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General DC Comics Discussion Thread

Deagonx said:
This is, IMO, the very crucial point. There is very little continuity between Animal Man and the main-stream cosmology contributions that Grant made in the 2000s. He kept Limbo, which is well and good, but a great deal of the avant-garde experimental mythicism he introduced in his earlier works were completely abandoned outside of their individual comic runs.

I see it largely as being motivated by a desire to see beloved characters or series with higher tiers than is really ever demonstrated in these works themselves, and I consider it a big part of our job to be a bulwark against that kind of thing.
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skull.gif
 
ProfectusInfinity said:
Hey, I just wanted to give my 2 cents on something. So I was looking over the recent staff discussion, and one of the herald feats was characters potentially scaling to the phantom zone. This was even considered one of the more "straightforward" feats among both supporters and dissidents, with the phantom zone having statements for being infinite in size. But honestly, I'm starting to disagree that it warrants high 3-A.

So, this is the statement for the phantom zone being infinite, and let me quote it verbatim.

So here's my major gripe. The whole point of feats on this wiki that deal with "infinite" anything is that characaters can scale to notions that span infinitely far, vast, or high. However, the phantom zone is described as an "unregion of infinitely compressed space." This seems like the opposite of spanning infinitely wide, no? If the phantom zone is infinitely compressed, that means that rather than its substance spanning infinite outwards, its space actually folds in on itself infinitely. Even googling "compressed space relativity," all I can find are articles about the fabric of space-time curving in on itself. I honestly don't think a realm being stated to be compressed infinitely holds the same connotations as this wiki's notions of high 3-A, which describes spaces that are infinitely expansive.

One of the supporting evidences for high 3-A phantom zone is how it's described as an anti-universe, implying that it shares enough characteristics with a normal universe to warrant a distinction (likely universal size), but I think this statement suggests the opposite. When you combine that fact with how the phantom zone was stated to be "dimensionless," along with how it's called an "unregion," I think everything considered, the phantom zone is a spaceless, timeless void with no tierable value. These are just my thoughts, of course.
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AerrowStorm1 said:
That's fine because we have a lot more statements of the Phantom Zone being infinite or near infinite:


Adventure Comics vol 2 (2009) #11 refers to it as Endless

Action comics #846 calls it endless

Action Comics Annual #11 calls it Endless

Action Comics Annual #12 calls it "Infinite"

In Superman vol 2 (1987) #214: For Tomorrow, Zod calls it Limitless

In Action comics #754, Superman describes it as "near infinite"

The Phantom Zone #1 (Pre-Crisis) calls it "Boundless"
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Can we get some discussion on this?
 
I also have a question about the 28 dimensions darkseid mentions, are they higher spatial dimensions?
 
Antvasima said:
Who is speaking with Batman in that scan?
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I have no idea, I can't find the full one, but I have seen people try to get the godsphere to outer because its a platonic archetypal realm. But this kind of debunks all of that, even though Platonism doesn't scale that high anyway.
 
TiltedFN said:
I have no idea, I can't find the full one, but I have seen people try to get the godsphere to outer because its a platonic archetypal realm. But this kind of debunks all of that, even though Platonism doesn't scale that high anyway.
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I’m pretty sure Wally even used time stop on Darkest Knight in the 6th dimension.

The arguments for 1-A god sphere just aren’t that good in general (hence why there’s a whole discussion rule against it).
 
I feel like the Titus arc in JL Classified is a really clear example of Superman's power levels growing over the years. All scans are from JL Classified 50-54.

The original fight with Titus led to Titus nearly killing Superman in his first blow, and Superman is knocked out for at least 12 pages (long enough for Batman to find him, spend several minutes looking for a pulse, fly the Batwing to the other JLA members, hook Barry Allen up to an IV, and get briefed before Superman even moans on page 6, and then 6 pages of fighting I cut before Superman finally reenters the fight on page 12) and even after Supen gets back up, he's repeatedly KO'd three more times. Superman's best blows don't send Titus flying, though they do hurt him.

In contrast, 10 years later, Superman's best kicks and punches send a much stronger Titus flying, he hurts him with his heat vision, and when Titus does down him, he doesn't pass out and is able to bounce back each time within a page. While Titus is still stronger, it's portrayed as far more even. Titus even admits Superman is stronger than before.
 
Deagonx said:
It's also not a Platonic realm because it was created and has been destroyed. In Platonism concepts are eternal and unchanging.
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I see, so what does the scan mean when it says the godsphere is a platonic archetypal realm? Is that just fancy wording for something else? Or is there another interpretation?
 
