The Fantastic Four: First Steps Will Show An Important Part Of Marvel's Galactus

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"Your planet is now marked for death," warns the Silver Surfer (Julia Garner) in the trailer for "The Fantastic Four: First Steps." The Surfer's master, the immortal giant Galactus (Ralph Ineson), travels the cosmos and sustains himself by destroying planets and feasting on the resulting energy.

Galactus sounds like a real bad guy, huh? But not according to Ineson. Speaking to Empire for its cover story on "Fantastic Four: First Steps," the actor opined:

"I don't think Galactus is evil. He's a cosmic force. He's a god, of sorts."

Reading this, I smiled and nodded — "He gets it." Ever since his original appearance (in "Fantastic Four" #48-50, way back in 1966), Galactus hasn't been portrayed as a villain per se. He's undeniably a destructive force, but more of a morally neutral one, the way a natural disaster or a hungry wolf is. He doesn't plot evil schemes in the way a super-villain normally does, he simply consumes worlds for sustenance. He doesn't relish destroying mortal lives, but he doesn't lose any more sleep over it than you would for swatting a fly or eating meat.

Marvel Comics

Marvel Comics

It's not clear how deeply "First Steps" will delve into Galactus' backstory, but in the comics, he is literally older than the universe. He's from the universe that existed before the Big Bang that created ours; the Big Bang also remade the man once called Galan into Galactus. He's lived for billions upon billions of years, so what value could lives that don't even last a century hold to him? (Compare "Eternals," where the similarly ancient Celestials are only trying to destroy Earth to bring forth another of their own race.)

During John Byrne's "Fantastic Four" run, he added another wrinkle to Galactus' godly image. His purple, horned buckethead costume? That's not what Galactus actually looks like. As revealed in Byrne's "Fantastic Four" #262, different sentient species see Galactus as a giant of their own race clad in spaceman armor, because his true form is incomprehensible to such small minds.

Marvel Comics

2007's "Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer" got (rightfully) panned for ditching Galactus' classic look and turning him into a cloud. But depicting him so abstractly did at least suggest a primordial and inhuman force. "First Steps" is correcting the mistake of "Rise of the Silver Surfer" by giving us a Galactus with the (based on Ineson's comments) correct characterization and magic of Jack Kirby's character design.

The original "Galactus Trilogy" was the midpoint of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby's run on "Fantastic Four" (they wrapped at issue #102), but many fans often herald it as the run's greatest story. By this point in the series, the Fantastic Four had battled the monstrous Mole Man, the shape-shifting Skrulls, the proud Namor the Sub-Mariner, and many more strange foes. To top this, the Lee-Kirby duo wanted to create a villain who was something more than mere evil. 

In a 1993 foreword to "Marvel Masterworks Presents: The Fantastic Four" Volume 5, Lee recounted:

"We felt the only way to top ourselves was to come up with an evil-doer who had almost godlike powers. Therefore, the natural choice was some sort of demi-god, but now what would we do with him? We didn't want to use the tired old cliché about him wanting to conquer the world... That was when inspiration struck. Why not have him not be a really evil person? After all, a demi-god should be beyond mere good and evil. He'd just be (don't laugh!) hungry. And the nourishment he'd require is the life force and energy from living planets!"

In the 1987 documentary "Masters of Comic Book Art," Kirby added:

"I couldn't depend on gangsters [anymore as villains for my comics]. I had to get something new. For some reason, I went to the Bible and I came up with Galactus. And there I was in front of this tremendous figure, who I knew very well because I've always felt him. I certainly couldn't treat him in the same way I could any ordinary mortal."

If Galactus was a god, Lee and Kirby decided, he should have an angel serving him. Hence, the Silver Surfer, who becomes a fallen angel when, like Lucifer, he defies his maker. At the end of "Fantastic Four" #50, Galactus has been thwarted for the first time ever by the Fantastic Four. Part of that defeat belongs to the Silver Surfer, who betrayed his master to save Earth. Galactus shows a flash of all-too human pettiness by punishing his herald with exile:

"Since you shall be herald to Galactus no longer, I remove your space-time powers! Henceforth, the Silver Surfer shall roam galaxies no more!"

That pettiness is far more prevalent in Kirby's other greatest villains.

Galactus may be the greatest threat the Fantastic Four have faced, but their most relentless enemy is Doctor Victor von Doom. An (to understate it) egotistical and insecure man, Doom — according to Kirby — wears his iron mask to hide only a small scar. In "Fantastic Four" #57, Doom steals the Silver Surfer's Power Cosmic and boasts he is mighty enough to "challenge Galactus himself." In the end, though, Doom is done in by his own hubris in a way that the Devourer of Worlds never would be.

Marvel Comics

In 1970, Kirby left Marvel for DC Comics. He brought with him the idea for the New Gods, including the God of Evil and ruler of planet Apokolips, Darkseid. Though he doesn't dwarf skyscrapers like Galactus, Darkseid is as much a force of nature. In "Mister Miracle" #18 (the premature ending to Kirby's original work with the New Gods), Darkseid proudly boasts that he doesn't herald a coming storm — he is the storm.

DC Comics

Where Galactus is detached, though, Darkseid is sadistic. On Apokolips, joy is taboo and everyone lives under Darkseid's heel. When conceiving of Darkseid, Kirby wasn't looking to the Bible, though (no matter how Satanic Darkseid can be). Rather, Kirby was recalling his military service in World War 2, where he saw firsthand the devastated mess that Nazi Germany left Europe in. Darkseid's power draws from the same root as fascism; his ultimate desire is the Anti-Life Equation, or the eradication of free will. Yet, Anti-Life stays forever out of Darkseid's grasp, because no dictator can hold the reins of power forever.

Disasters like Galactus may be beyond mankind's control, but men like Doctor Doom and Darkseid are within our power to overcome.

"The Fantastic Four: First Steps" will arrive in theaters on July 25, 2025.