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In some ways, Galactus can be compared to Doctor Who.

As fictional characters, neither existed prior to their first appearance. Once they did exist, bits of backstory started to be added, sometimes without paying a whole lot of attention to what was already there! Like the Doctor, Galactus was established as having a long life before we first became aware of him. In the case of the Doctor, hundreds of years without a regeneration. In the case of Galactus, apparently able to satisfy his hunger for long periods with the consumption of a world's life energies.

But once each has become part of an ongoing drama, central in the case of the Doctor, peripheral in the case of Galactus, events that were previously rare start to become commonplace. The Doctor regenerates nine or ten times in the span of only fifty years.* And Galactus starts chomping those planets on a much shorter schedule.

Both, in the manner of serial fiction, depend upon a changing audience that is not keeping track of these things!

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* When Hartnell became Troughton, it was engineered by the Time Lords, and called "rejuvenation", not "regeneration".

I saw this while the kids were watching a cartoon called The Farily Odd Parents recently.

Some curious Googling led me to discover that somewhat skewed versions of Galactus, along with many other comic book characters, seem to pop up on the show with some regularity.