TiltedFN said:
I see, so what does the scan mean when it says the godsphere is a platonic archetypal realm? Is that just fancy wording for something else? Or is there another interpretation?
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Grant Morrison incorporated dozens of different mythologies, theories, and concepts into his work. But they were rarely/never perfect reflections of the real world description of those ideas.

So, what did he mean by it? Hard to say. It could just he flowery language, he may have intended for it to be full blown Platonism (but not have recognized why that wasn't possible) or something else.
 
Deagonx said:
So, what did he mean by it? Hard to say. It could just he flowery language, he may have intended for it to be full blown Platonism (but not have recognized why that wasn't possible) or something else.
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It depends entirely on the interpretation of the work. It would really be hard to say something is X, if no one read X in the original language and knew the context as they were being developed as with Plato's works. Most of what people understand as platonic interpretation is in fact interpretation from Neo-Platonic authors who over literally centuries, were understood as just being retelling Plato's works, but recently (As in the last two centuries) have started to be understood as being its own branch that didn't notice that their works basically told something that went completely beyond the scope of what was described in Plato's works. And yet most of the modern interpretation still comes from those (If you are talking about emanations, for example, you are talking about Neoplatonic understandings of Plato's works).

Especially talking about change, that is something hard to tell. Because you have tons of philosophical works discussing that and all the different terms and concepts that were used back then that paint a completely different thing than "If they change, they are temporal". There are interpretations that definitely allow for a certain kind of change for spiritual beings that is different from that of physical time. Plato himself would say that souls would come from the world of the Forms that are beyond time and get into the physical world that is within time, if you go from no-time to time, it's a certain kind of change, isn't? That is where all these discussions about what it means to be "beyond time" lie. Some would just say it gets too contradictory and there is no such thing as literally being beyond time even in Plato's works, and that he either didn't know how to explain or just noticed he was wrong, and that was why he stopped using some terms in later works.

And that is where you get into the whole Neo-Platonic thing because the understanding we have is mostly from their interpretation, and they really went deep into making sense of transcendence and the infinite, some people just accept it has a solution because there are dozens of 1000+ page books all trying to make sense of that. While some would go with that, some would just say "There's no such thing as being beyond time and we all just misunderstood Plato's works over the centuries because Neo-platonic scholars).

If anything, if there's a problem with the way it's depicted in DC (And I'm sure it has a lot of problems), these problems are in a way also seen in Plato's own works and have been a point of discussion by different scholars with totally different interpretations.
 
Executor_N0 said:
If anything, if there's a problem with the way it's depicted in DC (And I'm sure it has a lot of problems), these problems are in a way also seen in Plato's own works and have been a point of discussion by different scholars with totally different interpretations.
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Agreed. This is something that even highly educated scholars see differently so it's hard to generalize in terms of it's relationship to DC. It would be better to focus less on what words Batman used to describe the Sphere and try to determine what qualities it can definitively been shown to have, regardless of whether they fit one specific possible framework of "Platonic."

In the above case, it's certainly true that many portrayals of the Sphere very explicitly and directly demonstrate or state that it is a physical space. There are others where it does not. Whether or not a physical realm could be called "platonic" is less important than weighing the preponderance of evidence for or against certain qualities.
 
I think that Deagonx makes sense here.
 
What's the Transduality justifications for Dream of the Endless, Father Time, and Perpetua?
 
Also this from the same issue, are these realms in the sphere of gods?
the-six-realms-of-buddhism.png
 
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I've always found it pretty damn weird (from a respectful viewpoint) that this site, till this day is completely convinced that the sphere cannot be platonic. The argument brought up that because the sphere is portrayed as being created, or influenced, or destroyed supposedly is just a cut throat argument that the Sphere isn't platonic, while makes sense at first while only accounting for Platos beliefs on what platonic concepts are, ignores how Plato's works themselves invite contemplation and debate, and understanding these concepts is far from stagnant. As well as ignoring how there already has been interpretations of platonism where concepts have been created, like Plotinus' interpretation of Plato's ideas and Carl Jungs interpretation of Plato's ideas being influenced by the collective unconscious (p.s. which is what DC uses)

This becomes even more confusing when you factor in that this wiki already accepts that with the Superflow from Marvel and the Noosphere from SCP are worlds of forms, with both of them being created, as well as destroyed before, but when it comes to DC, its just a big no no because... inconsistencies? What inconsistencies? The sphere is consistently viewed as an abstract plane of existence, and as near as 10 months ago God's are further established as fundamental functions that change the Universe.
 
