The Devourer of Worlds, Galactus, has a secret name that confirms his true purpose in Marvel’s massive Multiversal lore. Thanks to Al Ewing and Javier Rodrìguez’s exploration of Marvel’s cosmology in Defenders and Defenders: Beyond, which also finally gave readers the origins of the enigmatic Beyonders, Galactus’ role in the Multiverse is explained in a simple but perfectly satisfying way.
In Defenders, Doctor Strange uses a spell to gather a group of former allies to protect the Multiverse from the threat of Carlo Zota, a scientist/magician who is traveling back in time without regard for the consequences. Strange’s team pursues Zota back to the previous incarnations of the Multiverse, as in Marvel’s cosmology, every iteration of the Multiverse (or “cosmos”) is destined to be annihilated by some catastrophe and then reborn in a different, but also similar, form in an endless cycle of death and rebirth. In issue #4 of the series, the Defenders arrive in the Fourth Cosmos, inhabited by the archetypal ideas that are expressed in the current cosmos (the Eighth) in the form of heroes and villains, locked in an endless battle. The most fearsome of them is, of course, Galactus’ ancestor.
Defenders: Beyond is the sequel to that critically acclaimed series. In issue #2, written by Al Ewing with art by Javier Rodrìguez, a special extra page reveals the names of all the archetypes that appeared in the Fourth Cosmos, explaining what heroes and villains derive from them. Galactus’ name is confirmed (as it was already revealed in Defenders #4) as “What-Must-Be” / “What-Can-Be“, an epithet that perfectly describes the dual nature of the Devourer: a force of absolute destruction that, however, is needed to fuel new creation.
Most Marvel fans will only be familiar with Galactus’ destructive side, as that’s how he was introduced and what made him hugely popular: the Devourer as an unstoppable creature that spells doom for entire worlds, driven only by the impulse to satiate his hunger. However, over the course of decades, Marvel tried to give Galactus a more defined place in its cosmology, making him one of the essential cosmic forces of the universe. In fact, all the energy that Galactus absorbed though his “feeding” will one day be given back in order to ensure the rebirth of the Multiverse after its inevitable destruction. The name of the Galactus archetype in the Fourth Cosmos perfectly expresses this: he’s the bringer of what can be, but there must be destruction before that.
The Fourth Cosmos showed the cosmic concepts that the heroes and villains would later come to personify, thus adding a lot of depth to Marvel’s mythology. Galactus‘ role in this huge picture has always been a fascinating and dramatic tale, one that is brilliantly explained by the Devourer’s true name, “What-Must-Be” / “What-Can-Be“, which also perfectly represents the Marvel Multiverse’s cycle of death and rebirth.
Defenders: Beyond #2 is available now from Marvel Comics.
