Galactus Vs. Celestials: Who Would Win And Why?

Galactus and the Celestials are amongst the top of the most powerful cosmic beings or entities in existence. We all know that the Devourer of Worlds’ power is almost unlimited, but some fans argue that he stands no chance against the Celestials, the beings responsible for the creation of the universe. So, if they fought, who would win, and why?

In a one-on-one battle against a Celestial, Galactus would win unanimously. He battled four Celestials simultaneously (albeit well-fed) and easily held his ground, even destroying two. If we’re talking about the Celestials as an entire race, though, they’d overpower him.

The Devourer of Worlds consumes entire planets to feed on its cosmic energy, enhancing his Power Cosmic and becoming incredibly powerful. We’ve never seen his full power, and it’s probably limitless if he keeps feeding, but he exerts energy as he battles, going weaker as he’s using his powers. Let’s dive deeper into their powers to have a more argued answer.

Galactus And His Powers

Galactus is an extremely powerful primordial entity made out of pure energy, called the Power Cosmic. The character first appeared in Fantastic Four #48 in 1966, with Stan Lee as the writer and Jack Kirby as the artist. He’s sometimes portrayed more or less benevolent, but his nature isn’t benevolent at all, so we might consider him more of a supervillain.

Galactus operates outside of the traditional moral standards and laws of mortal beings. He is emotionless in his doings, acting only as he rationally sees fit regardless of morals or satisfies his survival needs. To feed his incredible power, he consumes entire planets and drains them of their energy, which is why he’s known as the Devourer of Worlds.

He is millions of years old and is by far one of the most powerful beings in the entire Marvel universe. That being said, using such immense power drains him of energy, so his level of power and strength depends on how well he’s fed.

Power Cosmic

Galactus is a primordial cosmic being who facilitates his power out of cosmic energy. He’s known as a living force of nature, and his existence is crucial for keeping the balance between Eternity and Death. 

Galactus manipulates, controls, and manifests a force called the Power Cosmic to perform virtually all his powers. It allows him to process cosmic energy and use it in any way he can imagine, including telepathy, telekinesis, energy projection, force field, matter transfiguration and transmutation, the resurrection of the dead, soul, memory, and emotion manipulation, and so much more.

He can also create interdimensional portals, and just to paint a picture about his might, he had shown the ability to destroy several solar systems simultaneously (Annihilation #6).

Heralds

As I said before, Galactus’ powers know no limits. However, he constantly has to feed if he wants to use them, and the more he feeds, the stronger he gets. He doesn’t physically devour worlds but rather transforms their cosmic energy and absorbs it.

However, every time he uses his powers, his energy is drained, weakening him until he feeds again. That’s why he started creating his Heralds – beings are given a fraction of his Power Cosmic that is still remarkably powerful and operates under Galactus’ will.

He sends his Heralds across the cosmos to search for suitable planets for him to devour and feed because if he’s not fed, the Devourer of Worlds grows weak. 

Still, creating an army of Heralds who possess the Power Cosmos is crucial to grasp how powerful he is – Silver Surfer is one of the Heralds, having only a fraction of his creator’s powers, but he’s still one of the most powerful humanoid beings in the galaxy.

Celestials And Their Powers

The Celestials are a race of primordial cosmic beings created when the First Firmament, a conscious universe, came into existence billions of years ago. The First Cosmos created the Celestials as the initial life form, but they later rebelled against him and shattered the First Firmament into the first multiverse.

Again, Jack Kirby was the one to create the Celestials in Eternals #1 in 1976, where we learn that the Celestials were the ones to create the Eternals and the Deviants. They all have very similar powers with some different perks, and some of them are stronger than others. However, I won’t be talking about individual Celestials, but the entire race.

Nigh Omnipotence

Having Nigh Omnipotence means that the Celestials have seemingly unlimited cosmic and supernatural powers, and they are considered the most powerful source of energy in existence (Uncanny Avengers #21).

If the two of the most powerful Celestials, such as Arishem and Exitar, join forces, they can wipe clean entire races in the blink of an eye. Needless to say, they have above-superhuman strength, speed, stamina, and durability.

Also, unlike Galactus, they don’t go tired or lose energy as they battle – they can go forever. Their powers are also unlimited like his, but they use a different type of energy.

Invulnerability

The Celestials are usually depicted as huge, robot-like armor figures with a head, a torso, and limbs. However, even if you somehow manage to sever their limbs, they would just manipulate matter and energy to regrow another.

Their true form lies within the armor, although we don’t really know what it looks like – mortals simply can’t comprehend it.

They did show some weaknesses, though. For instance, Knull, a primordial deity harnessing his powers from the Abyss (a complete void where he ruled between the destruction of the sixth and creation of the seventh iteration of the universe), was able to create All-Black the Necrosword made of pure darkness, decapitate, and kill one of the Celestials.

Galactus Vs. Celestials: Who Would Win And Why?

So, Galactus and the Celestials have virtually unlimited cosmic powers that they can use in any form or way they imagine, making it very hard to pick who would win. Still, there are some examples from the comics we can use to determine the answer safely.

Suppose we are talking about a clean one-on-one fight where both Galactus and a Celestial fight with their normal powers (a non-depleted, weakened Galactus), then the Devourer of Worlds would easily win. If we’re talking about his strongest possible self, then it’s even clearer – although we don’t even know what a completely fed Galactus looks like or if there’s even a limit.

His powers have been proven deadlier, and the main example we can use is the Fantastic Four #602 events. Galactus fought four Celestials at the same time (albeit, he was quite powered-up after devouring four planets), and he held his own. He defeated two of them and even ripped one in two with his bare “hands.”

They outpowered him only when they merged into one superstrong Celestial, so he needed backup. Still, it shows that a Celestial would always lose to Galactus in a one-on-one fight, provided that he’s not in his weakened state.

However, if the question is Galactus vs. the Celestials as a whole, it wouldn’t even have to be the entire race to defeat the Devourer. He could match them for some time, but as we now know, his energy depletes as he fights, so he would eventually become too weak and overpowered.