As Executor pointed out, there isn't even widespread agreement as to what platonism specifically entails, which makes it difficult to apply to anything with that level of certainty.

Regarding the Sphere, it's not consistently viewed as an abstract plane of existence (assuming you mean what I think you mean by that). There are numerous instances where it is very directly treated as a physical or spatial realm.

The realms of the Sphere are mainstays for DC stories, there's literally hundreds of scans for them. Most authors don't know or care that it is sometimes considered abstract and they write and draw these stories in a manner that treats it as nothing other than a simple physical realm or, at best, a physical realm that is larger in scale than a normal universe.
 
NHTkenshin2 said:
I've always found it pretty damn weird (from a respectful viewpoint) that this site, till this day is completely convinced that the sphere cannot be platonic. The argument brought up that because the sphere is portrayed as being created, or influenced, or destroyed supposedly is just a cut throat argument that the Sphere isn't platonic, while makes sense at first while only accounting for Platos beliefs on what platonic concepts are, ignores how Plato's works themselves invite contemplation and debate, and understanding these concepts is far from stagnant. As well as ignoring how there already has been interpretations of platonism where concepts have been created, like Plotinus' interpretation of Plato's ideas and Carl Jungs interpretation of Plato's ideas being influenced by the collective unconscious (p.s. which is what DC uses)

This becomes even more confusing when you factor in that this wiki already accepts that with the Superflow from Marvel and the Noosphere from SCP are worlds of forms, with both of them being created, as well as destroyed before, but when it comes to DC, its just a big no no because... inconsistencies? What inconsistencies? The sphere is consistently viewed as an abstract plane of existence, and as near as 10 months ago God's are further established as fundamental functions that change the Universe.
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Superflow from Marvel
This statement does not exist in isolation, as mathematics being encompassed by the full extent of the omniverse is already something that's been alluded to elsewhere in the verse. In Amazing Spider Man #22, we are told by Spider Man's wife's boyfriend that all of reality ultimately boils down to information, with mathematics being a part of that. More specifically, mathematics is simply the act of representing this fundamental information through symbols so it can be manipulated and expressed as a language. Taking what was already there and translating it into a code.

In Al Ewing's Ultimates, Maker makes an extremely similar statement: "It's all about information, you see. From the smallest quark to the tallest space god. It's all information...." In context, he mentioned that as part of his explanation of the Superflow, which is the the highest level of reality, between all universes, where ideas and categories come alive and take actual form (Those being the Abstracts that form the echelons of the Cosmic Hierarchy, in their highest forms). More, it is the place ideas come from, to begin with, the dreamspace of human potential.

Simultaneously, though, it also seems to be the mindscape/consciousness of Eternity himself. As shown at the very end of The Ultimates, when the Superflow is erased, Eternity no longer remembers what he is and enters a coma-like state, which is promptly reverted when the Superflow is restored, leading him to regain his memory. That this is the case may seem a bit strange, but it becomes understandable when taking into account the instances where Eternity's Universal counterparts were described as the collective consciousness of all life in a single universe, which would mean the true Eternity's consciousness is in turn the consciousness of all life in the omniverse.

This is important because, as established in the previous thread, all the contents of the omniverse are thoughts and dreams inside of Eternity's consciousness, and so the Superflow, being that very mindspace, is the backdrop in which those dreams and thoughts exist, and so the information in it is the information of all reality as well, with it being primary, while physical existence is secondary. This should be obvious, of course, since it is the realm where the primal concepts that govern the multiverse live (Helpful to note that these concepts are also explicitly platonic in nature in Ultimates #10, but then again the way the Abstracts are portrayed should've made that obvious too), but this angle helps clarify it further. This is to say that the Superflow isn't just "a" informational space, it is the space where all information is.

So, in summary, the Superflow is the transcendent space that acts as the source of all ideas, effectively the omniversal collective consciousness. It encompasses and stores all information, and thus all of mathematics (Since mathematics itself boils down to information as well, according to the scans above).
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Noosphere from SCP
Now, the first obscure philosophical concept we must get familiar with is the Noosphere. In the mega-multiverse, a structure called the Noosphere envelops and encloses each canon, of which there are infinite, though naturally, only finitely many can be explored in any detail. The Noosphere is, in simple terms, the sum of all human thoughts, in the same way the biosphere is the sum of all of Earth's ecosystems. Naturally, this includes every meme humanity has ever invented, from the most obscure posted cat photo to the most persistent.

