I've been getting into comics a lot lately, but one thing I still can't figure out is this: is there a supreme cosmic being in either of the big universes?
I ask because I remember one Fantastic Four issue where Ben Grimm dies, and the remaining Fantastic Three "rescue" him from Heaven. And at one point Dr. Doom goes to Hell. But then there's also Death, Galactus, ,Living Tribunal, multiple universe stuff, the Infinity Gauntlet, and the thousand other gods like Thor that kind of contradict the "big God" part.
Also DCU had some kind of god stuff at some point, but I don't really remember where and when.
Thoughts?
>>64525769
>that kind of contradict the "big God" part.
The point of one big God is that it can't be contradicted. It is supreme, because it's above everything you've mentioned.
>>64525769
Goku will beat the shit out of that nigga.
>>64525769
>>64525769
There is an omnipotent god in both Marvel and DC. He just doesn't show up much for obvious reasons.
>>64525769
>is there a supreme cosmic being in either of the big universes
Yes. In DC it's taken the form of an Englishman, a great light behind the source wall, some bearded guy, etc. In modern DC his current form is a scottie dog.
I don't know about Marvel, but in DC, every religion is right, all the gods and their various afterlifes exist.
>>64526428
Awesome
>>64526760
Jonathan Hickman's Fantastic Four/FF
>>64525769
There is a hierarchy of supreme beings and The One Above All is the more powerful than the rest combined. The Second most powerful is Tribunal who is the chore boy of the one above all.
>>64526467
Isnt the main god supposed to be the writer/artist
>>64526526
this
in DC judeo-christian god is real, all the pagan gods are real, there are roman and greek pantheons, god likes to be a dog, santa is real, etc.
I mean the Spectre WORKS for god and he's a JSA member
They both have co-existing pantheons and high cosmic abstracts, but they also each have a single supreme being who presides over the entire multiverse, whereas even higher-ups like Galactus or the Spectre are different characters in different universes.
They rarely appear, but it does happen. In an old FF, the One Above All was Jack Kirby working in his studio. There are also characters who answer to them directly, like the Living Tribunal and the Spectre.
Meet God.
>>64528654
>>64528683
>Torch lighting his cigar
Truly the King
>>64525769
"We are not gods." -Odin.
isnt the one above all in marvel supposed to be god in marvel?
>>64526477
YHWH is implied to be of lesser authority than the Overvoid.
The one above all.
He is also Jack Kirby.
>>64528815
How can the Overvoid have "authority"? The Overvoid is the page. It's the Brahman to YHVH's, uh, Yahweh. Overvoid is a reactive, generative totalizing force while Yahweh is a character within all of that.
It would be more correct to say that the Overvoid has more significance than Yahweh, it being the bed from which all stories come, if I understand Morrison correctly.
>>64525769
The One Above All is not just his name.
It's a descriptor.
He is literally above all of them.
If Thanos with the Cosmic Cube, Infinity Gauntlet, the gem of Cytorrak, with Thor's Hammer and the Eye of Agamatto all whilst the most pissed off Hulk that has ever been throws him at The One Above All, OAA would win.
>>64527965
The One Above All are the writers of Marvel, as they are the creators of the universe and oversee what happens within the universe, eliminating threats and balancing everything
The Presence in DC is the same, as many characters witnessed a hand coming through the void at the beginning of time
>>64528815
Still stupid that New Genesis and fucking Apokalypse exist in all universe as a single place.
Probably get fixed soon when they realized that 5 supermans would just kick Darkseids pathetic ass at that point.
I still don't understand the relationship between the presence and the source.
Are they the same thing or not?
>>64526428
Who's the satanist?
>>64529095
>Probably get fixed soon when they realized that 5 supermans would just kick Darkseids pathetic ass at that point
Yes, they would.
He's got it covered.
>>64529095
Yes, if the supermen team up they can defeat Darkseid.
But it's hard to get different earths to coordinate like that.
So Darkseid can rampage through the universes and build his frankenstein superman.
