The MOST POWERFUL DC Entity: The Presence!

[Music] the Lord of Dreams the Devil Himself Superman charged with 15 000 years worth of solar energy there are powerful characters all throughout the DC Cosmos but there is one entity above them all the source of all creation this British dude in a bowler cap meet the presence he's God he's the creator of well everything this enigmatic entity is one of the biggest mysteries in all of DC Comics because not only has he only made a handful of appearances but much of the lore surrounding him is complicated vague and oftentimes contradictory you guys have been asking me for years to break down the presents and of course good things come to those who wait hello and welcome to Comic drink where I talk about calling books my name is Drake let's talk about it but before getting too far into things I need to give a big thank you to today's sponsor audible specifically the sandban ACT 3. it's finally here the next chapter of the audio adaptation of Neil gaiman's Masterpiece James McAvoy return turns to his role as Morpheus the Lord of Dreams along with other Stellar cast members such as Kat Dennings Kristen schull and even Neil Gaiman himself dive deeper into the dreaming in act 3 which follows Morpheus the Lord of dreams on a grand journey to find his brother destruction and in the end he might just bring those destructive forces upon himself this immersive 3D audio experience is available only on Audible and you can listen to it right now new members can try Audible for free for 30 days just go to audible.com Drake or text Drake to 500 500 to get started so enjoy and sweet dreams but for now it's time to get back to the video foreign for all intents and purposes the presence is the abrahamic judeo-christian guide he would later come to represent an all-encompassing entity above all else that's divorced from any one religion but come on he rules over Heaven he created the Angels Michael Gabriel and Samuel and he once took mortal form on Earth and was killed the dude is just capital G God DC Comics would use the concept of God in the 1940s in the series more fun comics where he resurrected a cop that was killed by Mobsters as the Specter the embodiment of divine Justice yet nothing says more fun Comics quite like Dead Cops and the wrath of God you know for kids in these early appearances the presence was simply known as the voice and was just that a literal voice that guided the Specter and told him what to do and to be honest that's really all there was to him at the time the idea of God as an actual character interacting with the world of DC Comics and its characters was limited to the Specter and even then he barely showed up basically the voice was kind of tree it as just another God that's part of a superhero's Mythos sort of like how the Greek gods are handled in the Wonder Woman Comics well I mean I guess you could point out that DC published a few literal Bible Comics but they're just Illustrated versions of some of the stories within the book and are meant to be taken a lot more seriously I think we can all agree that nobody was trying to imply that these Comics actually took place within the DC Universe proper and or were trying to create something like Bible man got any Force although we don't know for certain one of the reasons why the voice or any other depiction of God wasn't seen all that often is possibly because of the implementation of the comics code Authority in the 50s the self-centering committee that the comic industry set up after being threatened with government regulation since parents were blaming comics for juvenile delinquency the code generally stuck to things like divorce shall not be treated humorously or represented as desirable or no comic magazine should use the word horror or Terror in its title the only mention of religion was that ridicule or attack on any religious or racial group is never permissible but look even though people love to complain that everyone is so offended these days go back to the 50s folks back then got offended by black children simply existing or going to school I wouldn't blame any comment company for thinking that putting God in a comic book would get a bunch of folks trying to burn down their corporate offices instead the DC Multiverse would get its own creation story within the pages of Green Lantern which flashed back to a brilliant scientist who built a machine in hopes of seeing the beginning of time surprisingly the device ice worked exactly as expected and what we see is a single hand spinning all reality from the black nothingness however the mere Act of observing the universe's creation from the outside triggered a massive explosion the Big Bang this hand imagery has persisted throughout DC history and has even made appearances outside of the comics but for years this is all we knew about the formation of the Multiverse that is until the arrival of the first crisis back in the old days of comics continuity was an afterthought all that mattered was churning out as many books as possible as fast as possible but as the medium grew the content of these stories became more substantial long gone are the days of simple criminals robbing a bank being brought to Justice in a matter of five pages without any long-lasting impact on the Hero characters now had Pathos and the plot lines could go deeper and be told over the course of multiple issues now don't get me wrong plenty of these Comics were still batshit insane and goofy as hell but the medium was evolving and DC started to care a whole lot more about their continuity and the overarching Canon between each of their various titles this would prove to be a double-edged sword because on the one hand the fans that read multiple books could enjoy seeing how all these various Comics came together as one large universe but on the other end the continuity was so convoluted that it could put off potential in your readers not to mention that some of the Canon was really really inconsistent and if you were one of those Die Hard super fans then it's hard not to notice how all the details sales just didn't add up sometimes as a result DC did something dramatic they were going to hit the reset button and make everything cohesive beginning with the definitive origin of the Multiverse in the beginning there was only one a single black infinitude so cold and dark for so very long that even the burning light was imperceptible but the light grew and the infinitude shouldered and the Darkness finally screamed as much in pain as in relief for in that instant a Multiverse was born a Multiverse of Worlds vibrating and replicating and a Multiverse that should have been won became many this was the introduction to the legendary 1985 event crisis on infinite Earths which saw being called the anti-monitor making its way across all of reality and destroying everything in