• This forum is strictly intended to be used by members of the VS Battles wiki. Please only register if you have an autoconfirmed account there, as otherwise your registration will be rejected. If you have already registered once, do not do so again, and contact Antvasima if you encounter any problems.

    For instructions regarding the exact procedure to sign up to this forum, please click here.
  • We need Patreon donations for this forum to have all of its running costs financially secured.

    Community members who help us out will receive badges that give them several different benefits, including the removal of all advertisements in this forum, but donations from non-members are also extremely appreciated.

    Please click here for further information, or here to directly visit our Patreon donations page.
  • Please click here for information about a large petition to help children in need.

General DC Comics Discussion Thread

lets see if marvel is going to get the same treatment as DC in terms of splitting the cosmology
This was the thread where the cosmology split was voted on. You guys were given chances, Antvasima was even encouraged by other staff to allow more DC supporter participation, and you guys blew it. You failed to provide so much as a single argument against the cosmology split. Instead, you guys went on tangents about how this was only done to prevent tier 1 Superman or you attacked Deagonx personally for his off-site takes. Go read that thread, compare the arguments both sides made, and explain to me why any neutral party shouldn't have favored the split?

Ultima, on the other hand, actually took time to craft a good argument for compositing much of the Marvel cosmology.
 
This was the thread where the cosmology split was voted on. You guys were given chances, Antvasima was even encouraged by other staff to allow more DC supporter participation, and you guys blew it. You failed to provide so much as a single argument against the cosmology split. Instead, you guys went on tangents about how this was only done to prevent tier 1 Superman or you attacked Deagonx personally for his off-site takes. Go read that thread, compare the arguments both sides made, and explain to me why any neutral party shouldn't have favored the split?

Ultima, on the other hand, actually took time to craft a good argument for compositing much of the Marvel cosmology.
wtf
i agreed with the cosmology split
 
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?
There's a reason special pleading is a fallacy. The God Sphere has anti-feats against being eternal, it has anti-feats for being bound by space-time, it has anti-feats for being non-physical, and above all: it has anti-feats against being archetypal. Feats>statements. If SCP or Marvel have anti-feats to a similar degree (which they demonstrably don't), they shouldn't be given platonic stuff either.
 
He gained "corporeal form" in the Sphere, but same meaning. There are several others however.
I don't think that is really a problem with the idea that it could be an abstract place. Basically, various other abstract spaces in fiction all have used physical terminology to describe what happens, even though it's not in the "most literal sense". Even if you went with Marvel there are various depictions of abstract spaces having "physical events", like being said to have physical forms, gravity, weather, etc. One of the first Thor stories was literally Asgard going to dry out and needed Thor to go there and make it rain. (And yet it was already depicted as an eternal realm beyond time and space). It's not in the "absolute most physical meaning of it", but rather "a general idealized version of those events that are summarized into physical events to be made sense to be told in stories.

So on its own, there's no problem with an abstract space depicting physical-like events if you understand that they are a representation of something abstract through physical lenses. And of course, superiority can be only by contrast to the physical realm, while being "mundane/limited" in itself. To quote "Elements of Theology": For that by which each thing is infinite, by this likewise it exists uncircumscribed. But every thing which is in true beings is bounded by itself, and by all the things prior to it. It follows, therefore, that the infinite which is in true beings is infinite to subordinate natures alone, above which it is so expanded in power that it is incomprehensible by all of them.

If it was told at least once that there's a kind of simplification to what happens in the Sphere of Gods, be it to be understood by physical beings or because of a kind of metaphysical narrative, it would be the exact same thing that happens with other already accepted abstract/non-physical places.
 
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.
I have no stake in this fight, but even if we proved the SOG was platonic, you still have all your work ahead of you to prove a specific tier for it.
 
That goes both ways. You should have a baseline familiarity with a cosmology if you want to be taken seriously in a debate about it. Asking someone else to teach you the basics isn't really worth their time.
 
…What?

They’re just asking for the source on a claim that was made. That doesn’t warrant this at all
 
What isn't in "the comic", that the Sphere of Gods isn't called incorporeal and nonphysical? That much is just incorrect
This supposed contradiction to what's in Final Crisis Secret Files (which is that Apokolips is corporeal).

I have, funnily enough, I've read around 70 comics or so referencing the Sphere of Gods.
Yeah, that's what I mean. There are more than 70 comics referencing the Sphere in a single Superman run. You can't just read Crisis events and expect to get a comprehensive understanding of the verse.
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.
The "but this other verse does it" argument isn't a very good one, and people try to use that in a lot of contexts and it's always a bad argument. There are incorrect things on the site. The fact that they haven't been corrected yet isn't a good justification for it being used elsewhere. But again, I'm still not sure what tier/abilities were granted that otherwise wouldn't have been.
 