>>64529110
Bentley-23, I believe. Clone of the Wizard.
>>64526467
>>64529095
It's been that way since fucking forever. COIE at the very least.
And of course the Legion of Supermen would kick his ass, in Final Crisis it's explicitly stated that it can only be convened once, against the ultimate danger Mandrakk.
>>64529162
>Yes, if the supermen team up they can defeat Darkseid
It's too bad Nix Uotan blew his trump card against Mandrakk. An army of Supermen would be great, but it can never happen again.
>>64529190
Mandrakk is a greater foe than Darkseid anyway.
>>64529218
No he isn't, Darkseid has the power of branding, and is an evil that will return again and again as long as it is profitable. Whereas Mandrakk was a one-shot whose branding couldn't survive even a single reboot.
Darkseid's financial weight is among the strongest of DC's villains.
>>64529004
>the gem of Cytorrak
That actually brings people down a notch.
You get the power, sure, but you're officially Cyttorak's bitch even if you have stat multipliers from another class like Phoenix.
>>64528743
And a human that doesn't self-identify as a human can't possibly be a human...
>>64529347
The distinction is immaterial.
In the Big Two, "god" is just a label. It might come with a portfolio and some neat powers, but it says nothing about whether or not you can withstand someone karate chopping you hard enough or pulling you in half like a wishbone.
Are Sentry and Omega SupermanBizarrogods just because they can murder gods?
>>64529408
At least in recent Marvel, and sometimes in DC, Gods are materially different from other things in their universes, being made out of stories.
I think DC has flip flopped on this a lot because of the new gods, but it is definitely true in current Marvel.
>>64528579
Hahaa. GG Jesus
>>64528743
I guess we should discount all those other times every other Asgardian including Odin refer to themselves as Gods.
>>64529514
>Gods are materially different from other things in their universes, being made out of stories.
I'm sick of your shit anon. Gillen can eat a dick.
>>64529514
That's always true though
The New Gods are both just godly dudes and archetypal figures
>>64530047
It's just a version of gaiman stuff.
>>64530047
It's from Sandman.
>>64529096
Anyone?
>>64530426
They are the same thing except when they're not. For example, sometimes the Source is literally the source, sometimes it's the font of all life and knowledge and stories, and sometimes it's a big naked guy.
But we don't talk about Death of the New Gods.
>>64530567
Did Starlin try to make the Source Eternity?
Is that what this is?
>>64530652
No, he was just following up on the Anti Life Entity stuff from Cosmic Odyssey
>>64530426
see
>>64528815
The Source has been many things over the years, but the common thread and current explanation is that it's the imagination of all the readers and writers of the DCU.
The Presence is just a facet of the DCU YHWH, which is above everything and everyone but the Overvoid in power, if it can be said to have power.
Overvoid>YHWH>Lucifer=Michael>Endless>Fourth World>other Pantheons=angels of Heaven
>>64530567
Also I think my favourite part of this entire cosmic battle is that instead of "throwing planets at the bad guy" like Starlin did with Thanos, he went full cosmic abstract, splashed a bunch of crazy textures around, and drew in a tentacle monster for good measure.
>>64530567
>>64530920I liked Death of the New Gods
>>64530993So did I, but that doesn't mean we can talk about it
>>64530993
It's not terrible, the bad part really is that Starlin's new gods are terrible, and that it was a tie in to countdown.
>>64531136
>it was a tie in to countdown.
I read and understood DOTNG without having to read Countdown. It's not really a tie-in. I don't think it's even advertised as such.
>>64529347
Damn right it can't.
Is Stan Lee the One-Above-All?
>>64531991
No, Jack Kirby is. Stan Lee is just his partner.
>>64531991
No, Jack Kirby is.
>>64529973
Yes.
>>64525769
Okay so basically, OP, Marvel has a creator called The One Above All, who is not the Judeo-Christian God, he's Jack Kirby. He doesn't really manage the afterlife - people tend to go to the afterlife belonging to whatever 'small god' they worship. Asgard is full of Norse dead, etc. In Marvel the Judeo-Christian pantheon is just like any other, though they don't show up often so as to not offend people.
