Galactus is one of the most powerful entities to regularly appear as a villain in Marvel comics. Primarily functioning as a villain to the Fantastic Four, he’s truly a threat to the entire planet and all the life on it. This is because he is aptly named, the World-Eater -- he feeds off the energy and life of planets throughout the universe, and the planets are destroyed in the process. Using massive machines to harvest the energy he needs and a giant spaceship to travel throughout space, Galactus’s size goes hand in hand with the immensity of his appetite. He towers over his foes, and can easily strike down the vast majority of Marvel characters.
Originally, Galactus was a space explorer named Galan, who existed during the end of the universe that preceded the Marvel-616 Universe. As one universe faded out of existence, Galan merged with the universe’s sentience, and survived the Big Bang that kickstarted the new universe. This process gave him supreme cosmic powers, and a constant need to feed. This is not to say that he is unstoppable, however, because what comic book villain is? If the villains were never stopped, then the heroes could never win. That said, Galactus has been defeated more times than one would expect for a character who is so powerful. Granted, some of the victories in our list are through nonviolent means, but some of the losses that Galactus has taken are downright embarrassing. Here’s 20 of the characters who have defeated Galactus throughout comic book history.
20 FANTASTIC FOUR
Of all of the entries on this list, this one was probably the most obvious. The classic first appearance of Galactus ended in a face-off against the Fantastic Four. They didn’t exactly defeat him in combat, and they had a lot of help from Uatu the Watcher and the Silver Surfer.
When Galactus sent the Silver Surfer to Earth, the Surfer was convinced to spare the planet. While he fought off Galactus, Johnny Storm stole the Ultimate Nullifier. Reed Richards, armed with the Ultimate Nullifier, managed to convince Galactus to leave Earth. So, it wasn’t exactly like they fought him off, but they saved the Earth, so that counts for something.
19 SILVER SURFER
Silver Surfer has fought Galactus on a number of occasions -- we already mentioned how he’d fought against the World-Eater when the two made their first comic appearances. While this was an epic battle, the most epic occurs in an alternate future, where a renegade Watcher grants the Surfer a recharge of the Power Cosmic.
Surfer also gets Quasar’s Quantum Bands, and his power is multiplied. He is now so powerful that he is able to stop Galactus and nearly ends him. Granted, Galactus had been weakened by the Guardians of the Galaxy, but nonetheless, the fact that Galactus was at Surfer’s mercy is impressive.
18 ABRAXAS
Abraxas is an otherworldy paradimensional extra-universal entity that is capable of dropping any version of Galactus from any universe at will. Frankly, there isn’t a lot more that needs to be said, as a fight with Abraxas is over before it begins. Abraxas was released when the Galactus of the Earth-616 Universe passed away -- the being had been held at bay only by Galactus’s consumption.
Once released, Abraxas sent the head of a Galactus from another universe to the Fantastic Four. Quite a statement for a new villain to make. He does so in order to intimidate Johnny Storm, who knew the location of the Ultimate Nullifier. If Abraxas got his hands on that little device, he’d be able to collapse all universes and destroy reality itself.
17 KITTY PRYDE
When you’ve been defeated in the Earth-616 universe, why not try another one? That was the strategy Galactus ended up going with when he fought off the heroes of Ultimate Earth. Unfortunately for him, the Ultimate version of Mr. Fantastic came up with a brilliant idea -- to use the Giant-Man technology to grow Kitty Pryde to the size of Galactus.
The World-Eater was unable to land a hit on Kitty, who let every attack phase through her. He was also unable to block her attacks, and so she knocked him around until Ultimate Mr. Fantastic and Ultimate Thor managed to send Galactus into the Negative Zone.
16 SUPERMAN
Galactus’s heralds are usually powerful beings to begin with, and when he imbues them with the Power Cosmic, their powers are heightened exponentially. So, when Superman crossed into the Marvel Universe, you can only begin to imagine the power he would have had when he was drafted into being Galactus’s herald.
Unfortunately, Superman managed to break free of the World-Eater’s control. He gave up the Power Cosmic, but together, with Reed Richards, managed to reverse Galactus’s machines, drawing energy from the World-Eater and back into the planet he was attacking. In exchange for the fixing of the machines he needed to live, Galactus promised Superman and Reed that he would only feed on planets that had no life on them.
