Top 10 Interstellar Destinations to Visit in Comics (And #1 is Amazing)

The Marvel Multiverse is unimaginably expansive with strange, remote worlds, dead Celestials floating in the void, and artificial planets spinning in the depths of the cosmos and into realities beyond. The Multiverse is a great place to visit but, spread across endless gulfs of space and veering off into hidden dimensions, the logistics of intergalactic tourism and grueling distances between star systems can make vacations daunting. As space travel is long and arduous with most time spent in cryogenic hibernation, the Excursionary Committee of the Galactic Council recommends traveling the Nexus of All Realities to beat the interminable downtime between spiral galaxies.

Star Tours operates two Nexus points from Earth, the Forever Gate at the Baxter Building and for those seeking a more organic experience, the Man-Thing. Through the Nexus, travelers can make any journey in mere moments and to virtually any point in time allowing for exploration of planets eaten by Galactus before their annihilation or systems wiped out by the Builders as they swept through the galaxy culling worlds. The reality designed Earth-616 is ideal for a holiday abroad, yet, with offering innumerable sights to take in, where to start is the real question. Ready for an adventure? Let’s look at the Top 10 Interstellar Destinations to Visit in Marvel Comics.

10) Throneworld II/Sacred Ruins of Hala

The blue-skinned Kree are a cantankerous lot, owing that likely to the technocratic military dictatorship that rules over the Kree Empire. Overseen by the sanctimonious Supreme Intelligence, an entity composed of the greatest Kree minds with all their surliness, the Kree make their home on Throneworld II, built upon the Sacred Ruins of Hala. But just because it’s under martial law doesn’t mean visitors can’t find fun in Kree-Lar, the capital city of the new Kree/Skrull Alliance on Throneworld.

Alongside the blue-skinned locals, inhabitants include the plant-like Cotali, the olive-green Skrulls, and various subject races and the intergalactic population has contributed to stunning architectural and technological achievements visible across the capital city. Prepare in advance  if your traveling party intends to seek audience with the Supreme Intelligence in the Hall of Judgement, the gelatinous polymath can be a bit intimidating. And don’t miss the thriving arts district on the fringes of the city where the laws are a little lax and even contraband is tolerated. For a deep dive into local culture, check out the subterranean city of Haline where they’ve put technology on hold for the sake of serenity. If it’s a business trip, head over to Harfax, the largest industrial state on Throneworld for deep discounts on manufacturing commodities and precious metal at the Hecnic Valt salvaging center. Located in the Large Magellanic Cloud, Throneworld II sits on the ruins of the fourth planet in orbit around the star, Pama. Safe travels and watch that gravity well.

9) Chandilar – Shi’ar Throneworld

The Shi’ar, are an imperialistic, bird-like race with a rapacious impulse to add more worlds to their cosmic clutch. One of the most powerful empires in the cosmos, with territory spanning over eight galaxies, the Shi’ar built their throneworld on an artificial planet. Named for their lost homeworld, Chandilar is a located in the Andromeda Galaxy and a host of assimilated races under Shi’ar influence contribute to the cosmopolitan appeal of capital world. 

With the wealth of over a million world, Chandilar is an opulent and fashionable megalopolis that attracts an affluent pedigree of visitors from across sovereign Shi’ar space. While on Chandilar, celebrity watchers might catch royal nuptials on display as the Shi’ar love elaborate marriages, a scheme to shore up the empire’s allies. Visit the Imperial Guard Training Academy and get a free Gladiator mock-mohawk for the kids back home. Shi’ar stargates allow for wormhole travel if you need to make a last-minute connection but stay local and check out the shabby-chic Sky Slums and the vertigo-inducing floating island of Chandilore. Or take a harbor cruise, 4-hour tour of the celestial attractions in-system onboard the Lilandra, a modified Shi’ar battlecruiser named after the late Majestrix, though the flying fortress is now used more for diplomacy than deterrence. 

8) Knowhere

Knowhere is where you go when you want to get lost, alongside a multitude of shifty scoundrels seeking the same anonymity. Occupying the husk of a dead Celestial head and drifting at the Edge of the Universe where time and space meet, Knowhere has no native inhabitants but, despite its establishment as a scientific-research outpost, pirates, outlaws, and outcasts have all made the bizarre-satellite their refuge.