In DC, the Judeo-Christian god created reality, and was eventually replaced by pic related.
>>64530047
Are you saying that Gaiman is wrong?
>>64532475
Considering Gaiman believed Berger about "no one masturbating in the DC universe", he's probably not very bright.
>>64532289
Man, DC's cosmic is so fucking dissapointing.
>>64532493
>being this stupid
Berger wasn't literally saying that and Gaiman didn't take it literally. He just cracked a joke about it later, saying that if that was the literal truth, it'd explain why everyone's constantly punching one another.
>>64532569
Too much Judeo-Christian for you?
Because there's an alternate DC mythos like RIGHT THERE.
>>64532569
It has some really great stories.
Though they're more 'mythic' than cosmic. Sandman, Books of Magic, and Lucifer (where the character in that picture appears) are some of the best comics around.
Marvel does wacky space stuff better.
>>64531991
stan lee is mephisto
>>64532569
Only if you dismiss it outright
>>64532289
Eric Masterson was almost placed in Valhalla.
He talked Thor down and told him that he just wanted to rest.
>>64532622
DC's problem is that all Johns turned all their "wacky space stuff" into part of the Green Lantern and his Rainbow Friends mythos.
>>64532688
No one was doing any wacky space stuff in that period anyway
REBELS was the best it got in the latter years of the Post-Crisis U
>>64532717
After Infinite Crisis no one else was doing space stuff anyway.
>>64531991
Stan Lee is the partner-of-One-Above-All.
>>64532954
I-Just-Work-With-The-One-Above-All,-Man.
>>64532289
Hawk-Lass?
>>64533028
No, her superhero name is Yahweh
>>64533053
Ellaine Belloc's superhero name is God.
>>64529249
Mandrakk was the absolut evil that was going to eat fucking everything. So big, Darkseid is less than a particle of dust to him.
You talk a lot of shit, anon.
>>64527879
Isn't Rabum Alal more powerfull than the Tribunal?
>>64533162
>Mandrakk was the absolut evil
If he's so great, why isn't he around anymore?
Silly fanboy, Mandrakk is just Morrison's rant against editors. He's nothing to Darkseid, who will come back again and again from death or the source wall or the omega force.
Mandrakk's brand is nonexistent. When you say his name people think of that dork from Dexter's Lab, not an OC multiverse vampire.
Mandrakk a shit.
>>64533162
And yet he is forgotten now, or maybe one day he'll be brought back to be promptly defeated in a single arc again. While Darkseid prevails.
Pre-Retcon Beyonder was living tribunal tier I think
>>64533196
>Isn't the Anti-Monitor more powerfull than the Spectre?
Is the question I'm hearing here
>>64529167
He is fighting/holding down. Something far more powerfull and bigger than everything in the Multiverse... now let me keep telling you about my headcanon.
>>64533196
Only inside the universe. TLT can't kill him without also killing 616.
>>64533232
The only trace of Mandrakk's brand left is that Nix Uotan is still around. In a tie-in comic for a video game.
Poor Mandrakk, doomed to vanish into obscurity like Lord Vyndktvx or Xorn.
>>64533263
Tell us more about your headcanon, anon
>>64533223
>If he's so great, why isn't he around anymore?
Dead by Supermen army using a huge amount of solar energy, Nix Uotan and shitload of Green Lantern... After the Though Robot beat him up and send him to the nowhere outside of the Multiverse.
Come on, anon. Read the source you are critizicing.
>>64533232
Like he did in his invasion of the 52? Pfff, that is not a powerfull enemy, that's what the Team Rocket does. Show up every once in a while and get their asses kicked, THAT is Darkseid.
>>64533297
Nix is also in multiversityy fwiw
>>64533378
Complacency is Anti-Life, anon
Hail Darkseid
>>64533265
I know TLT is dead and everything. But i heard that he doesn't mind destroying entire universes if that means saving 1000's of other universes.
