver Surfer, and the only other book where Galactus would show up in every now and then was FF.   If it doesn't happen in a Spider-man or X book, well, its not really that important of an event.

[Guest Sassquatch]

"But on to the topic of what ACTUALLY happened, how did Marvel get around the policy of "death of Galactus equals death of the universe" that they held for so long?"

 

Answer:

 

They never did.  It was a poorly planned event that COMPLETELY forgot everything that had been established for years.

 

Talk about forgetting continuity.

 

It was just laziness on Marvel's part and poor planning.

 

Again, truly insulting.

[Guest gthureson]

There are many reasons I would like to write comics.  One is that I am great with ideas and dialogue but generally suck at setting scenes and descriptions (so working with an artist would solve those)....

 

....but the other is that I tend to be anal about continuity and ramifications when you do stories like this.   Just like I got pissed about X-stories taking place in a complete vacuum despite Marvel's hyping about coherent universes, I got annoyed about Galactus getting dusted and it not mattering in the least in any other book in the line.

 

Bah.   Again, I say bah.   And a Feh for good measure.

 

Probably why I can't get into Marvel anymore except for Hulk (and even that is losing me by reverting it to Savage Hulk with Banner on the run) and I stick to Bat-books.