Among the more famous “Knowbodies” known to hang their hats here are Guardians of the Galaxy, The Ravagers, and lonesome Adam Warlock. Cosmo the mutate space-mutt runs cyber-security here, which is quite a task as Knowhere houses a Continuum Cortex inside the dead Celestial’s head which facilitates teleportation across realities as do the Nexus of All Realities and the Forever Gate. Sometime you want go where Knowbody knows your name and word has it that the “best place to get a drink” in the dead head is Starlin’s Bar, named for the artist, Jim Starlin, that created/co-creating the characters Drax the Destroyer, Gamora, and the Titan, Thanos. Dock the Benatar and glide on over to Starlin’s Bar for some mind-bending, cosmic skull-pop and stay the night in this haunted head on the edge of time and space. Something to write home about.

7) Domus Draconum

In the deepest reaches of space lies the dread world Domus Draconum, host to the vampire clans of Vlad Dracula of Earth-616. Among Dracula’s bloodsucking spawn is Lilith Drake, Vlad’s own offspring and it was she that made their homeworld a reality. With a starship chartered by the Free Nations of Earth as compensation for destroying the vampire capital, Terra Rubra, Lilith led the faithful of their kind to Domus Draconum, the Dragon’s Home. With new technologies to turn water into a blood-rich nutrient, the unfettered vampires were able to live their best undeath, raising families and as Dracula’s daughter attests, “the privilege of refusing to be predator or prey, of reinventing our ways.”

Domus Draconum is a gothic getaway, great as a backdrop to a grimdark wedding reception, or just walking the heaths outside the city proper. From the spires of the capital city radiate a variety of districts established to accommodate the eclectic tastes of undying vampires from across the ages and across the cultures of Earth. In one quarter visitors can glimpse be-fanged but bohemian artists working the clay and kiln and find holotheaters and casino-culture in the next. Looking for a bite to eat? The local cuisine is humanoid blood so it’s best to be off-world by the time the dinner bell sounds.

6) Xandar

Nestled in the star-nursery of Tranta System in the Andromeda Galaxy, Xandar was the capital of the Nova Empire and birthplace of the Nova Corps, but was destroyed during the world-shattering Annihilation Wave. The Nexus of All Reality allows ticket holders to take a brief trip back in time to see the Xandarian homeworld in all its lost splendor. As with other empires in its cosmological sphere, Xandar is a militarist society—with nosy neighbors like Shi’ar and the Skrulls, it’s in their self-interest—with socio-liberal leanings that take the sting out of military rule.

For diversity and cultural indulgence, Xandar outpaces more homogenized societies like the Kree and discriminating tastes will enjoy the variety afforded visitors in the conservatories of the entertainment district and the posh hotel social scene. The Xandar Spaceport not only links interstellar travelers to lifts off-world, it’s an entire ecosystem unto itself with renown culinary delights and libations to astound the senses. Leave the refinement and culture of the city for restful cruise-tour of the planet, as its water covers much of the surface world. Cloud-watching night or day in the capital, visitors can spy the three stars of Xandar’s solar system, the trio of heavenly bodies that inspired the Nova Corps’ celebrated symbol. 

5) Titan 

Contrary to prevailing sentiment on Earth, Sol III is not the only inhabited planet in the solar system. Titan is the largest of Saturn’s moon and the gas giant’s mighty satellite is home to the aptly named Titans, descendants of the same Eternals that made their home long ago on Earth. The Titans built a scientific paradise using a revolutionary—and somewhat paranoid—computer, ISACC to govern the environment beneath an atmosphere of methane and dust and ash of the moon’s surface. The most infamous of the Titans is megalomaniacal Thanos who, after being ostracized from their scientific society,  attempted to destroy his homeworld. As a result, only 114 Titans remain on the moon, falling precipitously from 35,000 before Thanos’ sieges. 

Even so, life endures and Titan’s technological wonders can yet be admired in the vaunted Hall of Science and the mile-long cosmic-gyro that serves as the satellite’s foundation. The Temple of Life and the sylvan beauty of the Tree of Eternity offer a pleasant respite from the artifice and machinery that sustains Titan— take the sky-ship across the Preserve for a truly breathtaking experience. Beware the giant spiders in the Tree’s boughs, they’re sly enough to take down even the wily Starfox. After a long day spent trekking the cityscape and the Lost Nature Preserve under the artificial sun, check into the luxurious Life-Baths on Titan and let the servo-drones wash the weariness away.

