Galactus is undoubtedly one of the most fascinating villains in Marvel for his enormous power and hunger that makes him devour entire planets.
Attention SPOILERS of the Marvel comic Fantastic Four: Antithesis #4
When Reed Richards becomes the new Galactus, he attempts to destroy the Eater of Worlds even if it means sacrificing himself. But when that is unsuccessful, before he returns Galactus to his original form, Reed changes him forever.
In the Marvel comic by Mark Waid, Neal Adams, Mark Farmer, and Laura Martin, a new threat called Antithesis managed to strip Galactus of his human form, once again becoming the Galán de Taa. After sending Antithesis to the Negative Zone, Reed Richards chose to use the stolen energy of the cosmic giant to become the new Galactus. The rest of the Fantastic Four are shocked to see Reed turn into the monster from another world.
Reed explains his plan while revealing that he became the new Galactus to change him forever. Instead of diverting the energy from the planets and destroying them, Reed reveals that he will choose not to eat, as his conscience will not allow him to kill millions of living things. Later in the Marvel comic, the team members come up with a plan to summon Galactus back to Earth. Reed decides to transfer Galan back to Galactus and returns to his normal state where he can use his elastic powers.
They give a piece of his conscience to the great villain.
Marvel proves that Reed’s plan works, as Galactus immediately heads to a planet with plenty of life. After contemplating a world that he would normally devour, Galactus chooses to leave rather than destroy it. While Reed’s efforts may seem small, by giving Galactus a bit of his conscience, he saved millions of alien lives that would have ended in an instant with the villain’s arrival on his planet.
As Richards mentioned, Galactus’ new consciousness won’t stop him from devouring planets to feed his hunger. But at least now he questions his decision to destroy an entire world. So we will have to be attentive to the Marvel comics to know how much one of its most powerful cosmic villains has changed.
