My Destroyed Planet Five

We are living in some strange times. Snow and cold weather persist well into April. Weather fluctuates through what used to be Spring, then one day it's suddenly hot and humid, when there aren't flash thunderstorms. Then steam rises from the pavement. And Earthquakes seem to be increasing in frequency and location. Haiti. The Philippines. Canada even had one on Wednesday, and shockwaves reached as far as New York and New Jersey. Now, in our relative youth as humans in comparison to the planet Earth itself, this could all be normal, all part of the usual cycle, or foreboding of the end. And if the last, hopefully far-fetched conclusion turns out to be true, we only have fictional scenarios to turn to for guidance. My Five fictional destroyed planets might not offer much in the way of advice, of course, but they offer plenty in the way of entertainment:

5) Lithone:
Cause of Destruction: The answer is...Unicron, a giant machine that drifted through the galaxy consuming planets in his path and converting them to energy. We first meet him in The Transformers: The Movie, and Lithone falls in the opening scene.
From the Ashes: All but two Lithonians might have been destroyed, but these sentient robots were just there to set the stage for the stakes The Transformers themselves would face when Unicron reached their home planet Cybertron. Those two survivors didn't last too long before meeting another unfortunate fate, but at least one lived long enough to pass along some information to our protagonists, at the very least the name and nature of the fiend they'd be facing.


4) Zenn-La:
Cause of Destruction: Initially, it was spared by the world-devouring Galactus, in exchange for one of its residents becoming the Silver Surfer, who would become his herald and find other planets for him to eat. When the Surfer eventually betrayed his master and sided with humans to spare the Earth, Galactus banished him there and returned to feed off of Zenn-La, though he allowed survivors to escape.
From the Ashes: Zenn-La was stripped of energy but not completely destroyed, and its people eventually returned to rebuild. It was destroyed a few more times since then, but I haven't followed the comics that closely in years. Here's a video of the Surfer's origin:


3) Alderaan:
Cause of Destruction: Grand Moff Tarkin was a jerk. Princess Leia told him the location of the Rebel base when faced with Alderaan's destruction, and Tarkin still gave the word to fire, mostly because he wanted to demonstrate the power of The Death Star, and Alderaan was right there.
From the Ashes: When you're trying to crush a rebellion, a dastardly deed of such magnitude as blowing up a planet will either break your enemies, or unite them against you with renewed desperation and vigor. If they weren't planning to already, the Rebels were even more determined to blow up the Death Star and, with intel Leia gathered on a certain weak spot, they had the means to do so.


2) Thundera:
Cause of Destruction: When the dying planet is consumed by volcanic eruptions and explodes, only a small fleet of ships carry survivors away, before nearly every ship is destroyed by mutants from a rival planet.
From the Ashes: One group of nobles do survive the mutant attack, and settle on a planet known as Third Earth to rebuild their society led by a new Lord of the Thundercats, the young Lion-O, who ages from a young cub to a full-grown Thundercat on their journey from Thundera to Third Earth due to a malfunction in his suspension capsule. Armed with the mystic Sword of Omens, source of the Thundercats' power, he goes on to defend his people against old enemies and new ones on their new planet, notably Mumm-Ra, an evil immortal mummy wizard. Eventually, a New Thundera is created, and the Thundercats have a new place to rebuild their ancestral home.


1) Krypton:
Cause of Destruction: Like Thundera, Krypton had run its course, although versions of the story range from underground nuclear reactions to war and damage to the environment leading to its inevitable doom. In every version, the end result is the same, and the Kryptonians perish as their world explodes.....
From the Ashes: ....but the one thing all versions of the story also have in common are two parents placing their infant son into a rocket ship and sending him to Earth. Here, his alien physiology acts as a solar battery and our yellow sun, unlike the red sun which Krypton orbited, infuses him with great powers far beyond that of mortal man. I wonder whatever happened to that guy....