Issue 177 – Galactus Transcript

Issue 177 – Galactus

Anthony: Hello and welcome to Capes on the Couch where Comics Get Counseling. I’m Anthony Sytko.

Doc Issues: And now I’m Dr. Issues.

Anthony: Hello and welcome to all of our hopefully new fans and listeners after our fantastic PuchiCon panel on Sunday. We had an absolute blast. Thank you again to the coordinators and everybody who, who was present, everybody who ran the event, all the volunteers, everybody involved with the con.

It was nice to be there. It was at least my first con in quite some time cuz I haven’t been in a couple of years with COVID and everything. And just a, a fantastic event and like I said, had a lot of fun chatting with folks before and after the panel. I actually got to hang out a little bit on Saturday as well because I was there at the Extra Life booth helping Promote Extra Life.

As our fans know, I’m a big supporter of that charity and they had a booth there. So I got to man that for a little while. And, you know, my wife and I did some gambling and we also got to see Gardens of the Galaxy Volume three. And my, I think I’m still dehydrated from all of the tears that were shed from, from that film.

I, I need to replenish water to, to restore my system, especially since I have a tough motor coming up this weekend, so I’m gonna need all the water I can get. But enough about that, we are continuing with our theme of Marvel Cosmic May, and we are here to talk about Galactus, the devourer of worlds.

The guy with a big purple skirt, and Matt picked him and has some really. Hard hitting and very interesting issues that we really have not discussed before on this show. So, once again, thank you to Matt. Matt. W I forgot. We have two president level patrons named Matt. Now Matt w as this one Matt p is next week.

But in any case before we get into the issues, let’s get into the background.

Galactus created by the Legends Stan Lee and Jack Kirby in Fantastic four, number 48, March, 1966. So Golan of T was an explorer of the universe that existed before the Big Bang when the universe collapsed during the big crunch. He merged with the sentience of the universe and was reborn in this universe with an insatiable hunger.

He consumes an entire planet aop. And then he later creates a herald, the fallen one who ends up rebelling against him. And then his next herald was Noran Rad of Zen la, who we know more familiarly as the silver surfer. When the surfer approaches earth to warn the planet of the coming of Galactus, the Fantastic four lead the defense and are able to repel him with the ultimate nullify.

Mr. Fantastic later sends him into the negative zone to eat uninhabited planets moving forward during Secret Wars. He attempts to consume Battle World in order to get the Beyonder to eliminate his insatiable hunger. But he is foiled by Dr. Doom. He gets turned into a star by his own consuming machines.

This releases Abraxis, which is an awesome Santana album by the way. But Abraxis creates so much destruction and chaos that Franklin, an Val Richards are forced to revive him, to help them defeat Abras. He then attempts to feed on the Infinity gems, but that only releases another destructive being. He hence, Asgard defined that item to seat is hunger, and Odin agrees to let him have it once Asgard is no more.

Then more recently in the past couple of years, he was forced into his incubator by the Ultimate, not the Ultimate Universe team, but the six 16 Ultimate. I know the Title Inc. Gets a little confusing. He emerges as a life bringer instead of a devourer. But this throws off the cosmic balance and several celestial beings attempt to return him to his former state.

Then to help defeat Hank Pimp slash Altron, Galactus consumes a world that is overrun by altron drones. This revives his hunger and the surfer returns as his herald to help him find uninhabited planets. And then more recently, he was drained by Thor and turned into a bomb to destroy the black winter.

A being that consumes entire universes. So Galactus. Long story short, massive being usually preceded by a Herald who comes to visit the world to say, your time is limited. Please flee your planet. Galactus is going to consume the entire thing.

So if Galactus shows up, it’s generally not a good thing. Having said that, the interesting thing, and one of the key things that Stanley and Jack Kirby did when they created him is they said, we wanna create a Godlike character who has a villainous effect on the story, but is not really a villain himself.

And we’re gonna get into this in the issues, but Galactus is essentially a force of nature. The. Morality of good and evil are below him because he is operating on a scale so far above us that he can’t conceive of our problems, which I think is just a really interesting and fascinating way to look at these kinds of things.

Doc I don’t know if you wanna posit anything before we even get into the issues.

Doc Issues: No, let’s just jump right in.

Anthony: Okay.

I kind of liken Galactus to a bit of a cosmic Godzilla in that he is, again, neither good nor evil. He just is, he’s a force of nature. He is a cosmic constant.

Although anything the

life’s gotta eat, that’s basically what it comes down to. So the issues.

Since this is a Matte W episode, he’s got his writeup, Galactus, the devourer of worlds, the harbinger of civilizations end, and an eco-friendly, sustainable farmer. It would normally be hard to fathom the inner workings of the mind of someone who is quite literally the actual sentience of the universe that existed before ours.