15 AEGIS/TENEBROUS
Aegis and Tenebrous are two Proemial Gods who have existed since before the creation of the universe and are therefore older than time itself. They were imprisoned on the prison planet, the Kyln, after an ancient battle against Galactus. When the Annihilation Wave was released, the Kyln was destroyed, and Aegis and Tenebrous returned to strike back at Galactus.
They easily defeated Galactus and Silver Surfer and then disappeared, having accomplished their mission. They eventually returned to seek others of their kind, only to discover that they were the only ones who had survived the destruction of the Kyln. After this discovery, they were defeated by Silver Surfer, who had upgraded his power with the Crunch.
14 TYRANT
This is a case of father fighting son, as Tyrant was created by Galactus. The two eventually came to odds, and fought all over the universe, destroying stars, planets, and whole galaxies in the chaos. Tyrant was eventually defeated by Galactus and banished to the edge of the universe.
He returned for a rematch, which Galactus conceded in the interest of not causing further destruction. Unsatisfied, Tyrant eventually confronts Galactus, and it takes the combined might of Silver Surfer and the Ultimate Nullifier to destroy Tyrant. However, the blast destroys Galactus’s body and his ship, as well. It is this apparent demise that leads to the release of Abraxas.
13 THE AVENGERS
In a scenario in which Galactus’s rogue herald, Terrax, has taken Manhattan hostage, the World-Eater found himself too weak to feed anywhere else but on Earth, where Terrax was making his stand. He arrived to confront Terrax, draining Terrax of the Power Cosmic and tossing him off the World Trade Center.
He builds a machine so he can feed off of the energy of the Earth. Before he is able to get the machines running, he is attacked by Thor, Iron Man, Wasp, Captain America, and Reed Richards. Ultimately, the group manages to defeat Galactus, but it’s hard to say they would have been able to if he wasn’t at such a weak point to begin with.
12 THE BEYONDER
During the original "Secret Wars" event, the Marvel heroes and villains were transported to Battleworld to partake in a contest that would see the various characters pitted against one another for the amusement of the Beyonder. He eventually appeared to explain the whole situation, and the various heroes and villains united to attack him.
The first direct assault came from Doctor Doom and Galactus, but the Beyonder disposed of them quickly. Galactus was knocked out and lost consciousness for some time, and though he did rejoin the fight eventually, he definitely had a more careful approach going forward. The Beyonder is aptly named, as his power is quite beyond that of Galactus.
11 MARVEL ZOMBIES
The Marvel Zombies Universe was an interesting one, indeed. In this universe, the zombie virus spreads to the superheroes and villains, who, once infected, are unstoppable. They eat all life on Earth, as the humans who have no superpowers simply don’t stand a chance against undead superheroes.
Eventually, once all life on Earth is destroyed, Galactus arrives to feed on the remaining energy in the planet. The zombies, who at this point are quite starved, devour the World-Eater before he can react. The zombie heroes and villains all gain some of Galactus’s powers and begin to spread across the universe, eventually devouring all life.
10 THE THING
We mentioned earlier how the Avengers and Fantastic Four defeated Galactus, and it’s true that it took their combined might, but it was the Thing that struck the final blow, having been shot at Galactus via a slingshot formed by Reed Richards’ body. However, other encounters with Galactus haven’t gone so well for the Thing.
Recently, a Franklin-controlled Galactus was attacked by the Thing. While it looked, initially, like the Thing might stand his ground for a bit, Franklin’s Galactus blasted the Thing in the shoulder. When the Thing learned who Franklin was, he surrendered, allowing Galactus to destroy him.
9 THANOS
Thanos has crossed paths with Galactus on a number of occasions, but the most famous is likely during the iconic Infinity Gauntlet series. Fans are familiar with Thanos at this point, who acquired all of the Infinity Gems to power his Infinity Gauntlet. With this, he was able to control the fundamental forces of the universe and assume an omnipotent status.
Galactus, disturbed by this sudden shift in the balance of the universe, allied himself with the various heroes of Earth-616 to attack Thanos, but was easily overtaken by the powers of the Infinity Gauntlet. Thanos has also been known to crush Galactus in between two planets, an attack that is not to be taken lightly.
8 ULTIMATE RICK JONES
In the main Marvel-616 Universe, Rick Jones typically has no superpowers. He is nonetheless skilled with a computer and very intelligent, and has been known to help out various heroes now and then. In the Ultimate Universe, however, Rick was eventually granted some radical cosmic powers.
