Doctor Strange Just Discovered Omnimax, the Galactus Before Galactus

Warning: contains spoilers for Defenders #1!

In Defenders #1, Doctor Strange‘s powerful new team just discovered Omnimax – the being who fulfilled Galactus‘ role in an earlier iteration of Marvel’s multiverse. Intending to travel back through time to stop the mad scientist Carlo Zota from altering the past, Doctor Strange’s magic blazes out of control, summoning together the most powerful Defenders team ever assembled and promptly hurling them back past the start of the multiverse into another iteration of reality entirely: the Sixth Cosmos.

As confirmed in 2016’s The Ultimates, Marvel is currently on the eighth iteration of its multiverse. Most of Marvel history took place in the Seventh Cosmos, but this was destroyed by the Beyonders in 2015’s Secret Wars event, and later recreated (with small changes) by Franklin Richards as the Eighth Cosmos. This means that the Sixth Cosmos is the one ‘before’ what Marvel fans know as the ongoing version of reality, and contains the home reality of Galan of Taa – the being who would become Galactus.

In fact, it’s the planet Taa Doctor Strange and the Avengers arrive on in Defenders #1 – from Al Ewing and Javier Rodriguez – meeting Galactus’ mother Taaia, who is busy evacuating the planet in order to escape a being she calls “Big Hungry” – Omnimax, the Sixth Cosmos’ version of Galactus. So far, it’s unclear if Omnimax always attacked Galan’s home planet or whether this is a result of Zota’s tampering with time. While Galactus is a vital aspect of universal order, and some version of him exists in every reality, Galan was an adult man when he left Taa to find a way to prevent the “Big Crunch” that was ending the Sixth Cosmos. This means that either Omnimax will ultimately fail to devour Taa, or that he never should have attacked without Zota’s meddling.

Fans already know – from History of the Marvel Universe – that Franklin Richards (the near-omnipotent son of Mister Fantastic and the Invisible Woman) will become the World Devourer of the Ninth Cosmos, prepared for his role by Galactus and subsequently merging with Metatron, an embodiment of multiversal consciousness, in order to survive the death of one reality and the birth of the next. While recent Thor comics revealed that there may be extra steps to this process – Galactus is revealed to have communed with a being known as the Black Winter, who claims to be the force that ends whole universes – it’s not surprising to learn there were versions of Galactus before the one fans know, but it’s still fascinating to see one in action.

The Galactus fans know from Marvel Comics is famously shaped by perception, appearing “human” to humans but taking on different shapes when viewed by other cultures. Despite this, some elements of his presentation remain the same, and Omnimax makes it clear that many things about Galactus are fixed, possessing the same cosmic armor, headdress, and seemingly even the complex machinery needed to properly extract energy from a planet. Despite this, there are clear differences – Omnimax has a decidedly inhuman, squid-like face and gloves covered in what may be magic sigils. This may indicate that a World Devourer’s form is also dictated by whatever being merges with Metatron in each reality.

As Defenders continues, it’s possible fans will get to see even further back in Marvel’s cosmic timeline. Solicit info for Defenders has informed fans that Doctor Strange’s team will fight Marvel’s oldest villain – a clue some have taken to point to the First Firmament, the villainous embodiment of Marvel’s First Cosmos, which is obsessed with ending and replacing the current multiverse. Whether Doctor Strange‘s team will travel back this far or not, it’s fascinating to see this earlier iteration of the Marvel Universe, and to learn more about what it even means for a being to become Galactus.

About The Author

Robert Wood
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Robert Wood is a comics editor for Screen Rant and the author of ‘The False Elephant (and 99 Other Unreasonably Short Stories).’ He received his Master’s in English Literature from Lancaster University, and now happily spends his days applying it to Daredevil and the Hulk.

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