Fortunately, Galactus helps us out quite a bit by being more than a little chatty about himself and his motivations with the lesser beings he encounters in his travels. A few of his issues have stayed very consistent over the decades. Here’s the first one, and just gonna give a little bit of a trigger warning.

Not that we normally do these, but if you have an eating disorder or otherwise triggered by discussions around food, this might not be the episode for you. So with that, The first issue is a very complicated and often unhealthy relationship with his food and his eating in general. Galactus does not enjoy the act of devouring world.

It has never been an act that brings in pleasure. He simply has to do it in order to survive. Prior to becoming the life bringer, he displayed several tendencies that might be thought of as eating disorders and someone who was not a cosmic entity in Secret Wars. He declares to Theder that his fondest wish is to not have his constant hunger anymore, to be free of the need to eat.

On several occasions, it’s been made clear that he often starves himself as long as it’s possible for him to stand it between his meals when confronted by beings and civilizations who don’t want to be destroyed and who beg him to find another planet to consume. His constant refrain is that there’s simply no more time to do that.

He has to eat this planet right now or he’s going to die.

Doc Issues: Alright, so this is genuinely a topic that we haven’t discussed head on. The idea of eating disorders. So, Let’s make this clear. If you like to eat, if you enjoy what you eat, if you are comfortable with your body type and it’s not causing you any harm, that any doctor or any healthcare professional would notice and you don’t have a medical diagnosis, congratulations.

There is a wide range that’s considered acceptable, so don’t automatically throw yourself off when we talk about this. Now, having said that, I think it’s an opportunity to talk about the full spectrum. So the most common thing, especially in predominantly western developed worlds, is the idea of overeating.

So yes, you do need to eat to survive. I’m not going to get into specific diets cuz that’s not as important to this specific topic when it comes to the disorders. But the point being, there’s a certain amount of energy that you need to get through the day and to come out, let’s say net neutral. And if you don’t meet those calories either by choice or by circumstance, then naturally there’s going to be changes into what you want.

If you’re eating more than what you need for the energy output that you have to use every day, then I’m not just talking about the idea that you gain weight. You actually are changing how your body processes the energy itself, and you’re giving clues as to how your brain is supposed to function. We are not totally tailormade for the world the way it is right now.

And so let’s say your pattern is. I, I’m sorry. I’m going to use this old joke. I’m, I’m on a seafood diet. When I seafood, I eat it. Ha ha ha. But the point being, if you constantly eat at a large proportional amount and you do that more days than you don’t, then you’re giving your body the signal that for some reason, and I know this may not make sense, but for some reason you are storing things for what’s about to happen.

Like something major is coming up, it’s a survival mechanism, and your body starts to store it more as fat and basically says, not much different than many other animals. I don’t know if this is hibernation. I don’t know if this is, we’re going on a long journey and we’re not gonna be able to eat again for the unforeseeable future.

And so we have to store up. And that also can lead you to think after your metabolism ironically slows down to conserve energy. Oh, well, I’m feeling more tired than I did before. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with this cuz now I don’t have the energy to do the things I used to enjoy. And you actually just take the rest of the time doing the one thing that you know you could still do, which is e and it just keeps going and going.

And I apologize. I, I know I enjoy puns. I, I’m not trying to do puns here, but it feeds on itself and so you still end up worse than when you started. And it can be the idea that because you don’t have the energy and you don’t have the heaven forbid, motivation to do other things, it, it really does become its own goal where all you’re doing is eating and you’re focused on it.

Some people actually do get obsessions with food that they think about the next time they’re going to eat. They think about the next time they’re going to prepare food. They think about opportunities for when they could be around people that. Are going to have food like it, it, it can be its own it its own problem in that way, not just the eating itself.

So let’s say you’ve gone past that and let’s say you actually have, I’m not even saying body dysmorphia, but you have the idea that this is not what you wanted. And now we’re getting into more what Galactus has. Like, okay, I don’t necessarily like this. Well, guess what? You can actually go the opposite direction and you could say, well then I’m just not going to eat.

And there are some people that do that and they won’t. But then they also think that not only do they not want to eat, they think that they need to actually change their body type to the point that they don’t want to gain weight. Because gaining weight is a sign that you are eating too much. But the problem with that, let’s think about that.

If you don’t create a set point for yourself, what happens then is your current weight. The weight that you’re supposed to be. If you’ve already established that you were overweight to begin with, how low do you go? And yet our brains trick us each time if we have that mindset of saying, I ate too much in the first place, therefore I’m not supposed to be eating and I need to be s, I need to be smaller.

I need to be slimmer. I need to be quote unquote more beautiful. All the things that you may say to yourself. And that starts to compound to the point that you can’t even identify yourself as healthy and you don’t eat at all. Or if you eat, it’s very little. And then you try to increase your metabolism because you want the motivation to say that you’re continuing to lose weight through excess energy.

