Crisis Cosmology - Part 3 (Final Part)
The Greater Omniverse
First of all, it should be noted that the word "Omniverse" has been used a lot in recent years and that while the multiverse has been referred to as the Omniverse in some stories, it has nothing to do with the
Greater Omniverse mentioned in Scott Snyder's Justice League run.
There are an infinite number of multiverses that rise and fall across the Overvoid, made by various creators such as the Hands using the energy entrusted to them by the Source. Although the idea of a multitude of rising and falling creations primarily came from Mike Carey's Lucifer series, Scott Snyder expanded on this concept.
Part of the idea made by Snyder is that, as described by Alpheus, when a multiverse breaks apart before its final evolution, it is sent back to the banks of creation where it was created by super-celestial beings like Perpetua. This is partly echoed by Perpetua who stated that she would come to the end of the void to eliminate her kind, the Hands, meaning that they would exist at the end of the void.
Unseen Council
The name used by Scott Snyder to describes a hierarchy that eventually reaches the Source. According to Merton, beings of the Greater Omniverse are several rungs above those of the main DC Multiverse in what he referred to as the cosmic ladder, and are qualitatively superior to the Divine Continuum. Notable individuals in this hierarchy are the Hands who appear to rule the multiverses of the Greater Omniverse or Chronicler who records the history of any dying multiverses.
The Great Darkness and the Light of Creation
Source/Overvoid/Presence = Light of Creation
Although commonly associated with different parts of the DC cosmology, these various entities were often been used interchangeably over the years. A few years earlier, Morrison had directly stated that the Overvoid and the Source were the same, as Snyder did with the Presence and the Source and more recently the Overvoid and the Presence, all associated with the Godhead that Joshua Williamson referred to as the Light of Creation.
One God, all three being viewpoints or potentially emanations of the same whole, existing as superior to the Greater Omniverse and the Unseen Council, just referred to in different ways, sometimes referred to as a
non-dual omni-awareness or an
"ultimate concept" that contains within it life and anti-life, good and evil, in and out, and black and white. It has also been described as an
"ocean" from which each universe is a "river" flowing from it, sometimes the river splits into a multiverse and there are smaller divisions that branch off from the river but quickly return without creating new universes. Although we cannot say with certainty what the Light of Creation actually is at present, it appeared in various aspects, lesser beings and it is from its
light that the multiverse was created.
Great Darkness/Primordial Darkness
In the prelude to Dark Crisis on Infinite Earths, Joshua Williamson incorporated the Great Darkness seen in Alan Moore's celebrated Swamp Thing run and associated it with the Overvoid created by Grant Morrison. Williamson specifically references the original Great Darkness storyline from Moore's Swamp Thing, when Zatara died, and adjusted it to what Grant Morrison and Scott Snyder have architected over the years for DC continuity.
Those who have read issues 49 and 50 of Swamp Thing Vol 2 will remember that the Great Darkness was the opposite of God who existed before the first light came into existence. Translating this into modern cosmology, the Great Darkness would have existed before the Presence, which is exactly what Williamson did when he brought the Great Darkness back as the Primordial Darkness where the First Star, translating to the Light of Creation, was born in defiance of what it it.
The Great Darkness also contains the Shadowlands which individuals like Alan Scott and Obsidian have ties to, and has various avatars and aspects like Darkseid or Empty Hand, but is not a force of good or evil, with no wants or needs, any more than the night sky or our own shadows. It just sits in the black for eternity, watching everything as a flicker of light waiting to be extinguished by itself.
