Released in 2005, around the time Thor was being shelved for a couple years via a Ragnarok, this mini-series sees Beta Ray Bill return to his duties as protector of the Korbinites, right when they need him the most. Galactus has arrived, though the Korbinites see him as Ashta, a great destroyer god of their religion (Di Vito draws this as sort of giant purple jellyfish or flagellate protozoan), and he's hungry. As usual.
Worse, Big G has himself a new herald, and Stardust might be the worst of the lot. Stardust carries a religious fervor in its devotion to Galactus, so much so it regards beings refusing to be eaten as an affront. Not just those who try to fight Galactus. Even the Korbinites who are trying to flee, Stardust is intent on eradicating.
While it makes sense Galactus finds such devotion desirable in his herald, after all the others were either too self-serving or too moral, it still annoys me. Galactus knows this is happening and does nothing to stop it, which puts a lie to all those, "Galactus only does what he must," and "Galactus takes no pleasure in it," soliloquies. Then tell your herald not to finish off the genocide you start, you purple jackass.
Between Stardust and a Korbinite religious order that dislikes how Bill talks up the Asgardians, Beta Ray can't save the planet. But he puts up enough of a fight - including one bit where he slams Stardust into an asteroid, then uses Stormbreaker to drive Stardust's own spear through its chest - protecting the survivors, transferred into the glowy orb up there, that Stardust ups the ante to the point of endangering the entire universe by releasing some nightmare creature. The creature, called Asteroth, presents itself as a lady with bat wings and a Witchblade-esque costume. Di Vito didn't bring much of an other-dimensional hellbeast energy to that design.
It feels as though the mini-series kind of goes off the rails there. One too many additional elements, as Bill and Stardust team-up to try and fix Stardust's mess, and mostly fail. Asteroth is ultimately defeated, but Bill and his ship Skuttlebutt end up in some white void, thanked by mysterious beings for their efforts, and at Bill's request, sent to Asgard. Which is destroyed. So much for re-settling the surviving Korbinites there. Oh, and Asteroth hid its essence in the orb and feasted on the souls within. So much for there being any Korbinites to re-settle.
The end result is, Bill is reborn on Earth, in the body of a homeless man that's just died. He's still got Stormbreaker, and can transform into his traditional horse-face form (albeit with a new costume that mostly involves a more elaborate helm and no cape.)
I feel like most of this was ignored. I'm not sure Beta Ray Bill appeared in anything until JMS brought Thor back in 2007. Kieron Gillen referenced Galactus eating the Korbinites' home in Beta Ray Bill: Godhunter, but Bill describes the bit about nearly dying on Asgard and seeing some mysterious cloaked figure take what was left of the meta-orb as possibly just a hallucination.
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