Energy use. So we’re basically talking about anorexia Now, that’s clearly not healthy, that’s dangerous, can potentially be fatal. And what about the people that are somewhat in between all of this? And, and on one hand they do notice that they enjoy eating when they eat or maybe they don’t enjoy it, but they do it.

And when they do it, they do it to excess, but then they basically don’t like that. And then try and overcompensate either by restricting themselves and not eating or going so far as to say whatever is in me has to get outta me. And that’s called purging. And that can be from both ends of the body. I’m not going to go into detail.

So right there, that is the general spectrum of what you can get with eating disorders. And of course it’s way more complex than I’m making it out to be. But I appreciate Matt for taking a character like this in a direction that I know it seems like it’s the obvious one on the surface. And I’m, I’m being very honest, after reading this character for years and years and seeing him in so many different forms, I had never thought of this so, so kudos.

Anthony: Yeah, Matt likes to throw the fun stuff at us, make us talk about stuff we don’t usually talk about. Eating disorders is always an an interesting topic because to your point, you were talking about some people that can become obsessed with or addicted to food and the distinction that always pops up at, at least in my mind and when I talk to people about eating disorders to the extent that I do, is the obvious distinction between addiction to food and addiction to other substances is if you are an alcoholic, if you are addicted to alcohol, you can go the rest of your life and not drink.

And in fact, that is what pretty much every alcoholic has to do, is they just completely abstain from it. You abstain from whatever your vices are. You cannot abstain from food. It is an addiction that you have to live with, and the mental taxation that requires to reframe your entire method of thinking around food is not simple.

And that’s as tactfully and simply as I can put it. And it is again, an, an ongoing struggle. And eating disorders can take all manner of forms, and I’m not even going to begin to try to summarize any of them. I, I know that I have struggled with body image issues and, and food for good parts of my life. I have several people in my life who have struggled and continue to struggle with these things.

And this is definitely one of those issues that if it’s not impacting you, the listener, it is absolutely without question impacting someone that you know, everybody, every single person knows someone with some type of eating disorder. And I think it is because, again, we cannot survive without food. It is forced.

It is a forced part of our lives. It absolutely has to be. And unless you are raised from birth in an environment that helps give you a solid sense of self and establishes positive and non-disruptive eating habits and manages to shield you from these, Negative perceptions about body image and so many things of that nature.

Unless you are functionally raised in a bubble, these things are going to impact your life in some way or another. It’s just the law of averages. And so, again, I, I credit Matt for bringing this to our attention and for bringing it up, and it does kind of work closely, at least in a related fashion with the second issue that we’re going to address.

And this is guilt and the constant struggle to suppress it. One of Galactus standby replies to anyone who questions the ethics of his consuming inhabited worlds filled with intelligent beings is that if they’re very survival dependent upon stepping on an anthill, they wouldn’t hesitate. Galactus sets himself above and beyond the reproach or judgment of anyone who is not a cosmic entity.

In both his role as the devourer of worlds and as the life bringer. He fulfills a cosmic purpose as the universe’s sustainable farmer weeding out the life that has passed its apex and the civilization’s not strong enough to mount a resistance to him, knowing that he will one day put all of the cosmic life energy he consumes back out into the universe, seeding dead worlds with the beginnings of life to start all over again.

And yet, despite that, he was once a mortal and he does have a conscience. He goes through periods where he tries to limit himself to uninhabited worlds or worlds without intelligent life, but it’s the equivalent of a liquid diet for him, it just doesn’t provide the same nourishment. In the famous Fantastic four, number 2 57, he has to have a sit down with mistress death when he basically decides to starve himself completely over the sadness of all the life he’s taken, and begs death to kill him.

Most of the time, he just does his best not to think about it the way most of us try not to think too much about how the food on our table doesn’t just magically appear at the grocery store. So this not only discusses eating disorders and, and the way we consume food, but also you wanna talk about animal rights, you wanna talk about vegetarianism and veganism and animal welfare?

And I mentioned guardians volume three. It’s not really a spoiler, but it is such an animal rights film at its core because of the rocket story that it is, it is some serious stuff. And I would venture to say that there is more than one person who’s going to leave guardians and probably go vegetarian, if not full vegan.

But back to Galactus Dock, the floor is yours.

Doc Issues: All right. Once again, an area that I feel this is more philosophical than anything. It’s, it’s the idea that you have. A certain concern about society as a whole and how things are run and what your role is in it, and how do you manage what you know with what you continue to do.

And yes, it, in this case, we could go full scale cuz it has to do with the existence of sentient life itself. I, I think we could all relate that. Yeah, we wanna survive. We do. I swear to you it’s true. But yeah, if you, if you scale it down for us, I think you are right that animal rights is a great example of it.

