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marvel - What, of the planets he consumes, provides Galactus with sustenance?


Galactus is pretty big on the world eating. It's more or less his thing. It's well known that he has an insatiable hunger that he must obey, and when he gets peckish he just chows down on a world that is capable of sustaining intelligent life.


But when he does so, what is it he digests, or processes to sate his hunger? Is it the action of eating itself? The physical matter? Souls? Minds? Twinkies?


I have a hunch it's sentience (lit. minds) but I can't find any evidence of this anywhere.



Answer




In at least one universe (Earth X/Earth-9997), he's eating the eggs of the Celestials:



In the alternate universe limited series Earth X, the Celestials are beings of energy encased in armor composed of vibranium, a metal with properties that prevent their dissipation. They reproduce by planting a fragment of their essence in a planet, which matures into a new Celestial over the course of eons. The cosmic entity Galactus is an enemy of the Celestials, as the character devours planets that incubate Celestial "eggs" to prevent the Celestials from overpopulating the universe. (Wikipedia's Reference: Earth X #0 (March 1999); #0.5 (Jan. 2000); #1-10 (April 1999 - Jan. 2000); #11-12 (March-April 2000); #13 (June 2000))



There's more information over on the Marvel Wikia for Celestials. A brief excerpt:



The Celestials would soon over populate their home universe causing it's collapse and the event that would lead to it's own creation. This event would lead to the birth of Galactus, who unknown to most but the most cosmically aware was actually an equalizer to insure that the Celestials would never overpopulate the universe again by feeding on some of the planets they impregnate.




In the prime universe (Earth-616), the Marvel wikia has this to say about Galactus (basically leaving it a generic "energy"):


However, as ages passed, the intervals between feedings decreased considerably in length, and Galactus found himself needing to consume worlds inhabited by sentient races if he could find no other worlds possessing the energy he needs in time to sustain himself.



...



More recently, Galactus' appetite became such that he would only devour the life forces of sentient beings and leave the planets on which they lived intact. He began to consume more and more frequently, because unlike the life essences of the planets he normally feeds on the life forces of mortal beings offer him no sustenance; thus his addiction left him perpetually starving, weakened and demented.



And under Weaknesses:



Cosmic Hunger: Galactus requires unknown energies obtainable only from a certain type of planets in order to sustain his life. The suitable type of planet need not to be one where life is present, but it must have the potential to support life.




So at the very least, it's not "sentience" that Galactus feeds on, since he can feed on worlds without any life currently on them.


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