>>64533378
>Dead
So was Darkseid.
Guess who's still around, while Mandrakk isn't.
Seriously, for a Grant Morrison fanboy you're pretty bad at meta. You took the literal story element of Mandrakk dying in Beyond and FC as an actual thing, while ignoring the fact that Mandrakk's brand is like dust in the wind.
Darkseid's vastly superior brand makes him by definition a far greater villain than Mandrakk is.
It's like comparing Imperiex to Lex Luthor. Imperiex is a big Galactus ripoff who could blow up the world. Oh no!
But he's dead and has never shown up again while Lex Luthor stays strong in the consciousness of the readers and in the universe of DC.
Until you understand this point, you will never be much of a reader. You're impressed by simple the fact that Mandrakk was Big and Shot Lasers and slobbered a lot.
Grant Morrison would be disappointed in you.
>>64533297
Xorn didn't vanish. In fact, he's the center of a massive continuity snarl.
>>64533567
Just let Wolverine snikt it a little more, it'll unwind.
>>64533476
Does Rabum Alal threaten other universes?
>>64533335
Ok. Superman and Batman like to have beers on the porch of the Wayne Manor.
Loki doesn't like new food, because he remembers that time he ate a roasted human heart and ended pregnant with the first troll. He is afraid that might happen to him again.
>>64533533
>But he's dead and has never shown up again while Lex Luthor stays strong in the consciousness of the readers and in the universe of DC.
>Until you understand this point, you will never be much of a reader. You're impressed by simple the fact that Mandrakk was Big and Shot Lasers and slobbered a lot.
Nope, i'm impresed because his right testicle was big enough to destroy all existance.
Darkseid a shit.
>>64533605
Rabum Alal is basically Marvel's Anti-Monitor (well, Hickman's Anti-Monitor)
>>64533533
It's like all those Abraxasfags
>>64533848
Batman drinks non-alcoholic beer.
Superman drinks alcoholic beer and wills his liver not to eliminate alcohol intoxication, so he can speak with Batman on his level.
>>64533880
>his right testicle was big enough to destroy all existance.
>thinking he ever stood a chance
He wasn't even the main bad guy in the event.
>>64533928
>It's like all those Abraxasfags
>mfw there are Abraxasfags
>>64534064
But anon, he came in at the end! That means he's the biggest bad guy ever!
>>64533848
>Superman and Batman like to have beers on the porch of the Wayne Manor.
But it's canon that they do that at Kent Farm, since that's one of the few places Bruce feels at home!
>>64528654
>
but Reed himself told his children that God does not exist, nor heaven or hell, just this life, in the Marvel Universe practically everything is science, so that God is nothing more than a product of ignorant minds
>>64534516
>You see Reed Richards has met God right there
>"God doesn't exist because Reed Richards says so"
Oh, anon.
>>64534516
Reed met God personally and asked him to bring Ben back.
He's probably just lying to his kids.
>>64534628
Yeah. You know how you lie a little to your kids because they're not ready for the truth? That's exactly what Hickman was doing in FF. He had Reed lying to Val and Franklin because the idea of a universe in which they were alone and could self-determine was far more comforting than the idea that they were subject to the overpowering will of Kirby.
>>64534628
He met the one above all, not god.
>>64534706
>He met the one above all, not god.
OAA IS god, as far as the characters are concerned. Just because OAA isn't YOUR god, doesn't make that untrue.
>>64534768
I think the problem here is that people are having trouble distinguishing between God[object of worship] and God[creature].
Because shit some people have a god that is literally a rock and that's still a god[object of worship], but it's a rock[creature].
>>64534706
Marvel have one "above all" your name is Mickey Mouse
>>64534057
>Batman: I... I tell you man... my mom used to tell me bed time stories every night before sleeping. I know... I KNOW... it sounds dumb, but that is one of the few things i miss the most of them
>Superman: H-Hey man, no need to say that's dumb. Y-You are still a man deep down... a man that dress like a batz... but a man in the end
>>64528815
Can anyone make out the last line for Orrery or Worlds?