I mean, anything environmental qualifies as well. There are many political things that have to do with human rights, the idea of war, et cetera, et cetera. There’s, there’s lots of different things. I’m, I’m not trying to get bogged down with any one particular thing, but in this case, We’ll stick with the food or the, or the need to live thing most prominently, because it’s the one that we all or the greatest majority of us, can really relate to.

That’s why there’s a term, how the sausage gets made. You don’t want to see animal slaughtered. You only wanna see the before and after. You don’t wanna see everything in between. And for many things in life, you don’t need every detail of everything that happens.

Do you really need to know, for example, with the technology that we’re using and many of the you know, many of the minerals, many of the elements that we need to make all this technology work and how their mind and what the cost is of that, and how that has shaped certain countries and all. I’m, I’m just going.

With that as a sidebar, because you can do this with any topic, but re recognize what happens with that. I could, in theory, stop the podcast right now and wait for people to have responses to this, and we could do this until, oh, I don’t know, maybe sometime next week. And what have we done? We may have provided education to each other about things we may not have known about before.

And we’ve deprived ourselves asleep and we’ve neglected the people around us, and we’ve neglected our jobs and we have accomplished exactly what. In other words, there’s a lot of opportunities for us to be better at the things that we care about. But there’s no such thing as doing that in a vacuum. One of my favorite podcasts to listen to is called Afford Anything, and that’s the whole point.

You can afford anything but not everything. So you really do have to pick your time, your concentration, the things that. You’re going to put a lot of energy into because if you pick one by definition, you are excluding others. So for every time that you decide that you’re going to make sure that you’re defending, let’s say, in a very positive way, and it is a good thing to do, if you are protecting animal rights, then recognize that the amount of time that you’re sustaining to do that, you are not dealing with the fact that some of those things, if done in a proper way, might be able to help out people that are in significant poverty and are being neglected.

And actually that is usually a great source of very affordable meals for people that otherwise wouldn’t have them. And no, I’m not saying that fast food is a good thing, but I’m saying it is a survivable thing and that’s why you find them in many inner cities. I’m doing this purposely to say that, no, I don’t think that people are purposely going to neglect the things that.

Are important. I’m saying that everybody has something they consider to be more important than other things. And we’re not all going to at every moment think of all of the things at once that are so valuable that, oh my God, if I don’t do something right now, then I’m killing the planet or I’m destroying my family.

Or do that type of catastrophizing only leads to such an intense level of anxiety and or depression that it does the opposite. It leads to combinations of inaction or conflict that doesn’t resolve anything and just gets people even more ticked off about whatever it is that they were talking about in the first place, or at least that’s been my experience of it.

And of course there are positive ways to go about it. I’m not denying that. I’m just saying that if it’s rumination, the idea that it just takes up so much of your head space that you’re not able to, once you get, get back to the basics, you’re not able to really complete the functions of eating, sleeping, and, you know, being valuable to those around you.

Ah, you might wanna take a step back. That’s all.

Anthony: Okay. A lot to take in there. So much so that I’m, I’m not even going to attempt to summarize as I occasionally do. I’ll just let that sit. Marinate. Not a, I suppose that is a metaphor and we’re just talking about animal rights and I’m like, yeah, marinate it like, like a steak of chicken.

Doc Issues: You can, you can, you can marinate vegetables too.

Anthony: You could. I don’t, but someone could.

Doc Issues: You’ve what? You’ve never had like giardello, you’ve never had like real like, like kimchi. You’ve never had, oh, come on

man. This stuff is awesome.

Anthony: I’m not saying it’s bad, I’m just saying I’ve never tried it. If people try firecracker

pickles, they’re

great.

So you lost me at pickles. My wife will probably be on board. Me, not so much, but stay away

Doc Issues: from Kool-Aid pickles. Those aren’t that great. They’re overrated.

Anthony: So overrated. Oh yeah. So the last issue, and this is one that is a little, at least partially more,

what’s the word I’m looking for? Relatable to some of the other characters that we’ve done is trouble finding, hiring, and keeping good help. Galactus is so much better off when he has a herald in his service finding world for him to eat, but he’s had a really bad run of luck with them. He had such a bad experience with the fallen one that he didn’t create another one for eons before the silver surfer who managed to break through the blocks, Galactus put on his morality enough to rebel.

He really liked Air Walker, but Air Walker liked him back enough to sacrifice himself to save him fire. Lord, he never even really got to know before dismissing him. Finally, he decided what he really needed was a sadistic killer who enjoyed stirring, inhabited worlds. Predictably Terrex tried to kill Galactus and take his place.

Frankie Ray just wouldn’t budge on the whole no inhabited world’s rule. Morgan was way too good at the job, lined up worlds for Galactus to eat faster than he could eat them. Then he tried two Heralds at once for a while, and that didn’t work out. The man just doesn’t really seem to know what it is that he really wants from an employee, which seems to be why he keeps finding incompatible candidates for the job.

