No, you’re not dream-walking, the MCU’s Galactus is really, finally here! Although, funnily enough, it seems he’s been hanging around the franchise much longer than we thought, having first debuted back in 2014’s Guardians of the Galaxy.
With The Fantastic Four gearing up to start filming, more casting announcements have dropped, including the shocking news that Game of Thrones and Harry Potter actor Ralph Ineson has been cast as none other than the Devourer of Worlds himself, Silver Surfer’s overeating employer Galactus. Remember, Julia Garner has previously been cast as a female variant of his herald, named Shalla-Bal.
Fans have been desperate for Galactus to enter the fold ever since Marvel hoovered the rights to the Fantastic Four back from Fox. So it’s ironic that, now that it’s finally happened, it turns out he’s been part of the MCU all along. All thanks to Kevin Feige’s increasing penchant for keeping things in the (first) family.
‘The Fantastic Four’s Galactus proves Marvel can’t stop, won’t stop recasting old actors
Although Galactus is easily Ineson’s most notable role to date, he’s been a familiar face in major movies and TV shows for years now — you may have seen him in supporting roles in everything from Ready Player One to Willow. Not to mention a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it part in Marvel’s own Guardians of the Galaxy. Ineson played one of Yondu’s Ravagers in the first entry in the trilogy.
Thanks to his return in The Fantastic Four, Ineson is now the latest MCU actor to play two roles in the same shared universe. Anytime the studio does this it causes fans to develop a serious headache as they try to keep the canon consistent, but clearly Marvel has made so many projects at this point that it’s having to cannibalize its own past and bring old faces back. Other examples include Gemma Chan (Captain Marvel/Eternals), Michelle Yeoh (Guardians 2/Shang-Chi), Linda Cardellini (Age of Ultron/Endgame/Hawkeye/Guardians 3), and Mahershala Ali (Luke Cage/Blade).
Is it lazy or just a clever way of ensuring the studio doesn’t waste great talent? Or is Ineson’s unexpected return a hint that Galactus’s origins will be altered for the MCU? Perhaps he started out as a lowly Ravager working for Yondu…