Issue(s): Super-Villain Classics #1 - Galactus: The Origin
Cover Date: May 83
Title: "Galactus"
Credits:
Mark Gruenwald - Writer
John Byrne & Ron Wilson - Penciler
Jack Abel & Vincent Colletta - Inker
Mark Gruenwald - Editor
Jim Shooter - EIC

Review/plot:
The credits on this are not entirely clear. Obviously most of it is a reprint of Thor #168-169 and is therefore by Lee & Kirby. The credits only say "supplemental material by Mark Gruenwald, Ron Wilson, John Byrne, and Jack Abel".

This strange issue attempts to make Galactus' origin a little more majestic. Instead of being the sole survivor of a plague that wiped out a few planets, Galactus is now the sole survivor of an entire universe that existed before ours.

A lot of the dialogue has been changed, some of it seemingly for no good reason, but mainly to change references to a plague to instead refer to the collapsing of a universe.

This is a superior origin that also states that Galactus will someday give back to the universe much more than he ever took. It also shows that he created his spaceship-homeworld, Taa-II, as a tribute to the first planet he ever ate, that of the Wanderers that appeared in Thor #160. It's made out of the remnants of their world, but it's named after Galactus' own homeworld.

Not sure how to reconcile this with Thor #168-169 other than to say that Galactus must have been speaking metaphorically.

A'borning alert: this time an entire universe a'borning is told to beware of Galactus.

This is essentially a historical document and shouldn't really be judged as a story. Good art, though.

Quality Rating: C

Historical Significance Rating: 7 - the final, true origin of Galactus

Chronological Placement Considerations: I've decided to place this alongside the stories it is retconning although it obviously doesn't actually occur in '1969'. I'm only listing Galactus here because there's a weird glitch in my system where if i don't list any characters appearing, it doesn't show up in searches.

References:

• This issue draws on material from Thor #160, Thor #162, Thor #167, Thor #168-169, and Fantastic Four #49.

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? Y

My Reprint: N/A

I was not even born when this came out but thank you for sharing this with the world. I wish I could afford to find and buy this issue.

Galactus' origin was initially revealed in Thor (#169, in 1969) to be an astronaut/ scientist being changed/ mutated into Galactus because he passed too close to "the largest sun in the universe."

This was retconned a bit in Super Villain Classics #1 (1983). Super Villain Classics altered Galactus' origin by stating the "largest sun" was actually the Cosmic Egg and that Taa actually existed in the previous universe, thus establishing in Marvel canon that a universe existed prior to the current one, and that Galan/Galactus came from this universe.

However, his being from our universe isn't necessarily wrong by Lee & Kirby's story.

Gruenwald and Byrne just changed it later.

But if writers had instead followed Lee & Kirby's origin more directly, what system might the largest sun have been in?

I believe the largest known star is called UY Scuti, which has a radius estimated to be 1,700 times that of our Sun. If it took the place of our Sun, its surface would extend beyond the orbit of Jupiter, which is really just beyond imagining. It's about 7,800 light years from Earth.

Of course, back in Big G's early days (according to the first origin), things might have been different. And there probably are bigger stars outside our Milky Way galaxy whose size we can't yet (or maybe ever) measure.

But I really like the more "majestic" origin for one of Marvel's greatest characters, making him the only survivor of a previous Universe . . . and the idea that he will one day "give back" to this Universe.

I recently re-read the Thor 160s issues featuring Galactus for the first time in a long while, in the new "To Wake the Mangog" Epic Collection. You note, fnord, how most of this issue is a reprint of Thor 168 & 169. Thought it might be interesting to get a bit more specific about the sources of this improved origin story, so here goes. I'll go through "Super-Villain Classics" #1 page by page, indicating the sources of the material, as this is actually a fairly complex collage that draws on a number of other issues:

p. 1: Thor #160, p. 12 (different text, dialog removed)

p. 2: Thor #167, p. 18 (different dialog)

pp. 3-10: Thor #169, pp. 6-13 (slight modifications to narration & dialog; "He" is now "Galan")

last panel, p. 10 & pp. 11-12: new material about the "Sentience of the Universe," the starship, & the Watcher telekinetically causing it to crash

last panel p. 12 & p. 13: reordered (& slightly redrawn in at least one case) panels from Thor #168 pp. 15 & 16 with significantly altered dialog & one new panel

pp. 14 to top of 17: revised material from Thor #169 pp. 14-17

rest of p. 17: new material about Archeopia and the incubator plus a panel of the Wanderers from Thor #160 with all-new narration & dialog

pp. 18-19: Thor #162 pp. 16 & 17 (revised dialog & narration, with one panel expanded & flipped sideways to take the space of two deleted panels)

p. 20: top two panels are from Thor #162 p. 18 (same dialog, different narration); bottom panel is from same issue p. 13 (revised & expanded narration)

p. 21: first panel is from Thor #162 p. 13 (different narration); second is from same issue p. 18 (dialog deleted); third is from same issue p. 15 (added flying Galactus figure, different colors, deleted Odin dialog, & different narration)

p. 22: new panel (?) + Taa II panel from FF #49 (minus Human Torch & dialog; new narration & revised background/colors)

p. 23: Thor #160 p. 13 (completely different dialog with idea that Galactus will "one day give back to the universe -- infinitely more than I have taken from it")

(You could add the Watcher and the Wanderers to characters appearing, and the "Inbound References" could be expanded as my notes indicate. In short, you've also got material from Thor #s 160, 162, & 167 as well as one modified panel from FF #49 here.)

Thanks, Instantiation. I've added all those issues as References. And i appreciate your highlighting of the changes; i didn't really do this issue a lot of justice since it's more of a Handbook entry, but maybe one day i'll come back and lay out all the modifications that were made to Galactus' origin here.

Regarding Characters Appearing, the way i view this issue is as a flashback with a framing sequence. At the beginning and end of the story, Galactus talks to the camera. So that's why he counts as a Character Appearing. The rest of the issue, being flashback, doesn't count for that purpose.

See what you're saying -- makes sense. Had fun tracking down those panels and thought I might as well share my findings. The changes really do make Galactus far more intriguing, so I've always prized this unusual issue.