Today, we look at how Marvel literally rewrote Jack Kirby and Stan Lee's origin of Galactus to change the Devourer's beginnings from another world to a whole other universe instead.
In Abandoned an' Forsaked, we examine comic book stories and ideas that were not only abandoned, but also had the stories/plots specifically "overturned" by a later writer (as if they were a legal precedent).
As you all know by now, Galactus and the Silver Surfer were introduced by Jack Kirby and Stan Lee (along with inker Joe Sinnott) in the pages of 1966's Fantastic Four #48. One of the fascinating thing about the story is that while we will never quite know for sure what kind of discussions that Jack Kirby and Stan Lee had in the creation of this storyline, there's one thing that we know and that is while Kirby was laying out the issue, he decided to take it upon himself to just add a new character without talking to Lee, as he determined that a being like Galactus would surely have a herald going ahead of him as he devours planets and so Kirby added the Silver Surfer to the story all on his own (again, we don't know how much of the story entirely was Kirby "on his own," but the Surfer was definitely all on his own).
The story was a sensation at the time, and Stan Lee quickly fell in love with this new creation, the Silver Surfer, and that led to what became a very aggravating moment for Kirby. Kirby had an origin in mind for the Surfer, but he never got a chance to give the Surfer this origin because Lee decided to give Surfer his own ongoing series in 1968 and it would be done by Lee and...John Buscema! Kirby was considered by Lee to be too important on his other projects to be used on this new series and so in Silver Surfer #1, Lee and Buscema came up with their own origin for the Surfer, which just really displeased Kirby.
Therefore, while I don't know for a fact that Thor #168-169 were a response to that story or not, it sure looks like it as suddenly, in the middle of Kirby and Lee's run on Thor in 1969, Galactus shows up just to tell Thor his origin for no real good reason except, I suspect, that Kirby wanted to at least dictate the origin of Galactus now that he had the origin of the Surfer ripped away from him. So in Thor #168, Galactus begins to share the story of his origin with Thor, and all we really know is that it happened a long time ago and Uatu the Watcher was involved somehow.
In Thor #169 (with Kirby inked by the great George Klein, in one of Klein's final works before his tragic untimely passing), we really get into Galactus' origin, as he discover that he was from an ancient, amazing world known as Taa...
And then, in a clever first twist, we see that Galactus' origin is basically a riff on Superman's origin, as Taa is about to be destroyed (although oddly enough, it involves some weird plague that really seems a bit on the goofy side of things).
And then, in the next big twist, we see that the being that later became Galactus led a group of four travelers on a spaceship into the sun and the travelers are all bombarded with cosmic energy, as the story basically mashes together Superman's origin with the Fantastic Four's origin...
The being that becomes Galactus was the only one to survive and he was transformed into a new powerful being, one that needed to absorb a great deal of energy to survive now. This is he final twist of the issue, as Watcher is there and he knows that this being is destined to become the Devourer and Uatu knows that he could easily just kill him now and avoid it all, but instead, Uatu decides to abide by his vow of non-interference (perhaps this is the reason why Uatu actually kept interfering in the future, because he regretted not acting then?)...
Okay, so that's the origin of Galactus. All is well and good, but then, in 1983, Marvel released Super-Villain Classics #1, titled Galactus: The Origin. Mark Gruenwald, that expert on Marvel continuity, oversaw the reprint, only now, Gruenwald didn't just REPRINT the story, he also EDITED the original Kirby and Lee story and added new art from John Byrne and Ron Wilson.
Now, Galactus' has a name, Galan, and instead of Taa being destroyed, it his whole UNIVERSE....
And when Galactus is transformed by the powerful energy, we get a new page where we see him contacted by, in effect, the spirit of his dying universe as he is part of the Big Bang of a new universe, the main Marvel universe...
Then the rest of the story follows the origin, with the Watcher (now no longer Uatu in this version, but his ancestor, Ecce) deciding not to interfere with this being who finally emerged after coming over from another universe during the Big Bang, but not before a page establishing again that it WAS from another universe...
Then there are some new pages showing us how Galactus built his base and his outfit and how he first ate a world (while also tying into some old continuity by establishing some other characters that had been introduced in other stories as being tied into Galactus' path of destruction), but the basic backbone of the story is Gruenwald adapting the Kirby/Lee story to do a number of thing (dropping the weird plague and making it just radiation) and transforming it from a dying world to a dying UNIVERSE and that has been Galactus' origin ever since.
Can you even imagine having the boldness to say, "I think I'll just rewrite Kirby and Lee" like that? Kind of impressive, really.
If anyone else has a suggestion for a future Abandoned an' Forsaked, drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com!