io9
Now that we've all given up on any pretense at a New Year's diet, it's time to celebrate some of the hungriest people in science fiction: Those so hungry, they could eat an entire planet. Not for these fine folk, the questionable pleasures of a Burger King Whopper or espresso chocolate chip cookie or several; instead, they'd rather slurp up every appetizing mortal-filled morsel in the universe. Those who want to feel thin should applaud our hierarchically-organized list of the three greediest bastards ever created.
#3: The Doomsday Machine: Okay, so this danger from a 1967 episode of Star Trek isn't exactly a person as much as a giant machine that consumes planets to fuel its own destructive rampage, but dude! Consuming planets! One of Trek's better fear-of-technology menaces, this particular planet eater gains extra points for destroying an entire starship and, according to a novel written more than twenty years later by Peter David, having been created to destroy Next Generation villains the Borg by a whole race of Whoopi Goldbergs.
#2: Unicron: Only one man could properly portray the voice of a planet that transforms into a robot that eats planets - self-loathing much? - and that man had to be Orson Welles, ending his career with a suitable bookend to his Citizen Kane start with his last ever role in 1986's Transformers: The Movie. If you were twelve years old when the movie came out then Unicron was possibly the greatest evil Transformer ever, mostly because of the fact that he made shitty old Megatron into the Leonard Nimoy-voiced Galvatron. More proof that he was awesome came in the fact that it took toymakers seventeen years to come up with a toy that measured up to fans' expectations. But even Unicron is just a pale imitation of...
#1: Galactus: Easily the biggest and best of sci-fi's planet eaters, Galactus' victory comes from the fact that - unlike Unicron or the Doomsday Machine - he isn't a robot but an honest-to-goodness force of nature. The sole survivor of a pre-Big Bang universe, the Fantastic Four's largest enemy may have been killed more than once in various stories since his 1966 first appearance (including being eaten by superhuman zombies in parallel world comedy Marvel Zombies), but nothing can keep a large purple-bucket-headed cosmic entity down for that long, even one given to pretentious monologues about how hungry he is.
Others may come and try to steal Galactus' crown but, really, who even remembers DC Comics' Imperiex, even if he does call himself "the devourer of galaxies"? Exactly. Created by comic greats Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, Galactus is proof that sometimes, the biggest threat really is the best. But what about the rest of you? Is there another villain of planetary appetite that should be added to the list?
The Doomsday Machine [Star Trek.com]
Unicron [Teletraan 1]
Galactus [Marvel Directory.com]
Comments
Unicron is so far above Galactus it's unreal, what kind of operation are you people running here?
OK, Galactus was the first, but the Doomsday Machine is the best. No offense to Unicron, but you're just a big robot and all -- the Doomsday Machine is an engine of destruction, and the fact is, I still don't see how any starship could have survived the kind of firepower used to chop up a planet for consumption. Kind of like the Enterprise vs. Death Star argument.
I always liked the Universe X description of what Galactus was for.
I've always been creeped out by the great nothing that devours the world in "The Neverending Story".
don't forget those people writing down all the 9 billion names of god!
@NefariousNewt: You know I'm one of those people that believes anything capable of blowing up a planet would easily destroy a tiny little USS Star ship.
Seems like where on the same page.
Both the Fendahl (creepy as hell) and the Nimon (stupid as hell) feasted on entire planets in classic "Doctor Who."
Also, what about Nyarlathotep in his incarnation as the Crawling Chaos? Doesn't that destroy planets?
Was the ultimate evil in The Fifth Element some sort of planet eater? Now that I think about it, what the fuck was that thing?
Galactus wins, hands down. to coin a phrase, "The ability to destroy a planet is insignificant next to the Power Cosmic", which only Galactus fully wields.
@extracrispy: It was a giant fire ball skull from space.
Duh.
@zerofritz: Correct. Also, Galactus serves the cosmic consonance; Galactus is because Galactus must be.
How about the Lexx for spot #4? It's pretty much the same as the Doomsday Machine, but in the service of an evil insectoid empire. And it's got more style.
My vote goes to the two disfuctional races on Babylon 5, the Vorlons and the Shadows. Answer a question wrong and bye bye Planet!
What about the swarm of flying robotic hands that took apart the entire "Light" Universe in Lexx?
How about the big yellow Vogon ship that cleared away earth for the hyperspace bypass?
What about Phoenix? Well she ate sun's not planets different category I guess.
@steven522: Not really an "eater", just a "demolisher", in the same class as the Death Star.
planet-destroyer != planet-eater.
planet-eaters are far more absurd and wonderful.
I mean, if you're getting into Lexx robotic hands and Babylon 5 Vorlons
you might as well talk about the Death Star and other big-ass lasers.
Hell, then we'd be talking about Vogon Construction Fleets and Honored Matres and we'd be here all goddamn week.
"Best Big Ass Lasers of Sci-Fi" wouldn't be a bad list, come to think of it.
Anyone who uses the closing "So Speaks..." wins in my book.
I often go around work shouting commands and ending them with "So Speaks 92BuickLeSabre!"
Or at least I used to, before they sent me to Bellevue.
