Galactus vs the Green Lantern Corps: Why the Devourer of Worlds Wins Almost Every Scenario

If Galactus, the Devourer of Worlds, came for the Green Lantern Corps, I think he wins this fight for the most part. There is one scenario where I would back the Corps, but it needs an insane amount to go right, and I will get to exactly what that looks like further down.

I love this matchup because the Green Lanterns were founded for the sole purpose of promoting order and defending the universe from any threat, and Galactus is like the universal threat. So can the Corps take the Devourer of Worlds down? Before answering, it helps to look at what each side brings.

Galactus's Power Cosmic makes him nearly omnipotent

Galactus is the Devourer of Worlds in the Marvel Universe, and his powers are nearly omnipotent. He draws energy from the core of planets and from universal sources to sustain himself. He imbues a number of entities with the Power Cosmic to serve as his heralds, and like them, he gains his virtually limitless power through the Power Cosmic.

For starters, he can absorb creation, matter, energy and universal sources. He can erect nearly impenetrable force fields and unleash devastating energy blasts, blowing up planets and splitting them apart, and he can shoot lasers or give off radiation. He can open wormholes or portals to other dimensions or times, and he can transport beings across the universe or even across time.

He can read minds across the universe, levitate, move matter via telekinesis, and reconstruct or transmute matter. He can turn matter into energy and energy into matter, manipulate elements on the periodic table, erase memories, repair or heal living tissue and even resurrect the dead. What I find interesting is that his true form is unknown. He is perceived as the species of whoever is looking at him, so to a human he appears human, and to an alien he appears alien.

Galactus's hunger is his one real weakness

Even with all this, Galactus is not entirely omnipotent. He has an insatiable hunger for the energy of planets, and that hunger is the greatest motivating force in his life. The energy does not just power him; it nourishes him.

That means Galactus can starve, and in fact die, if he does not consume enough planets. If that were to happen, it has been stated that he would explode and take a hundred light year section of the galaxy with him.

Green Lantern rings have no hard upper limit

The Green Lantern Corps is an intergalactic police force dedicated to promoting order and democracy throughout the universe. Each member protects a sector, and it is their duty to defend it from any possible threat. After the Guardians of the Universe's colossal failure with the Manhunters, they created rings that would seek out beings with immense willpower to serve as members of the Corps.

These green power rings are easily one of the most powerful weapons in the universe, and no hard upper limit has ever been found for them. They create green hard light constructs, and the size, complexity and strength of those constructs are limited only by the bearer's willpower. Basically, whatever the wearer imagines, the ring will create, which makes it essentially a source of limitless power.

Beyond constructs, the rings can fire energy beams, manipulate radiation and electromagnetism, and create shields that protect the wielder from all forms of harm in any environment. They let their bearers fly, and they can even create wormholes that channel between planets in a short amount of time.

Hal Jordan, Mogo and the rest of the Corps have serious feats

The Corps is a massive peacekeeping force with some notable members. Hal Jordan, John Stewart, Guy Gardner and Kyle Rayner can all handle themselves against the most powerful members of the Justice League. There is also Kilowog, the drill instructor for the Corps, and Sodam Yat, a Daxamite who later inherits the powers of Ion. Then there is Mogo, the planet Green Lantern, who is brought out in the most dire situations, like when the Sinestro Corps attacked.

When the Green Lanterns all fight together, they have pushed back stars, destroyed a Black Lantern planet, held off and imprisoned the Sinestro Corps, and even made a shield capable of containing a galaxy busting explosion. The Corps has also fought back against the Guardians when they were possessed by other entities on the emotional spectrum.

As for the Guardians of the Universe, the founders of the Corps dislike getting into fights, but they will fight if they have to. Between them, these beings are powerful enough that they stopped a barrage of quantum singularities and even beat the Anti-Monitor.

On an ordinary day, the Corps cannot stop Galactus devouring Oa

I suppose the fight hinges on whether the Green Lanterns know Galactus is coming to consume Oa. If they are unprepared, it is one fight. If they are able to summon Mogo, get Ion involved and bring in the Guardians, it is a very different fight.

In the first scenario, it is just an average day on Oa and Galactus comes in to consume the planet. I don't think they have much of a chance to stop him. Regardless of how powerful their constructs are, they will pale next to the might of Galactus, feeling like little more than a mosquito bite, because he is insanely durable.