He’s, he’s a bad boss and I’m sure. A lot of us have had one at some point or another, and you go, oh, you’re just nice enough person, but you should not be doing this job.

Doc Issues: So I’m just going to plug a media personality. I don’t know if she still has the website but evil HR lady incredibly, I, I mean actually incredibly smart.

Like just a lot of knowledge from that perspective of, of how business works. So I give it a lot of credit cause that’s the first thing I thought of with this. So for obvious reasons, I’m going to say some practical things and then I’ll get into the more philosophical side. There is a very simple phrase when it comes to being an owner of a business.

Hire slowly fire quickly. That’s not as cruel as it sounds. I’m not saying that you have to be Mr. Burns from the Simpsons. I’m saying that it’s worth it to take your time and not rush on a person that in theory you want to last as not just as long as you need for that task, but as long as you have the business going, that really should be the goal.

The goal should be that the people you hire are people you trust enough that no matter what is happening, even if that particular task is done, yes, they may no longer be your employee, but they are still someone that you’re gonna have value for as long as you need to do something. So that way you make networking connections that are going to last longer than just one person, and that makes a huge difference more so than whether or not they can complete the thing that you want.

Of course, the number one thing is complete what you want, but. Too often we just shortchange it, and that is at greater risk nowadays. When you have things like fiber and everything, it’s wonderful. It’s wonderful for people at at, to be honest, at Anthony in our scale, because the idea is we just need to get these things done to make things work and survive.

That’s fine. I’m not knocking it. I’m saying though, once you get to a certain level where you know, okay, I, I have what I think is truly sustainable. I wanna keep growing, I want to serve more customers, I want to do more with whatever it is I’m doing, then yes, it does mean that you may wanna take the time to interview multiple people, even if it means your business is going to grow slower, because then you actually have what’s more likely going to be a proper sample size of what’s out there in the first place.

Because if you take the first person that looks good on paper and they interview, okay, then you have no idea what you’re comparing them to. In which case you just gave an opportunity to everybody else, for all the people that are remaining to just go ahead and cherry pick, and that’s not really a good idea.

Meanwhile, let’s say things aren’t working out, then there’s two sides to that. The employee knows what they want in the sense that if they’re unhappy, guess what’s going to happen. At some point, they’re either going to do a worse job or they’re going to leave, and let’s be honest, which would you rather have?

Would you rather have someone that is not doing a good job for you? Stick around and be passive aggressive, or would you want someone who says, you know what, this isn’t working out. I do think though, that there’s some opportunities here and you let that person take that other opportunity. Now, when I say it like that, that doesn’t sound horrible, but if I say, wow, okay, we did a three month review and, and it, it seems like it’s just not working out and you need to go.

It’s like, oh my goodness. Now I’m just. Now I’m just being a cold, mean hearted person and that, that’s not even the point, you know? So, so that’s a big part of this. And now for the philosophical side, and the reason I said philosophical is because I’m just gonna be funny y’all. So this is not politically correct and no, you, you have to be careful around kids.

But if you look up the special Steve Harvey, one man, and he talks about his job experiences and yes, there is some dated comedy in there, but the point being, what I get out of it is people handle the ideas of hiring and firing a bit different depending on their expectations and their background, and especially in middle management.

And I’m sorry, I still think it’s hilarious. And if that gets me canceled, so be it. But it is worth looking up just for that. I, I, I love it. You know, so in that sense, I’m gonna say, just give him my check. Just just give him my check. Give him my check. All right. I’m sorry, I I had to throw that in there cuz it, when I read Matt’s thing, that’s all I was thinking of in terms of hiring help.

Like, there’s no way, you know how every person is going to react in a situation where there’s a reason why I call it work. It’s because you have to give incentive for someone to do something they wouldn’t otherwise do. That’s why it’s work. So when you start with that, recognize that, no, you’re not looking for a friend.

No, you’re not looking for someone with a pretty face unless you are looking for someone with a pretty face like you’re going to modeling or something. I, I get it, but I’m just saying yes, focus on the job, but focus on the person. And how that person helps with the job, not just their ability to do the job

Anthony: alone.

The whole thing about work is I’m being compensated for my time that you are going to compensate my time sufficiently that the work and labor and service that I’m providing to you is worth more to me than the time that I could be spending elsewhere. That is the, the singular boiled down notion of work of time around labor and, and everything.

But when you were talking earlier, it reminded me of a a plaque that is hanging outside one of my coworkers cubes, and it said that, and I’m, I’m. I’m trying to recall it from memory as best as I can. The cfo, F and c E of a company are talking, and it’s about training employees, and the CEO O says, what if we train our employees?

Well, I know what you’re talking about. And then they leave, and then they leave the job and the CFO says, what if we don’t train them well, and they stay. I’ve kind of butchered it, but you get the idea. No, that’s exactly it. You didn’t

Doc Issues: butcher it. That’s it. That really

Anthony: is it. It’s this notion that at least from a managerial perspective, you have to provide your employees with the resources they need to do the job well and effectively, and you need to compensate them for their time for that training and for that effort.