Yes, the SCP cosmology genuinely incorporates memes as a reason why it's so overpowered. This property of the Noosphere is crucial because one of the most common ideas in the SCP multiverse is that memes can be alive. They're classified as a subset of cognitohazards, a type of paranormal activity that can affect you by merely perceiving them. In simple terms, Medusa was the first cognitohazard ever written. Living memes are so common that the Foundation uses them for informational security, typically by embedding a photo infected with a living meme into classified files so that anyone who accesses the file without having first taken anti-memetic drugs dies from merely seeing the image.

In an interview, Placeholder McD clarified that the Noosphere doubles as an analog for Plato's "theory" of the World of Forms, meaning living memes inhabit the Noosphere on a more literal than metaphorical level, existing not only as living ideas but also as "perfect" ideas that everything in an SCP canon is but an imperfect reflection of.

Why is this important? Well, in SCP-7650, we're treated to a nice little factoid that inaccessible cardinals are part of the cosmological theories the Foundation is aware of. Simply put, though no object with an inaccessible cardinal's worth of dimensions has ever been shown in an article, SCP Foundation researchers know they're possible, meaning such an object must possess a perfect, memetic version in the Noosphere. To contain memes with an inaccessible cardinal's worth of dimensions, the Noosphere must also be that big itself, meaning the Noosphere is High 1-A. As the Noosphere is the same across all canons, one canon demonstrating ideas on this level scales to all of them.
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These are the explanations for why the two things you brought up are accepted as transcendent, platonic realms.
 
If I remember correctly, in one of my threads I asked about 13 different times for evidence that the Sphere of Gods is portrayed as a physical plane of existence and was unfortunately provided with none, except a pretty vague scan about a character that gained "physical form" in the Sphere, one that is contradicted heavily by the author of that comic anyways. So I'd like it for my 14th time to be provided with a list of scans that prove that the Sphere of Gods is indeed a physical plane of existence, and has no conceptual influence on reality, as that I do think this is a very ignored topic on here.
 
NHTkenshin2 said:
except a pretty vague scan about a character that gained "physical form" in the Sphere
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He gained "corporeal form" in the Sphere, but same meaning. There are several others however.
NHTkenshin2 said:
one that is contradicted heavily by the author of that comic anyways
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Not all that important if it isn't in the comic.
NHTkenshin2 said:
So I'd like it for my 14th time to be provided with a list of scans that prove that the Sphere of Gods is indeed a physical plane of existence
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I'd suggest reading more DC, I suppose. If this is directed at me, I don't have much interest in personally compiling one for you.
 
IdiosyncraticLawyer said:
Superflow from Marvel

Noosphere from SCP

These are the explanations for why the two things you brought up are accepted as transcendent, platonic realms.
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I am aware for both of them. And yet, the Noosphere was once destroyed by the Scarlet King in a fight, as well created by the All-Mighty, and the Superflow was destroyed in the Secret Wars event, as well is created at a time in the Multiverse. My question asks why that is the case, I know the answer but would appreciate it for people to say why.
 
NHTkenshin2 said:
I am aware for both of them. And yet, the Noosphere was once destroyed by the Scarlet King in a fight, as well created by the All-Mighty, and the Superflow was destroyed in the Secret Wars event, as well is created at a time in the Multiverse. My question asks why that is the case, I know the answer but would appreciate it for people to say why.
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I don't understand.
 
NHTkenshin2 said:
If I remember correctly, in one of my threads I asked about 13 different times for evidence that the Sphere of Gods is portrayed as a physical plane of existence and was unfortunately provided with none, except a pretty vague scan about a character that gained "physical form" in the Sphere, one that is contradicted heavily by the author of that comic anyways. So I'd like it for my 14th time to be provided with a list of scans that prove that the Sphere of Gods is indeed a physical plane of existence, and has no conceptual influence on reality, as that I do think this is a very ignored topic on here.
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Lol good luck. The whole map is designed and structured in accordance to the Godsphere having a conceptual influence on the Orrery and Grant called the Godsphere platonic numerous times in Multiversity and Final Crisis. Anyone who thinks this isn’t how the Godsphere works is either ignorant on how the cosmology works or just being dishonest.
 