4) Poppup

Poppup is a charming place where anything is possible and the impossible is just another name for the alien species that inhabits the perilous world. Located in the “Tenth Galaxy,” the Poppupians of Poppup faced danger from the planet’s indigenous flora and fauna and developed remarkable evolutionary processes so swiftly as to enable transmutation “into anything, just by thinking of it.” One of Poppup’s most famous residents is know as Impy, the Impossible Man, a green-skinned trickster whose amazing ability to morph into anything he can imagine makes him a formidable foe, particularly of the Fantastic Four, but he lacks fellow hoaxer, Loki’s ambition and cruelty. Poppup was once devoured by Galactus but, as the Poppupians had further evolved into one mind, a community brain, and lodged themselves inside Impossible Man’s head, the empty planetoid only gave the Devourer of Worlds “terminal indigestion.”

Turn the clock back and get your gear together for a weeks-long Poppupian safari where the most dangerous game lurks behind every canopy of vines and in every murky riverbed. Thrill to alien adventure as you wheel across otherworldly rainforests and grassy savannas inside an Impossible Person shaped like a Jurassic Park gyrosphere. It’s a once in a lifetime experience. 

3) Vormir

Located in the Helgentar Star System and cradled inside the Large Magellanic Cloud, skulks the dreary world of Vormir. The native Vorms, which dwell on what little land rises from the primarily aquatic world, are a nocturnal species and can’t be bothered with interstellar tourism. However, with 74% of the planet covered in water, Vormir makes for great nautical adventure and the dense cloud cover makes it appealing for species with low pigmentation or those with sun-light sensitivity. As such, Vormir is a hot-spot for the undead and their kin and excursionists may even find some vampires from Domus Draconum day-tripping along the coastline. For a truly transformative experience, take a pilgrimage to Vormir’s summit and visit with the oracular Storekeeper to learn life’s darkest secrets—for a price.

2) Zenn-La

Welcome to the pleasure-dome! Zenn-La is forever linked with Norrin Radd who relinquished his own mortality to become a Herald of Galactus to spare his world the destruction so many other planets suffered in their encounters with cosmic menace. One trip to this satellite in the Deneb star system of Earth’s own Milky Way Galaxy will convince visitors that the Surfer’s sacrifice was worth it, Zenn-La is a dream come true.

The Zenn-Lavians are extremely long-lived humanoid race and have cultivated a utopian society where scholarship, scientific achievement, and enlightenment are key to their harmonious lifestyle. Reliance on technology and the elimination of disease and social maladies has allow for the citizens of Zenn-La to drift into an insular existence, like inhabits of the Island of the Lotus Eaters in The Odyssey, utterly indifferent to the galaxy in their halcyon dream. Since Galactus popped by unannounced, the Zenn-Lavians have become wary of interlopers and space tourism is strictly regulated. Still the incense-bearing trees of the capital and sinuous spires of Jendu-Van inspire awe and the Museum of Antiquity and the Great Keep afford a glimpse into Zenn-La’s more martial past, including the cultural’s last weapons of warfare. Ask the locals about the dream chambers, for a sensory-deprivation to rival true nirvana.

1) Weirdworld

The immense floating island of Weirdworld is an enchanting and surrealistic realm inundated with inexplicably-bizarre lifeforms in an array of primordial landscapes. An expedition into Weirdworld is a trip through the looking-glass where mottled manta rays glide through the humid reaches of the lower atmosphere and simian creatures live in submarine cities worshipping eldritch fish-gods. From the Forest of the Man-Things to the snow sharks of the mountain passes, life here is uncanny. 

After the Multiverse was destroyed, the heroes of Earth-616 and Earth-1610 were left with naught but Battleworld, a massive patchwork planet formed from ruins of worlds that have ceased to exist and Weirdworld is the most mystifying of all. After the unpleasantness with Doctor Doom passed, Weirdworld came into its own as LARPing destination popular with sword-and sorcery fanatics keen to roleplay their way through the Crystal Labyrinth, across  Motherboard Mountain, and along the Pink River of Death which, while toxic, is delightful to picnic beside. Cool you heels at the Swaying Salon in Weirdworld’s icy peaks but beware the horrid Hawksquatch and the howling Glow Dogs—and by all means, avoid the underwater realm of Apelantis, those people are bananas.

What interstellar destination in Marvel can we take you to? Let us know in the comments!