Unfortunately, we’re in a time where, Neither of those things are happening right now, and that’s why you’re seeing so many people either switching jobs or quote unquote quiet quitting, which is really just corporate jargon’s, you know, buzzwords for acting your wage, which is, I’m not going to go above and beyond unless I’m compensated for it.

And the notion that people are only going to do exactly what is required of them, only what is exactly necessary for their job and only exactly what they have to do within the confines of their hours of employment and limiting themselves to that. If that ripples throughout the entire work sector, the entire house of cards collapses.

That’s the kind of the notion behind a general strike. Is that idea writ large is it’s not just, I’m only going to do what is required of me. It’s, I’m not going to do a damn thing and see what happens. France has been watching that play out as of late because of everything going on there. Viva La Franz.

But, but Tony, what, what,

Doc Issues: what are you trying to say? No damn.

Anthony: Well, whatcha you trying

Doc Issues: to say? He’s not gonna do a damn thing. Sorry. The whole Steve Harvey thing. I, I love that. I just love the whole thing. It, it, it really doesn’t encapsulate like when a person is getting fired, like the range of what can happen.

You know? Just, I’m sorry, I, I

Anthony: I’m really advocating this. That’s, that’s the one where it’s firing the white guy versus the black guy. Yeah. Yep. Okay. I know what you’re talking about.

Doc Issues: I was trying because I know, I know he says it that way, but my point is I don’t give a damn about the race bar. It was just like, Yeah, you got some people that are gonna flip out, man.

Anthony: Yep. So you’re gonna have to get security in here. You’re gonna have to drag Myas out the building. Yeah, it’s good stuff. Good stuff. So we’re gonna take a break. We’re gonna plug a couple shows and when we get back we will get into treatment. Stick around.

And we’re back. So treatment. Galactus does have all of the power. And what are you going to do to help him manage it? Ah,

Doc Issues: I don’t even know where to start. Like, is there such a thing as like a, I don’t know what you want to call it. How do you count calories? Like, I mean, what’s the, what’s the scale on that? How many billions of jewels of energy is this? What am I even doing?

I don’t know. I don’t know how to balance the, how to balance things out. And not only that, I’ve actually had this question for a long, long time, and I mentioned it before. The whole point of eating is because you actually expend energy doing other things. What is Galactus routine? Is he like, not just, I I get it.

It must take a lot to get from world to world. But like, does he have an exercise routine in between? I wanna find these things out, you know, so, so honestly it isn’t so much about immediately starting off with what he’s eating, cuz I guess we know what that is, but what does he do with it afterwards?

What’s the whole process? I need to know more. Those are the things that I would really be asking. That’s where I would start, because I wanna start with the unknown. We know the whole point, the vow of worlds. Got it. But what else? I really would be doing that type of that type of exploration before getting to, just say, please don’t,

Anthony: dev Valor, all of us.

So maybe he scales back his. Movement. He cuts down on his caloric expenditure. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Send Galactus, tell Galactus to get real lazy.

Doc Issues: I mean, it might result in like the heat death of the universe. I don’t know, but something

Anthony: different. That’s, that’s fair. I’m not really sure what an out of universe treatment would look like.

We can address certainly the eating disorders, which I think we, we did in large part when we talked about that particular issue. And maybe so eating disorders and the guilt associated with the eating. Yeah.

Doc Issues: Well, and and some of you may get a little tired of this cuz I’m. I think you know where I’m gonna start with this.

Many times it does have to do with personal experience, trauma, whatever it is, explore it if it’s there. But then also I’ll admit my experience is limited because I haven’t spent an extensive amount of time doing eating clinic work, either outpatient or inpatient. So I can tell you that some of it, once again, gets back to the practical side.

If someone is anorexic, then yes, they do get weighed because we need to have something to measure against and how they’re doing for the sake of survival, let alone obviously having the conversations about, about possible body dysmorphia or just general self-esteem. So there’s that. And then of course, on the other spectrum, There’s overeating, then yes.

What’s the exercise routine? What’s the diet? What’s, you know, all all those things whatever underlying medical conditions may be contributing. Can’t short change that. So always make sure a person is on the proper medication treatment. Check his thyroid folks, something that’s so incredibly important and plays a huge role in this.

We know it. If you are pre-diabetic, then please check with your doctor if there’s anything you can do before developing, you know, full, full case of diabetes. And this is very important for the mental health world as a whole, if you are taking things like antidepressants, antipsychotics mood stabilizing medications, those have a huge impact on metabolism and we know it.

