High Concept: Planet Eater

You know, for a long time, Galactus was the first and last word in planet eater's definition. But now, it's a little more involved than that.

We have Unicron (as I once said, Galactus + Death Star + Satan), Lavos (one of the more distinct ones, really-can't accuse it of being a Galactus rip-off), the Beast Planet (Unicron minus transforming abilities), Omnipotus from The Tick (to be fair, a simple Galactus parody), the Planet Gobbler (okay, now I'm stretching), and probably others that I haven't heard of (I've obviously heard of a lot), not counting the "variant Galacti" that have appeared in various comics.

The reason the concept has proliferated is probably because it's so evocative. Like any mythos, pop culture likes striking ideas, and the idea of a predator (or a parasite, in Lavos' case) that eats whole planets is a dramatic one. (Dramatic enough that I have about half a dozen variant ideas for planet eaters and the extended "ecosystem" that they might live in.) The death of a planet because something was hungry is tragedy in high form. (Galactus's reluctance to eat planets on many occasions is one way to look at it; Unicron, on the other hand, is a dark god of destruction and actively takes pleasure in it. You can play it a lot of different ways.)

Incidentally, while I appreciate Galactus's originality and character, and realize that Unicron is considerably more derivative, I think Unicron "makes more sense."

Why?

Because Unicron is essentially a huge spaceship, and you could at least sort of believe that one of the reasons he devours planets is to break them down for fuel and raw materials. The explanation of how Galactus eats planets is all kinds of ill-defined and confusing, defies logic, and so on. But Unicron? You can count on any planet he eats being ground to pieces and used to light his rings up.

-Signing off.