Today on 365 Reasons: “The Most Freudian Celestial Body of All!” or “Boy, That’s a Swelled Head, All Right.” One of Lee & Kirby’s weirdest creations!

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6/21/07

172. Ego, the Living Planet

That is a huge goatee. Honestly, gigantic. I can’t imagine. Truly, a majestic piece of facial hair.

Created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby and debuting in Thor #132, way back in the mid-1960’s, Ego is what his lengthy moniker explicitly describes: a living planet. He’s a big ol’ floating sort-of-head thing out in space. And he ain’t no dwarf planet; supposedly, he’s almost four times the size of Pluto. (Poor Pluto gets no respect.)

Ego was birthed in the Black Galaxy, a section of space that’s made entirely of organic matter. He’s encountered Thor and the Fantastic Four, and has nearly been eaten by Galactus a couple times. He’s been friendly, he’s gone insane, he’s been blown up, yadda yadda, but hey, he’s still kicking (metaphorically).
From Kirby’s brain to your comics page:

Strange. Bizarre. Kooky. Brilliant.

Ego has complete control over his entire structure, so he can easily produce vegetation, or little life forms to fight off invaders, or tentacles. He can also “absorb” (read: eat) people, if he wants. He’s massively powerful, and scarily wondrous. I love him. I would hate to meet any of his siblings (I don’t know if there’s been an Id, but I know Tom DeFalco introduced a Superego of some kind, back in the day).

But yeah, sentient planet. There’s a mad idea for you!

Ego recently popped up in Marvel Adventures: Avengers #12, where he tried to be a pimp and hit on the Earth, but she wasn’t havin’ none o’ that, yo:

God bless you, Jeff Parker. Ego was marvelously portrayed here as a creepy older dude completely full of himself (hence “Ego,” I suppose) trying to “mack” on a “chick” far out of his league. Beautiful.

Here’s to more Ego appearances!

Here’s even more info on Ego, courtesy of the Marvel Directory. (Woo! Got through it without a “leggo my Ego” joke.)

Question for You, the Reader!:

Who is the bigger ladies’ planet– Ego or Mogo?