And I’m apologizing for every physician that has used them, including myself, because we know that these things can happen. Yes, we’re trying to get better options for you. But there is a lot that’s still in your control. So if you have gained weight, if you have noticed that your, your cholesterol levels and your blood sugar levels have changed because of the medications themselves, and like I said, I’m, I’m sorry.

It is a known effect. And we will help you navigate that with your primary doctor to get through that. If it’s anorexia, not anorexia, I apologize if it’s bulimia. Or it can be anorexia if it includes certain types of purging. Then it, it’s behavior modification. It’s actually keeping a log of the last time you did those things and reviewing it with a therapist.

All these in consultation with a dietician, if it is a matter of, of actual pure diet or whatever restrictions there are. And just taking it one day at a time. Sorry for the cliche, but at the same time, Every day that you last doing it is a day that gives you an opportunity for more freedom for what you wanna do in life instead of worrying about all this stuff in the first place.

Anthony: Yep. I said earlier that it was going to involve a reframe with respect to the eating. And we’ve spoken many times on this show about the importance of reframing and cognitive behavioral therapy. Cognitive behavioral therapy isn’t the only paradigm that uses reframing certainly. And it’s definitely not the only thing within C B T, but it is a huge part of it.

So yeah, if you feel that,

the one thing I’ll say about eating disorders is, It is very difficult to address at times because the person who has it may not necessarily be aware of it, or the extent to which they’re aware of it. But the flip side is those around that person may not be comfortable in raising it. They may, in some cases have it themselves.

They may potentially misdiagnose something or state incorrectly. There’s a whole host of issues associated with the possibility of telling somebody, I think you may have an eating disorder, because again, there’s just a host of. Stigmas attached to it. And, and I’ve said this before on other, other shows and in other instances, that we as a society and as a culture have conflated four separate variables that ultimately I think have very little to nothing to do with each other, but we’ve kind of collectively associated them with one another.

And that is weight, health, beauty, and value to society. That skinny equals healthy, skinny equals beautiful, and beautiful equals valuable. So if you don’t fit into any of those categories, or at least what society deems as within the acceptable parameters, then. You are an other or you get less positive treatment.

It’s a topic for like a whole other podcast and I didn’t really want to get down that rabbit hole to this extent. But when we’re talking about these kinds of things, I just feel, again, it’s important to raise these things. Just because you’re skinny doesn’t mean you’re healthy.

Just because you’re fat doesn’t mean you’re not attractiveness. And what someone finds attractive has nothing to do with the number on the scale or the the body measurements that you have. And none of the above have a damn thing to do with your value to society and your inherent value as a human being.

So I just wanna make that abundantly clear to anybody who’s listening to this. That your value as a person is wholly independent from your physical appearance. Your weight is nothing more than a numerical depiction of your relationship with gravity, and that’s kind of all there is to it. But I just wanted to go on record is saying that when we were talking about these things, it just kind of brought it out in me, if you will.

And that

Doc Issues: is how you shut that down. That is amazing, dude.

Anthony: Well thank you. So with all that being said, I’m not really sure you can conceptually fit and galactus on a couch, but we’re gonna Damn sure try.

Doc Issues: Hello Galactus.

Anthony: I’m Dr. Greetings, doctor,

Doc Issues: when Adam Morlock said I’d be doing work for cosmic beings, I wasn’t quite expecting this.

Anthony: You have been approved by beings of power beyond comprehension. This carries with it incredible responsibility. Seems like I’ve heard that before. The hero called Spider-Man has made it somewhat of a mantra.

So how can I help you? I know your specialty is mental health, but you are experienced in physiology, are you not? Well, I’m a

Doc Issues: psychiatrist and an md, so I have knowledge of human biology. Having said that, I’m not really sure how that would apply to a celestial being of phenomenal power. I don’t think there’s even a remote chance of analogous internal systems.

Anthony: I am less concerned with the biology and more focused on the mental connections to the physical form.

Doc Issues: All right. I can’t believe I’m asking this, but what can I do to help you?

Anthony: I need to go on a diet excuse me. I must find a way to satiate my internal hunger for the sake of sentient beings. Oh

Doc Issues: boy. So I appreciate you seeking my input, but I don’t know how

Anthony: to help you here. You can provide me with suggestions to create mental blocks to abate the compulsions associated with the hunger.

That’s

Doc Issues: I, that is not even close to what I am trained in. Much as I would love to help you, I don’t even have the first

Anthony: inkling where to start. Might you have an associate who is trained in such matters?

Doc Issues: Sorry, I don’t know. If there’s much of a call for cosmic dieticians,

Anthony: perhaps you know of some free range options.

H how would that even work? A planet of sentient beings who desire to ascend to a higher plane, all of whom have the freedom to stay or leave. I have not figured out all of the logistics yet. I was hoping for your input.

Doc Issues: I’m sorry. Wait, wait, wait. Have you seen the commercials for that medication that wasn’t originally designed for losing weight or whatever, but people started taking it

Anthony: anyway?