Whoever thought white text in a section fading to white is a good idea should be shot. Same goes for the yellow.
>>64535701
>ORRERY OF WORLDS:
>52 'brane universes vibrating in the same space, all at different frequencies, within the all-enclosing Bulk, otherwise known as Bleed-space. Four Bleed Siphons have been drilled in from Monitor Sphere to the Orrery, to permit the harvest of the miracle Ultramenstruum fluid.
>>64535800
Ah thanks. Think you could do the same for Hell?
Only other part I can't make out.
>>64535897
Here's where I'm getting it from, fyi:
http://community.comicbookresources.com/showthread.php?11714-New-Map-of-the-Multiverse-by-Grant-Morrison&p=356094&viewfull=1#post356094
>HELL:
>Known to some as Sheol, or Jigoku, the burning iron Place of Torment is home to Neron, Belial, Trigon, Azazel, Abnegazar, Rath, Ghast and the Demon Etrigan - high on a list of a legion of fiends. Here are the Djinns and the Fallen Angels, and the Haters of Humanity, waiting...
The text colors should look better when printed, i think.
>>64535962
Ah, thanks anon, you're good people.
I could use some clarification on the way Hell works in the DC Universe. I'm going to assume with the description for Hell >>64535962 there are many, many levels to it or there are at least many hells if not at least on the same plane. Thing is, who rules it? Or are separate parts ruled by different people? I know there's Trigon, Lucifer, the First of the Fallen, and I imagine there's a Satan, but what exactly is the hierarchy and how does it all work? Are there jurisdictions? Do different people get sent to different parts or different Hells?
>>64536707
Trigon is a space satan, unaffiliated with the satans of hell land
>>64536707
Read Sandman and Lucifer
>>64536707
Well, thanks to president Luthor and the Human Defence Corp, the United States government actually seized and occupied a portion of Hell through military force.
Presumably they still administrate it.
>>64536956
AMERICA BRING DEMOCRACY TO HELL
>>64536956
There was no president lex in the new 52
>>64532289
>Okay so basically, OP, Marvel has a creator called The One Above All, who is not the Judeo-Christian God, he's Jack Kirby. He doesn't really manage the afterlife - people tend to go to the afterlife belonging to whatever 'small god' they worship. Asgard is full of Norse dead, etc. In Marvel the Judeo-Christian pantheon is just like any other, though they don't show up often so as to not offend people.
Yeah, that all sounds about right. Also, you've got the Hell-lords and the hell-dimensions which siphon off the souls of anyone they can. They're just malicious extra-dimensionals in pocket planes.
>>64536766
Well that kind of settles that then.
>>64536936
I've been meaning to, but I haven't bothered to make the time for them. Does it cohesively display the machinations of Hell? Because I'm just trying to work off of what I've read in Demon Knights, Hellblazer, and what I'm now reading in the Spectre. The whole who's who thing confuses me, but I'm willing to try and get it all down.
>>64532622
>Marvel does wacky space stuff better.
It also often does mythic more poorly. Marvel magic is very tied in with cosmic/extra-dimensional shit and at times just seems like another cosmic force, no different from gravity or the power cosmic. It's got a great, unique tone of its own, but that tone is still very different from DC's magic, which lends itself to a more mythic, folklore feel.
>>64537203
Sandman is basically required reading for shit like gods in comics. It's basically required reading for all comics as well. But yeah, there is a whole arc on how hell works.
Sandman is fucking great. Lucifer's pretty damn good too.
>>64537318
Alright then, going to take a crack at them a lot sooner then. Cheers!
>>64537203
The thing about DC hell is that people only end up there if they believe they will.
And Lucifer called the notion of owning other souls is silly.
>>64537851
Not that it stopped Neron.
>>64537889
Neron can own souls because he's the dude you sell your soul to.