Look at some of what he has endured. He casually survived the moon colliding into him, stood out in a storm that would have killed many heroes in minutes, and casually survived attacks from a legion of heroes in the Ultimates, who could not put him down. Thanos blasted him back and it only made him angry, and a full on headbutt from Odin only momentarily hurt him. He also casually sat inside an exploding star, survived entering the core of a galaxy and entered a black hole. You cannot tell me the Corps, however powerful, has consistently shown a higher damage output than a supernova or being inside a galaxy core.

Galactus could simply drain the Corps' power rings

While the Corps cannot damage Galactus, he has shown he is more than capable of damaging them, really just annihilating them and swatting them away like a pesky fly. Take just one of his powers, energy projection. It is incredibly powerful, enough to defeat Thanos even with his shields up. He one shot a Celestial, stalemated the In-Betweener and supposedly destroyed galaxies and universes, and a single blast had enough power to cover three star systems. That is more than enough to shatter a Green Lantern shield, even from a high tier Lantern like Hal Jordan or Kyle Rayner.

He could just as easily avoid the fight altogether and absorb the energy in their power rings. The rings store a finite amount of energy and need to be recharged on a regular basis, and without that energy they are pretty much useless. Galactus has casually absorbed the Human Torch's flames, the Silver Surfer's blasts and Ultron's energies. On top of that, he stopped the gravitational pull of a black hole, and two suns went out just by being near him.

I think that is more than enough to deplete a Green Lantern ring, even hundreds or thousands of rings all at once. So if Galactus came across Oa one day and caught the Corps by surprise, there is nothing they can do to stop him devouring it. He is not just a bit too much for them to handle; he is way too much.

Mogo would put up a fight, but not enough of one

The second scenario is different. The Corps knows Galactus is coming to devour Oa to quench his hunger, so they pull out all the stops: Mogo, Ion, even the Guardians. Galactus regularly goes around eating planets, but what happens if the planet fights back? Mogo has used his ring to destroy large portions of the Black Lantern Corps and the Sinestro Corps, but he does not have too many feats, and he has never really gone up against someone as powerful as Galactus.

The way I see it, Mogo would put up a fight, and he is definitely more of a threat than a regular Green Lantern. The problem is that he still functions like a regular Lantern, so Galactus can still simply drain his ring to win. He could also hit Mogo with a blast capable of destroying a galaxy, or just begin to eat him, increasing his own power as Mogo's decreases. Mogo alone is not going to be enough for the Corps to win.

The Guardians make it harder, but they act too slowly

The Guardians make the fight significantly more difficult for Galactus. Kyle Rayner once said that Ganthet, just one of the Guardians, had enough power to crack a planet in half. That is some serious power.

But the Guardians have also had showings that don't put them on par with Galactus. A single Guardian had to kill himself to destroy Superboy-Prime, whereas Galactus would swat Superboy-Prime away like he was nothing. The Guardians also fought an Anti-Monitor they themselves admitted was weakened, and they still couldn't put him down. Hal Jordan alone even blew a hole in Krona, a villainous Guardian of the Universe. Galactus, on the other hand, has stalemated or beaten the Phoenix, the In-Betweener, Mephisto, Odin, Celestials, Tyrant and Sphinx, and has been said to be of equal stature to Death.

Then there is the Guardians' inability to act. Realistically, by the time they finally chose to attack, Galactus would likely have killed off most of the Corps and even drained some of the Central Power Battery. That is what happened in the Sinestro Corps War: it took forever for the Guardians to actually act.

Only Kyle Rayner as Ion could swing it

Ion is the Corps' last shot at victory, and it really depends on who is possessing the Ion entity. If it is Sodam Yat, he gets trashed. He could hold his own against Superboy-Prime, but as I said above, Superboy-Prime and Galactus are on two completely different levels.

What if Kyle Rayner becomes Ion again? As Ion, Kyle essentially became a god, able to exist and fight everywhere at once, move through time and manipulate reality at will. He was so powerful that he made all other heroes on Earth essentially irrelevant. So if we are talking about the Green Lantern Corps plus Mogo, the Guardians of the Universe and Kyle Rayner as Ion, then yes, I am backing the Corps in that fight.

My verdict: Galactus wins this one

However, "that is an insane amount of coincidence that has to fall into place in order to defeat Galactus", and for that reason, for the most part, I think Galactus wins this fight.

That is kind of funny, because when I started doing research I was actually backing the Green Lantern Corps. I had forgotten just how powerful Galactus truly is, and he is winning this one.

Do you think a fully prepared Corps with Kyle Rayner as Ion could take down Galactus, or does the Devourer of Worlds win no matter what?