He used these to separate Galactus from the Marvel-616 Universe from his Ultimate Universe counterpart, Gah Lak Tus. The two had been united when Galactus arrived in the Ultimate Universe and decided to merge. Rick Jones’ subsequent separation of the two World-Eaters left Galactus severely weakened, as you’d imagine getting ripped in half would do.
7 THE HUNGER
The Hunger is to realities what Galactus is to planets: it seeks them out, absorbing what energy it can, and destroys them in the process. However, he was unable to access the Earth-616 Universe without assistance. The assistance he gets? From Galactus, whose mind the Hunger managed to infiltrate and manipulate.
Eventually, the Hunger succeeds in entering the Earth-616 Universe, and immediately begins to consume Galactus’s ship and whatever energy was to be found. Between the mental manipulation and the consumption of his ship, the Hunger was able to strike at Galactus in a way that few other characters ever could.
6 KRONA
Krona is a DC villain, specifically one of the oldest enemies of the Green Lanterns. So, what is he doing fighting Galactus? Well, in yet another epic crossover, the Justice League and Avengers saw their universes combine. Krona was behind it all, In this event, Galactus ended up being confronted by Krona, who tore him to shreds in moments.
Later on, Krona was shown to have been using Galactus’s corpse as a sort of floating space-castle. That’s pretty metal, even for a rogue Green Lantern Corps Guardian. This character actually appeared in the 2011 Green Lantern movie starring Ryan Reynolds, but you may not have realized, as the character’s name was not mentioned on-screen.
5 AMATSU-MIKABOSHI
Amatsu-Mikaboshi is an enemy of the Greek and Asgardian pantheons, often facing off against Hercules and Thor. Having originated from the formless Earth itself, Amatsu-Mikaboshi is a demonic god as old as time. He’s taken out Zeus before -- in fact, at one point, he destroyed almost all the gods in the Marvel-616 universe, including Mistress Death, which meant that no one could end from that point on.
This allows him to take control of the dead Zeus’s corpse, which he uses to take down Galactus. It’s kind of convoluted, but the possession of the corpse of a god is certainly one of the more creative methods on this list.
4 IMPOSSIBLE MAN
Impossible Man isn’t a man at all, but an alien from the planet Poppup. It should be noted that the natives of Poppup exist as a shared consciousness and can take any shape or form they want. When Galactus showed up against the Fantastic Four once again, Impossible Man disguised himself as the Invisible Girl and tricked Galactus into eating the planet Poppup.
The shared consciousness lived on in Impossible Man, while Galactus apparently popped from a cosmic indigestion caused by eating too much impossible material. Fortunately for Galactus, he’d come back eventually. Unfortunately, he lost to one of the most annoying side characters in Marvel history.
3 FRANKLIN RICHARDS
We’ve mentioned how Galactus chooses heralds, but in this instance, it isn’t Franklin Richards who is the herald. Rather, Galactus is made the herald of Franklin Richards. Since Franklin has the power to shape reality at will, he resurrected Galactus, and the two formed an uneasy sort of friendship.
As Franklin is one of the most powerful characters in the Marvel universe -- and his power is essentially unlimited in scope and scale- Franklin could simply make Galactus cease to exist, if he so desired. He could also inflict any number of painful scenarios upon Galactus -- really, it’s better for Galactus that the two joined forces.
2 GRAVITY
A character known as Epoch resurrected Gravity after he fell, sacrificing himself for the greater good. After this resurrection, Epoch found himself the target of Galactus but fortunately, Gravity had not only been resurrected, but recently upgraded to the new Protector of the Universe, and therefore he gained new cosmic powers, which also augmented his original abilities.
He was able to use these new powers to find a way to channel energy into Galactus, essentially feeding his hunger. The World-Eater, no longer in need of sustenance, dropped his feud with Epoch, and went on his way. Though this wasn’t exactly a major defeat in combat, this was nonetheless a victory in that Gravity managed to steer Galactus away from his original intentions.
1 SQUIRREL GIRL
Another character who didn’t really fight Galactus, Squirrel Girl had probably the most peaceful confrontation with him of any character on the list. When she faced him on the moon, she managed to talk him out of his plans with some good old fashioned heart-to-heart conversation.
She managed to win his favor when he learned that she had defeated Thanos, and even offered her a position as his herald if she ever wanted it. With the MCU always expanding and Fox recently having returned the rights to Galactus, the time could be soon where the world is given this confrontation on the big screen. Don’t hold your breath, though.