Personally, Dark Phoenix would be at the top for me. She/it devoured at least one star system, killing 8 billion people, if I remember correctly.
But who would win "Galactus versus Dark Phoenix"? That's a toughie.
Well star Trek has had two Planet Eaters... the other Just strips off everything organic on the surface though...
So add it if you guys want: The Crystaline Entity
Also, V'Ger was a much more impressive Trek planet eater than the giant corn-chip Bugle from TOS
@Taed: That was in a "what-if" story, I believe. And Dark Phoenix won, or at least chased Galactus off.
Nothing about Omnipotus, Devourer of Worlds, from the old Tick cartoon? After the Tick got blown off the moon, they met in space. The Tick did some weird personal hygene stuff for him, so Omnipotus brought him back to earth. After the Tick talked him out of eating the earth "because that's where I keep all my stuff", he took a chunk out of the moon instead and left.
Not super greedy, but he did ruin the moon for the rest of the series.
@NefariousNewt: Yeah, I wasn't thinking "eater" i was just thinking destroyer.
I guess the World Devastators from the Star Wars Dark Empire series would count, then. They slowly demolished a planet from beneath themselves and used the resources to create more weapons, ships, and even another world devastator.
Are we talking planet busters, or planet eaters? Because planet busters are a dime a dozen in scifi. Just because I'm not big on comics, I'd have to go for the Doomsday machine in terms of things that actually eat their kill. Although someday, I'd love to see it done to proper scale - with a maw that really can "swallow a thousand starships".
@Taed: Movie Galactus (big cloud) < Movie Phoenix (Famke Janssen). Famke FTW!
The best thing about eating planets are the class M's. You get a little water to help the silica go down. The big planets give me gas.
Ummmmm, does anyone remember The Langoliers? Hahaha.
Also Sprach Galactus
There were the villain aliens in in Greg Bear's Forge of God. I think they ate the planet from the inside out, or something.
"They say there's no devil Jim, but I saw it.... it came at us...right out of hell I SAW IT!"
Vger wasnt a eater either, more like a destroyer, it just digitized the worlds away to its memory banks.
@mumblingmynah: Actually, it was the 'good guys' in Forge of God who ate one of the moons of Jupiter (IIRC). The bad guys just blew up the Earth. :)
Omnipotus is depressed that no one is his friend, nor considers him a worthy planet-eater of mention.
How could you forget the Doctor Who episode written by Douglas Adams, "Pirate Planet?"
@iJake: I second the Langoliers...if only because the crazy man ripping paper freaked me out as a kid
wasn't there a Living Galaxy character in Supreme? Where you had to be some light years away just to see his actual humanoid shape and not just a mass of star systems?
from the doesn't-quite-hit-the-mark dept. the Planet Jackers from Invader Zim. *they* didn't consume it, but their star did. If you could conceptually join the race to their star as a single entity, they/it would definatly count. Might be able to include the replicators from Stargate in this too.
@jesusdesaad: His name was Gorrl I think. I'm not sure that he actually devoured anything though.
Good ol' Doomsday Machine.
Nothing can stop that!
Galactus has heralds.
Isn't the doomsday machine from Trek made out of neutronium? As are the replicators in Stargate. Question: How much does a teaspoon of neutronium weigh, theoretically? How in the heck does something get made out of neutronium?
@DAppammattoxx: Yeah, but the Langoliers not only ate the planet, but also the sky, stars, and reality itself.
Remember, they cleaned up the past once the present had moved through it and on into the future.
** Pardon me while I go shred a magazine and experience a near erotic moment **
Galactus wins if only for his awesome Jack Kirby armor!
Funny how you all bring up Phoenix. I was just re-reading some old issues of "The Xmen" and right around the time Jean Gray first becomes the Phoenix there was this subplot about aliens coming to attack Earth. The best part was where the alien ship's science officer had an OMG moment when he scanned Earth "Captain, this planet has faced Galactus AND DEFEATED HIM!" If there was sound in space you'd hear the yipe, yipe, yipe that ship made as it hauled asteroids out of there! (heh, asteroids…)
Galactus has heralds? Nay, Galactus has a POSSE!
Ah, Vendetta, I remember reading that book in middle school. Was actually a really good book, think I'll order it.
I liked Ede the God in David Zindell's "The Wild". He started as a man who put his consciousness into a computer, that computer then got bigger and bigger until it propelled itself into space, where it started consuming asteroids and planets to make its ai-consciousness-circuitry bigger and bigger.
Then again, all the "god" entities in Neverness & the trilogy after are awesome.
Pardon me for descending into nerddom, but that's the best picture of Unicron you could find? A picture of a poor toy prototype? Needless to say, I put Unicron at the top of the list. I really think it's too close to call, though, in regards to him and Galactus. Could go either way.
The Star Trek thingy can go to hell.
"Planet eater"? What about the Crystalline Entity from STTNG?
Well, if we're going with "SELECT TOP 10 'planet-%' FROM tbl_nerddom" then I would have to propose the planet-JACKERS from Zim. While marginally inept, much like our titular anti-hero there, they - being essentially brainless, intergalactic-Teamster-esque morons - seem worthy of a mention.
Also, Omnipotus for great lulz; GALACTUS, FTW.
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