Marcus Goh is a Singapore television scriptwriter. He’s also a Transformers enthusiast and avid pop culture scholar. He Tweets/Instagrams at Optimarcus and writes at marcusgohmarcusgoh.com. The views expressed are his own.

The iconic superweapon from Star Wars has to be the Death Star, a moon-sized orbiting space station with a literal death ray attached to it. A single blast is all it takes to destroy a planet, and there exists no greater power in the universe.

Unless we’re talking about a multiverse. Other famous planet-destroying entities include Galactus and Unicron, and if all three were to meet in a battle of cosmic proportions, who would win this Royal Rumble? This debate has raged for eons (well, maybe close to three decades) in geekdom, and has been known to cause ferocious flame wars across the Internet. Let’s take a look at our combatants.

Death Star

The Death Star. (IFL Science)

We’ll take Death Star II (in Return of the Jedi) as our example here, since it’s larger and newer. It measures 160km in diameter, and carries an entire fleet of starships and firepower. Specifically, it has 15,00 heavy and standard turbolaser batteries along with 7,500 laser cannons and 5,000 ion cannons (as stated by Wookiepedia).

Of course, its planet buster is its most deadly weapon, which was used to destroy Alderaan, described as an Earth-like planet. From this we can conjecture that the Death Star is more than capable of destroying anything the size of Earth, and probably more than that given all its additional firepower.

Unicron

Unicron. (GOO Reviews)

Unicron is an evil god from Transformers, who transforms into a devil planet with actual horns. He eats planets, although not by opening his mouth and chomping down on them. There are no definitive sizes for Unicron, so we have to extrapolate it. Unicorn is about the same size as Cybertron (who is actually a Transformer that’s Unicron’s good twin brother), which in the cartoon is about the same size as the Moon, placing it at a diameter of 3,474 km.

Story continues

In “Transformers: The Movie” (1986), Unicron’s goal is to eat Cybertron, so we can safely assume that he can destroy something the size of the Moon with ease. He has some trouble handling attacks from the Transformers though, with one of his eyes getting shattered during the fight (and another one after his demise), so we know that smaller foes can hurt him. But since he is a deity, it is possible that such attacks mean nothing to him.

The only thing that Unicron fears is the Autobot Matrix of Leadership, but that can only be opened by the Chosen One, who is in all likelihood the current or next Autobot leader.

Galactus

Galactus. (Movie Pilot)

Galactus is a cosmic entity in the Marvel Universe that has to eat planets for sustenance. He’s generally depicted as 18 to 25 metres in height, which makes him tower over virtually anybody else. But he wields a force known as the Power Cosmic, which effectively allows him to do whatever he wants. Since he wants to devour Earth in his first appearance, we can safely say that he can destroy anything Earth-sized with ease.

His only fear is a weapon called the Ultimate Nullifier, which can eliminate any target it chooses, and has been shown to destroy an entire universe. Hence, the only kind of power that could hurt Galactus would weapons that deal damage on a universal scale.

Fight!

A battle of cosmic proportions. (Gateway Pundit)

So, size-wise, Unicron wins, hands down, followed by the Death Star and then Galactus. But then, since Galactus has the Power Cosmic, he could use it to become larger than the other two, and trump them in the size department.

In terms of sheer power, Galactus would be able to do the most destruction, followed by the Death Star and then Unicron, going by the size of planets that they have attempted to destroy in the past. In all likelihood though, since Galactus and Unicron are both deities, their damage output would be pretty similar. Unicron might have a little bit more trouble handling the starships that the Death Star would send his way, but Galactus is also smaller than say, a Super Star Destroyer, so that might pose some inconvenience as well.

However, in terms of resilience, the Death Star would be the first to go down, since it doesn’t have any specific weaknesses. It’s as vulnerable to conventional attacks as any other planet, and it also has a nasty habit of hiding its planetary shields on nearby moons or have crippling design flaws that allow a well-placed shot to blow it up. So despite its destructive ability, the Death Star can’t take it as well as it can dish it.

Galactus vs Unicron

Clash of the Titans. (Robby Muso/Screw Attack)

So it comes down to the two cosmic deities. Since their power level and toughness would be at the same godlike levels, it comes down to whose specific weaknesses are easier to exploit.

Galactus’ Ultimate Nullifier is pretty easy to get a hold of — nearly everyone in the Marvel Universe has held it at one point — and it’s also easy to use, since hardly anyone has trouble activating it. In fact, Galactus is scared off in his very first appearance when Mr Fantastic wields it against him. Kind of shows how conspicuous the Ultimate Nullifer is, eh?

Unicron’s Autobot Matrix of Leadership is a bit more difficult, since it’s usually contained in the chest cavity of the current Autobot leader, who’s usually a formidable giant transforming robot of war. In addition, only the Chosen One can use it, which means that you need to find and convince a specific person (or Transformer) to use it against Unicron. So when it comes to exploiting weaknesses, Unicron has the more difficult one.

Unicron wins!

Unicron triumphant. (Comic Vine)

So there you have it — an evil transforming robot god trumps a celestial force of nature and an orbital space station with a death ray. I’m all ready to be hunted down and drawn and quartered for having proven that Unicron would win, and having added to this endless debate.

Building another Death Star for another fight. (Jedi Archives Wiki)

Who do you think would win?