Capeworld Comics

Ah, the battle of the planet eaters, at last! This fight has been teased as far back as the show’s first season, but it kept getting pushed back and pushed back until now, several years and dozens of fights later, it’s finally here. It’s crazy to think we’ve had Goku vs Superman three times before Galactus vs Unicron, but better late than never! So, who is going to win? Both Galactus and Unicron are cosmically powerful beings of destruction. Eating planets is the least of what they’re capable of when they go all out. But I have to give the fight to the man in the big purple hat. Both Galactus and Unicron are powerful enough to threaten all of existence, but Galactus has a few things going for him that gets him over. The first is his knowledge. Before becoming Galactus, Galan was an inhabitant of the previous universe, a scientist and astronaut named Galan. Though Galactus claims that nothing of Galan survived the transformation into Galactus, that isn’t true, and a sliver of Galan’s humanity exists within Galactus. Galactus is one of the smartest beings in the Marvel cosmos, and that’s due to Galan. Galactus keeps and studies samples of the worlds he devours on his massive, solar system sized worldship Taa-2. He does not spare worlds unless he absolutely has to, but he is not incurious about life, and that’s the fundamental separation between himself and Unicron. Life, to Unicron, is just something in the way, but Galactus experiences guilt and regret over his role in the cosmic plan and dreams to one day give back more to the universe than he’s taken away. Galactus relates to, and thus understands, the cosmos in a way Unicron cannot. He understands himself and beings like Unicron in a way Unicron can’t, and that gives him an edge. Unicron will see Galactus as an obstacle to destroy, but Galactus will see Unicron as a problem to investigate and solve. Galactus also had an advantage in experience. Unicron rarely interacts with beings on his level, Primus being the usual one, but Galactus exists within a hierarchy. He’s fought beings not only on his level but above his level. For instance, during the original Secret Wars, he got floored by the Beyonder, and so invented a device that would allow him to absorb the Beyonder’s energy, which Dr. Doom incorporated into his armor. And speaking of Galactus’ technology, that’s another advantage he has over Unicron. Galactus is the Batman of Marvel’s abstracts, the Iron Man, if you would. His worldship, Taa-2, is essentially a giant fortress plus museum plus science lab, and Galactus can summon it to his side at will. Taa-2 contains technology that even Reed Richards struggles to comprehend. It contains energy detecting and converting devices to aid Galactus in devouring planets and armies of robot minions to keep planetary defenders at bay while Galactus is working, most notably his “Punisher” robot from the original Coming of Galactus story and his “Cat” from the original Secret Wars. Reed Richards was the one who gave the “Cat” its name, because he compared Galactus releasing it on the heroes to a human releasing a cat on a pesky infestation of rats. But the most important weapon in Galactus’ arsenal isn’t something he actually made. It’s the Ultimate Nullifier, one of the strongest weapons, if not the strongest weapon in the entire Marvel setting. It’s capable of destroying universes and abstracts with just a single shot. Sometimes, it only works at the cost of the wielder’s life, but this is an inconsistent feature, and even if we say that Galactus would destroy himself if he fired the Ultimate Nullifier, he can just create a conga line of servants to fire it, pick it back up, and fire it again. Even if you say that Unicron could survive a blast from the Ultimate Nullifier, it’s not going to be a blast that’s going to completely fail against him, and he’ll be bombarded with continually Ultimate Nullifier blasts while Galactus is beating on him with his own power. The final advantage Galactus has is in his vast energy absorbing abilities. Unicorn is a destroyer, but Galactus is a devourer, and Ewing’s Ultimates revealed that there’s no upper limit to Galactus’ absorption ability. It’s hard to think that a guy with innumerable genocides under his belt has mortality and restraint, but Galactus does. He does not eat unless hungry. A Galactus that freely gorges himself is a threat not just to his universe, but the entire multiverse. He can even absorb magic and once threatened to absorb all of Mephisto’s hell-realm. Could Galactus devour Unicron? That, I believe, is unlikely. In the pages of Rom, Galactus was once challenged by the titular space knight to devour the Dark Sun of Wraith-World, but the Dark Sun was so completely and utterly evil that Galactus was unable to do so, and Unicron is certainly comparable to the Dark Sun. But Galactus doesn’t need to eat Unicron to beat him.

 After all, you don’t need to eat a rotten apple to crush it. Galactus can just eat the universe around Unicron or even reach into other parallel universes and snack on them for a power boost. Regardless of who wins, I’m glad Death Battle is finally, after all these years, doing this fight. It feels as if the last great, classic who-would-win battle is about to get its due. It’s the end of an era, everybody, let’s hope that the next era is even better, just as the universe Galactus emerged in surpassed the universe Galan left.