Different staff with different philosophies engage with different verses. I've never participated in an SCP thread and probably never would. You say they're treated as Platonic, but what does that mean in terms of profiles? Is there a character with an ability or tier that you believe it wouldn't have, if we didnt consider one or both of these realms Platonic?
 
NHTkenshin2 said:
If I remember correctly, in one of my threads I asked about 13 different times for evidence that the Sphere of Gods is portrayed as a physical plane of existence and was unfortunately provided with none, except a pretty vague scan about a character that gained "physical form" in the Sphere, one that is contradicted heavily by the author of that comic anyways. So I'd like it for my 14th time to be provided with a list of scans that prove that the Sphere of Gods is indeed a physical plane of existence, and has no conceptual influence on reality, as that I do think this is a very ignored topic on here.
Click to expand...
In the context of DC comics, the platonic God Sphere argument is used consistently as a Get Out Of Jail Free Card to prove 1-A realms beyond the multiverse. The problem is, the moment you want to extrapolate from such statements, you have a tremendous burden of proof to demonstrate that the God Sphere strictly follows Plato's theory of forms.

Deagonx summed it up before here:
When Darkseid dies, does evil stop existing? No. Does evil exist above Darkseid? Yes. Does it exist in other Multiverses outside DC? Most probably. We know that there was a period of time in the Orrery where Gods did not exist at all. Yet the material world, which you are so insistent on claiming depends on these conceptual gods, was fine and operated based on normal parameters.
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You can't just dismiss anti-feat after anti-feat with the cope of "but some interpretations of platonic forms allow these anti-feats!!" Prove the God Sphere at least follows Plato's theory of forms strictly enough to warrant extrapolation.

The God Sphere even has mountains of anti-feats showing it's bound by space-time.
 
Deagonx said:
He gained "corporeal form" in the Sphere, but same meaning. There are several others however.
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I'd like to see them, especially considering the author of that comic (which if I remember correctly was Grant Morrison) says later on that the Sphere is outside corporeal reality as a whole.

Deagonx said:
Not all that important if it isn't in the comic.
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What isn't in "the comic", that the Sphere of Gods isn't called incorporeal and nonphysical? That much is just incorrect

Deagonx said:
I'd suggest reading more DC, I suppose. If this is directed at me, I don't have much interest in personally compiling one for you.
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I have, funnily enough, I've read around 70 comics or so referencing the Sphere of Gods. And no this isn't a directed at you, it's directed on people that are knowledgeable enough on this topic and have interest on compiling evidence for me.

IdiosyncraticLawyer said:
I don't understand.
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Some of the arguments on why the Sphere isn't a platonic realm is because it is a created realm and is capable of being destroyed, I'm bringing evidence that this doesn't really matter in VSBW, because 1. There are interpretations for them with them being allowed to be like that. 2. Other verses have the same problems but are accepted just fine.
 
ProfectusInfinity said:
In the context of DC comics, the platonic God Sphere argument is used consistently as a Get Out Of Jail Free Card to prove 1-A realms beyond the multiverse. The problem is, the moment you want to extrapolate from such statements, you have a tremendous burden of proof to demonstrate that the God Sphere strictly follows Plato's theory of forms.
Click to expand...
He’s not saying platonism is an automatic 1-A for the Godsphere so this comment isn’t even necessary.

ProfectusInfinity said:
You can't just dismiss anti-feat after anti-feat with the cope of "but some interpretations of platonic forms allow these anti-feats!!" Prove the God Sphere at least follows Plato's theory of forms strictly enough to warrant extrapolation.

The God Sphere even has mountains of anti-feats showing it's bound by space-time.
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No one posted any anti-feats. And even if there was an anti-feat, why would we hold one anti-feat over the boatload of evidence suggesting the Godsphere is and functions like a platonic realm?
 
Xearsay said:
Lol good luck. The whole map is designed and structured in accordance to the Godsphere having a conceptual influence on the Orrery and Grant called the Godsphere platonic numerous times in Multiversity and Final Crisis. Anyone who thinks this isn’t how the Godsphere works is either ignorant on how the cosmology works or just being dishonest.
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Oh well, what do we know.

Xearsay said:
He’s not saying platonism is an automatic 1-A for the Godsphere so this comment isn’t even necessary.


No one posted any anti-feats. And even if there was an anti-feat, why would we hold one anti-feat over the boatload of evidence suggesting the Godsphere is and functions like a platonic realm?
Click to expand...
Most of the inconsistencies there are from like 50 years ago, and most aren't even from the Morrison/Snyder universe.
 
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