The impact of a minuscule would not satiate such a

Doc Issues: state. No, no, no. But the premise is similar to what I’m thinking. You need a new set point, so, you know, change the order of what you eat and when. Then maybe some sort of suppressor and hmm. How does, how does one do bariatric surgery on a cosmic scale?

Anthony: My physical form has no known stance. I am whatever form is comprehensible to the species viewing me,

Doc Issues: Ed, you’re still large, so we’re gonna need an endoscopy tube the size of a space station. You know, like maybe route the last veins of our coal mines to neutralize your digestion. I guess from the start, if we combine that with the theoretical particles of the Hadron, you know, I, I think we might like get like some sort of black hole.

And you know, it’ll be inside you. And that way everything that comes in would just as easily pass out. In other words, I guess I’m making you a new asshole.

Anthony: And what would exit this tube? What matter of energy or matter is created from this experiment?

Doc Issues: I’m not a physicist but I think it could reset whatever goes through back to the original point of his existence.

Like before the Big Bang or whatever.

Anthony: I don’t know. You are willing to take a chance on existence as we know it, just to recreate it from my hunger. Well, when you

Doc Issues: put it like that or, or after you eat and there’s this new hole, can you

Anthony: eat that?

Myself,

Doc Issues: the whole I, I mean, what if you came out on the other end? I mean, what would

Anthony: you be like then you are attempting to navigate concepts far beyond the precepts of your mortal brain. Take care, doctor, that you do not force yourself into a state from which you cannot recover or do. So either way, Galactus will persist

probably.

Doc Issues: But I don’t know what, what would you have, sorry, but probably, but, but would you though, I mean, how do we know you wouldn’t become like this infinite digestive loop feeding on itself for eternity and then you wouldn’t even have the need for outside worlds. You, you’d kind of be in this steady state.

Nobody else gets devoured. I mean, that sounds like a fair trade,

Anthony: right? Your morality operates on a scale infant decimal to one such as Galactus. These concerns are as important to me as those of an ant are to you. There are far greater universal threats at risk if the cosmic balance is destabilized.

Before such an experiment proceeds, I must ponder the effects on the universal scale. I will consult with the Living Tribunal Eternity and the Cosmic Council. And

Doc Issues: as a doctor, I guess I should give some basic advice. Eat rocky planets for fiber but not Uranus because it’s

Anthony: too gassy. This is true, although this encounter is not what I expected.

You have enhanced the possible futures of all that will ever be. This will not be forgotten, Dr.

I. Don’t quite think he got what you were going for.

Doc Issues: I gotta admit, I have this thing about higher powers, like not God themselves, but just, you know, beings that think they’re all that. And I’m like, I really was this close to having him shove his own head up his own exit hole. I was, I

Anthony: was so close.

Yeah. Rectal cranial inversion on a cosmic scale, that would’ve been something to see, I suppose.

So recommended reading for this is the Galactus trilogy, the original Stanley Jack Kirby story, still to this day, holds up. As one of the finest examples of storytelling in the comic book Medium. Go find it in the trades or the Fantastic four Omnibus is whatever I have over here, which, which Fantastic Four Omnibus do I have?

I have Lee Kirby volume four, and this covers 94 through 1 25. So I would say it’s probably in Omnibus two, probably the one that contains the Galactus trilogy. I would have to double check. But based on the average number of issues within the omnibus, I’ll say it’s probably two. It’s either at the very end of two or in the beginning of three.

So check it out cause you want Fantastic four. 48, 49, and 50. So go back and check those out. And then I also, I dig the ultimate, that’s where he becomes the life bringer. It’s a cool story. So next episodes are Nova Richard Ryder and Miguel O’Hara, spider-Man 2099. And then we will be going on our summer hiatus.

So you can check out all of our episodes on our website, capes on the couch.com. We’re on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok. And you can also find us on the Gonna Geek Network gonnageeknetwork.com and check out all the other shows on the network. I also just had an episode, a guest spot that I did on Waffling Taylors, where we discussed the 1995 Mortal Combat film.

And I can say in all sincerity, it is one of the funniest guest spots I’ve ever recorded. It’s no disrespect to the many other wonderful. Hilarious podcasts that I’ve guessed it on, but something about Jay and Squidge and Mortal Combat and Christopher Lambert. We only spend maybe 30 to 40% of the hour and a half talking about the actual movie.

The rest of it is wonderfully hilariously bonkers. So go and check that out and let me know what you think,

what doc you like. You’ve got something to say.

Doc Issues: I swear to you, I just came up with this as you were talking and that’s why I, I had this reaction and I just have to ask the question.

If Galactus eats too much of the Milky Way, does he get Gal

Anthony: get out? Get out, don’t come back. We’re done here. For doc issues, I’m Anthony Sytko. Thanks for listening. We’ll see you next week.