While Iron Man and the Human Torch anxiously circled overhead, convinced they were witnessing a high-stakes philosophical debate about humanity's survival, the reality was something else entirely.
What Sean and Galactus were actually discussing had drifted far from the fate of Earth. The discussion had veered off-topic from marrying Gali to the broader subjects of species propagation and whether polygamy was a rational arrangement for higher lifeforms.
On this latter point, Galactus offered Sean several rather thought-provoking insights.
So much so that later, when Tony privately asked Sean how he managed to maintain such a harmonious harem, Sean would always offer the same sincere reply: "It's all for the sake of world peace."
Gali, for her part, remained cheerfully oblivious throughout, her luminous eyes remaining fixed on Sean.
She liked his pure, radiant energy. It meant she didn't have to give in to endless, indiscriminate feeding the way her father did. She didn't have to become an engine of slaughter and ruin.
As for concepts like spouses, partners, marriage... Gali regarded them as amusing diversions. She accepted them readily, without objection.
...
"I have heard the tale of Thanos's crushing defeat at your hands," Galactus rumbled, "The Mad Titan is no minor figure."
It had to be said, Sean was remarkably skilled at building rapport. Even with an entity as vast and alien as Galactus, the conversation, while not exactly deep, had gradually eroded whatever negative first impression the Devourer might have held.
Galactus cast a meaningful glance at the Infinity Gauntlet. The five stones glittered, swirling with prismatic currents of cosmic energy: 'If this human ever acquires the sixth, he would possess the standing to stand with me as a true equal, even at the height of my power...'
"You humans are a peculiar species," Galactus mused, "So fragile, and yet, every so often, you produce individuals of surprisingly great power."
He recalled a female human he had encountered while laying waste to the Skrull throneworld. She, too, had possessed extraordinary power.
Sean's eyes flickered. His reorganization of S.H.I.E.L.D. had unearthed a number of secrets from the previous century. Among them; Captain Marvel, a former female pilot, once the most powerful superhero on Earth.
Back at the dawn of the last century, both the Kree and Skrull Empires had dispatched advance scouts to Earth. S.H.I.E.L.D. still held the preserved body of a Kree operative, one later used in Project T.A.H.I.T.I. to resurrect Agent Coulson.
Carol Danvers, the woman who became Captain Marvel, had gained her phenomenal abilities after contact with a Kree fleet officer named Mar-Vell.
According to the secrets Nick Fury had spilled under the Mind Stone's influence, that same Captain Marvel had journeyed to the Kree Empire and later returned to Earth only briefly. She'd left behind nothing but an old-fashioned pager linked to S.H.I.E.L.D.
The woman herself was no longer on this blue planet...
"The beauty of life lies precisely in its unpredictability and in the miracles it creates," Sean replied, a faint smile touching his lips.
He wasn't particularly concerned about Captain Marvel. Even if she returned to Earth, his power alone was sufficient to handle her, add the Gauntlet, and he had little reason to fear.
"Speaking of life, there is another matter I must discuss with you." Galactus said, as though a thought had surfaced through the sluggish currents of his hunger-slowed mind.
With a gesture, Sean and Gali felt the world lurch, and in an instant, they were no longer on Earth.
They stood aboard a colossal vessel, elliptical and vast as a giant's egg. It served less as a ship and more as the Devourer's incubation chamber, the place where he retreated to slumber after a rare, satisfying meal.
Gali felt perfectly at home and wandered off happily to her own quarters. Sean remained, schooling his expression into attentive focus.
As a being who had existed since the universe's first breath, Galactus was a living archive; a walking chronicle of cosmic history.
True, he spent most of his time asleep or hunting in a haze of hunger, rarely concerning himself with the shifting tides of the cosmos... but there were things he knew that almost no one else did.
"Do you understand the true order of this universe?" Galactus's voice echoed, solemn and foreboding.
He never discussed these matters with anyone. This exception was made because of Sean's close relationship with Gali.
"The so-called Three Great Empires, the Elders of the Universe, and even the Celestials of old, are all insignificant Before these beings." Slowly, Galactus began to peel back the deepest veil of the cosmos.
Sean held his breath. He understood that possessing the six Infinity Stones would not elevate him to the pinnacle.
The ceiling of this universe was immeasurably high. Even a fully assembled Gauntlet only granted the privilege to converse with the truly supreme beings.
"They are, like myself, conceptual entities..." Galactus intoned.
A vast, luminous projection rose in the chamber. Against a backdrop of infinite stars, four immense, phantasmal silhouettes took shape...
Death: The source of all life and all souls, their manipulator, and their creator. She represented the termination of every living thing. Across all mythologies, she took many incarnations; the Reaper, the Underworld, the End.
Eternity: The summation of all time in the universe. The steward of infinite dimensions.
Infinity: The summation of all space in the universe. Together with Eternity, they constituted the totality of all spacetime.
Oblivion: The embodiment of non-existence. The aggregate of Nothing. One of the rare entities immune to causality itself.
"These are the conceptual cosmic entities. The primordial gods. Together, they form the fundamental order of this reality." As Galactus spoke, the four phantoms hovered in silent, incomprehensible majesty.
They rarely manifested in any physical form. Like Galactus himself, they simply were.
"There is one more," Sean noted, gazing up at the projection.
Above the four entities, a fifth silhouette shimmered into view. It was a vast, golden figure. It possessed three distinct faces, rotating slowly, eternally.
"That," Galactus said, his voice uncharacteristically subdued, "is the Living Tribunal. The agent of the One Above All. Even I cannot fathom that existence's full nature."
The ancient being had shown a rare flash of humility. Galactus maintained an attitude of supreme arrogance toward every civilization, every species. But not toward that existence.
"The Infinity Stones are the supreme artifacts born alongside the universe itself. Their power, I need not explain." Galactus dismissed the projection, his gaze settling on the golden Gauntlet upon Sean's hand, "The Mad Titan sought to gather them. He believed he could maintain cosmic equilibrium through a different method, but that method was flawed. And it was not... permitted... by the Living Tribunal. You stopped Thanos and obtained five of the stones, but the Mad Titan has not conceded defeat."
Galactus had four Heralds. The Silver Surfer was merely one. The most loyal among them was Stardust, a being composed entirely of cosmic particles and energy.
Stardust had recently returned with information gleaned from an Elder of the Universe. Information about Thanos.
"You're saying Thanos is investigating the cause of the Celestials' extinction?" Sean frowned.
The Mad Titan had lost the contest for the stones decisively. It seemed, however, that he had not abandoned his schemes. He hadn't simply vanished into the void with his Black Order to accept defeat.
"Thanos is a lunatic. His head is filled with crooked and deranged obsessions. The destruction of Titan set him upon a broken path." Within the torrential depths of Galactus's eon-spanning memory, an image surfaced.
The killers of the Celestials. A terrifying race from beyond this universe...