his path however simply annihilating Universe after Universe wasn't enough to destroy infinite World the ANSI monitor was going to need to go back to the source of it all by traveling through time the anti-monitor tried to become that primordial hand of creation but he was stopped by the Specter who got really big and challenged him to an arm wrestling match to decide the fate of the Multiverse so now when the scientists use his machine to look back upon the beginning of time the resulting Big Bang Changed History For Good in the beginning there were many a multiversal infinitude so cold and dark for so very long that even the burning light was imperceptible but then the light grew and the Multiverse shuddered and the Darkness screamed as much in pain as in relief for in that instant a universe was born a universe with Mighty worlds orbiting burning Suns a universe reborn at the dawn of time what had been many became one that's right the Multiverse was destroyed and all the remaining pieces came together to form one new Earth but how does all this relate to God well the Specter kept appearing in comics and as a result the voice was still around and kicking as a part of his Mythos but it's during this time period that we would see the character of The Voice evolve into the presence as we have now come to understand him today in his groundbreaking time on Swamp Thing Alan Moore introduced the concept of the great Darkness this all-encompassing void isn't a fallen angel or a beast of mass destruction it is absolute nothingness the complete absence of Divine Light after centuries of Lumber the great Darkness awoke and threatened to swallow all of creation the Specter was thrown like a ragdoll some of the most powerful Sorcerers on the planet died by simply looking into the mind of the darkness for too long but when all seemed lost the light extended to hand uniting into the yin yang symbol there was something of an understanding between the two entities the light in the dark still existed and were at odds with each other but the conflict was significantly altered this was a massive departure from the concept of the voice being presented as a higher power into something more abstract yet despite this plenty of writers wanted to fall back and depict the presence as the traditional abrahamic God such as when it was mentioned that he once walked the Earth as Jesus yet this idea was further expanded into the presence being an amalgamation of multiple Heavenly figures and that prophets like zoroaster Krishna Rama Abraham Buddha and Muhammad were all the presence taking mortal form upon Earth but that's not to say that the presence didn't take on a mortal body that was wholly original to the DC Universe because meet Wally the God boy all of this happened in the 1996 Supergirl Series where instead of being Superman's cousin from Krypton this super girl from the comic is a pink shape-shifting goo creature made by an alternate universe Lex Luthor that fused with a dying teenager which caused the two of them become reborn as one being who also happens to be an angel of fire that one time hooked up with a horse because Comics look that whole thing is Bonkers and requires a video all of its own to explain or in the case of the horse is a video that I already made but because of Supergirl now being an angel Divinity was a theme that was played with a lot in this book made most explicit with Wally who for a while was just hanging around in the background of panels before walking on up and just saying hi I'm God Wally claimed that he was a combination of multiple gods from throughout Humanity's Collective Consciousness but nobody believed him even though he hit a fireball out of the park with his baseball bat knows about Supergirl secret identity knocks the out of her with his baseball bat when she questions his divinity and then breaks the fourth wall by taking over his own bio in a DC handbook but despite literally being God Wally is surprisingly not really relevant to the comic basically just serving as comic relief and to inform Supergirl that she's an angel in fact he leaves the book entirely early on by giving a monologue about the concept of omniscience and then teleporting away this wouldn't be the only time though that we would see the presence used for comedic effect such as this appearance in Lobo where he's kicking back and watching the main man wreck shop on his holy television not to mention this issue of six-pack and dog welder yes dog welder the dude that fights crime by welding dogs to people's faces has the Specter literally take a phone call from the presents to tell him that he and this other dude are tight so he shouldn't be sentenced to Eternal damnation these are obviously comedy Comics that don't really care about the continuity so it's almost 100 likely that these books aren't Canon but on a more serious note let's take a look at the iconic series that laid the groundwork for DC's cosmology for decades to come the Sandman in this Landmark comic we're shown all sorts of cosmic domains such as Heaven hell and limbo it's also in this book that we meet Lucifer the angel once known as salmael who helped form all of creation Lucifer stated by dream of the Endless to be the most powerful being in existence second only to his creator but really that's all we heard him say on the subject of the presents Lucifer on the other hand got his own spin-off series which is one of the few times in all of DC history where the presence is actually shown on panel and boy howdy is it significant like this time where he literally holds all of Creation in the palm of his hand he even has team Lucifer on the edge of reality where he offers to combine their Essence into one new entity but when his son declines the presence leaves creation and passes along all the responsibilities being God to his granddaughter other writers would try to add things to the lore of the present such as sinner his supposed architect before the Angels were created or shiena his female aspect that keeps his wrath in check but these ideas never really stuck around in the world of DC Comics even the ones that are based on real world mythology basically Neil Gaiman and Mike Carey did such a fantastic job of setting up their Cosmos that few people wanted to touch it well nobody except for the non binary psychedelic sorcerer in the room when it comes to influential comic book writers there is one king that stands Above the Rest Jack Kirby although he's most famous for his time at Marvel where he collaborated with Stan Lee to create almost all of their most iconic characters Jack was Lord over to DC and given free reign to pen his magnum opus the new Gods this series was a cosmic space Opera of Epic Proportions detailing the never-ending war between the forces of apocalypse and new genesis but at the center of it all was a force beyond comprehension in the beginning the universe was void and without form great energies were born and just as quickly died as that which was formless struggled to find a form and that which was without reason or meaning sought purpose out of this was born that which is eternal that which is the all and Beyond the all the source for an eternity this was the first world the source is what lies Beyond reality separated by a colossal wall at the edge of the Multiverse but it's true Nature has never been understood even when beings have been able to break past the source wall they can't comprehend what they see however there was one mad lad that took it upon themselves to define the undefinable grant Morrison and they presented a new creation story for all of reality the detail that once everything and nothing were one in the same known as monitor mined the over boys but suddenly a flaw was discovered on its Immaculate Perfection to prevent this flaw from spreading the overboard contained it within a bottle and inside its cage the flaw divided and multiplied becoming the Multiverse in an interview Grant Morrison explained quote it's the notion that the white page itself is a void and in the context of the DC Universe well that's God or the source in the white page or the void Anything Can Happen everything is possible the source and the presence are sometimes presented as being one in the same but just as aspects of each other much like how the judeo-christian God is broken up into the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit there are three entities that are one the Death Metal Event explains that within the overboard there is a connective energy of Justice which is presented as the source AKA The Presence this is backed up by the time that Mr Miracle went to heaven and he said that he could feel the source Beyond its Gates as for the overboard though let's turn it over to jmd Matias who directly wrote the presence during his time on the Phantom stranger series he's also the one that depicted the presence as An Almighty dog and I love it di matteus said quote last answer in my view everything is an aspect of the presence you may have a different answer and that's just as valid and you know what that is great because I disagree entirely for years I have argued that the source the presence in the overboard are all one and the same but lately I've been really coming around to the idea that the void is a separate entity entirely Grant Morrison is a firm believer that everything is Canon and they love to weave ideas and con Concepts together from throughout all of DC's vast history yet at no point they mention the source or the presence or even show that iconic hand imagery in their telling of the DC Multiverse creation story also if these are one and the same then how could the presence ditch all of reality and leave creation to his granddaughter I mean come on that endless white expanse that he escapes to is that not just the overvoid it makes no damn sense compels me though the presence has also explained that nobody can be their own maker himself included that he's infinite and eternal but was still shaped by external forces when asked about this the writer of Lucifer might Carey said that it's similar to The Sandman story dream of a thousand cats for those that are not familiar dream of a thousand cats tells the story of how large cats were once the dominant species on Earth and tiny little humans took care of them but were also hunted down by their feline overlords but when one human discovered that dreams shape reality he encouraged the rest of his people to dream to dream of a world where they were at the top of the food chain and with that the world changed into the one that we know today with Carrie evoking this particular story it's pretty safe to say that the presence is what we have made him an amalgamation of beliefs and higher power that he's a piece of the source that we have defined with our faith and belief but at the same time let's take a look back to the story of the overvoid it was surprised to see the flaw drawn upon it well what if that that flaw is the hand of creation that we saw all the way back in that old school Green Lantern comic well that's difficult see recent Comics have revealed that within the overvoid there are beings called hands which are actually the ones that create the multiverses by using energy from the source the hand that created what we now know as the mainstream DC Comics Multiverse is named perpetua and we're shown that it's hers that is the hand of creation but because she's the worst Perpetual was captured and sealed within the source wall with her Multiverse being destroyed and born Anew it's through the comics and this official book about the DC Multiverse that we know the hands are agents of the presence the Supreme Being of the Omniverse but also that they're dispatched by the Unseen hand of the source that very same book would claim in its glossary though that the presence is the Supreme Being of the known Multiverse but possibly not the greater Omniverse and even then Morrison once stated in an interview that monitor mine God and the source are all one and the same and do you see why this video has been so hard to make my personal head Canon is that Morrison's creation Story shows the creation of the greater Omniverse and then that story about the Angels creating reality is the result of the formation of the Multiverse that came after perpetuates again that is pure speculation on my part but regardless it really does seem that the current continuity of DC Comics places the overvoid as the highest form of reality with the presence slash The Source being the energies contained within however as jmd matteus said you might have a different answer and that is totally and equally valid so please do not take my interpretation as gospel DC cosmology is extremely dense and oftentimes contradictory but that's part of why I find it so fascinating I don't know maybe I just need to do a series of videos explaining the various parts and entities of the Multiverse in each of their own dedicated explainer videos like I could go into more detail about the great Darkness the black infinitude that existed before creation which has actually been orchestrating some of the biggest evils behind behind the scenes of DC for decades if you want to see something like that then please let me know in the comments below but anyway I hope you learned at least a little something new and hopefully I'll see you next time

Channel: Comic Drake

Views: 212,973

Keywords: ComicDrake, Comic Drake, Comics, Comic Books, DC Comics, The Presence, DC Gods, Most Powerful DC, The Presence Explained, Sandman, One Above All, comics explained, Lucifer, DC Comics Lucifer, dc comics sandman

Id: C-znbm7dH84

Length: 19min 28sec (1168 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 30 2022