The "but this other verse does it" argument isn't a very good one, and people try to use that in a lot of contexts and it's always a bad argument. There are incorrect things on the site. The fact that they haven't been corrected yet isn't a good justification for it being used elsewhere. But again, I'm still not sure what tier/abilities were granted that otherwise wouldn't have been.
Both the Superflow and Noosphere have undergone strict scrutiny regarding their ratings.
 
Or… maybe you can provide the source? If you don’t wanna go find it yourself, you can at least redirect them to around where it can be found

Just saying “read the comics” isn’t exactly productive, general thread or not
 
People complaining that the Godsphere is treated as a physical realm and not as abstract on the wiki

JfqA6GO.jpeg


This discussion be like.
 
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?
Predominantly because there isn't a "boatload" of evidence. Most of it is just riding the coattails of that single Batman scan. It's more the inverse, there is a great deal of evidence proving otherwise.

Both the Superflow and Noosphere have undergone strict scrutiny regarding their ratings.
Sure, I'm not disputing that per se. I'm not familiar with them. I'm just explaining that referencing what other verses do is not a good way to argue for something.

Or… maybe you can provide the source? If you don’t wanna go find it yourself, you can at least redirect them to around where it can be found

Just saying “read the comics” isn’t exactly productive, general thread or not
We're referring to dozens of scans in random comics across decades. I don't have a photographic memory. If the need arises I could spend a good bit of time compiling it, but to what end? I don't just drop everything I'm doing to scour DC for scans whenever somebody asks me to. I'm allowed to say no. If you feel strongly about it, you are more than welcome to do it instead.

Basically, various other abstract spaces in fiction all have used physical terminology to describe what happens, even though it's not in the "most literal sense". Even if you went with Marvel there are various depictions of abstract spaces having "physical events", like being said to have physical forms, gravity, weather, etc. One of the first Thor stories was literally Asgard going to dry out and needed Thor to go there and make it rain. (And yet it was already depicted as an eternal realm beyond time and space). It's not in the "absolute most physical meaning of it", but rather "a general idealized version of those events that are summarized into physical events to be made sense to be told in stories.
Personally, I am not as sympathetic to this viewpoint. Or rather, I can only allow so much of it before I think we're painting a somewhat ridiculous caricature of the stories being told, where we must re-contextualize hundreds of stories by doing our best to explain away every seemingly physical event, with the end result being that our official stance is "never trust your eyes, this visuals of this primarily visual medium cannot be trusted!"

And in some cases, this approach completely doesn't work. For instance, there is a Supergirl comic where Supergirl manages to travel to Apokolips without a Boom Tube, and because of that she is physically smaller than the rest of the citizens. If we consider Apokolips an abstract non-physical space, this suddenly becomes borderline incoherent. It isn't unthinkable that Boom Tubes primarily change someone from being physical to abstract, but why would Supergirl appear physically small for teleporting there differently? Are we to assume then, that her method also changed her to an abstract form, but for some reason Boom Tubes also amplify the power or "abstract size" of one's form? And for some reason, Supergirls other method did not?

Please, goodness, no. In the context of that story it is abundantly clear that Boom Tubes make you physically bigger and Supergirl was small because she didn't use a Boom Tube and simply teleported instead. I can't imagine thinking the best solution to this problem is tons of mental acrobatics to make sense of this clear contradiction.
 
You're right, and all I did was encourage them to read the comics. It absolutely didn't warrant this random sniping from Armorchompy to start drama like this:
which is why i deleted it, with a specific note that says "eh i don't wanna start a fight"

But since you decided to dig it back up despite me explicitly choosing to back off, what DID warrant my "snipping" is that the concept of "baseline familiarity" is completely subjective and if people were to abide by your standards of it, you would be capable of moving the goalposts as much as you want and get away with making any sort of claims without need of evidence, just by claiming that they're so obvious that it isn't needed. Especially because, as Ultima clearly shows us, your claim is very very far from obvious, and is, perhaps, straight-up wrong.

This is without getting into how even if you were right it wouldn't be an excuse for constantly demeaning behavior.
 
Last edited:
We're referring to dozens of scans in random comics across decades. I don't have a photographic memory. If the need arises I could spend a good bit of time compiling it, but to what end? I don't just drop everything I'm doing to scour DC for scans whenever somebody asks me to. I'm allowed to say no. If you feel strongly about it, you are more than welcome to do it instead.
My guy I don’t have any stake in DC I just lowkey forgot to unfollow this thread, so I wouldn’t even know where to begin. I just take issue with a refusal to provide a source and just going “read the source material.”

I get DC is a comically large franchise with tons of comics, so it’s different compared to just looking through a singular manga for instance for a source. Though I feel at least at some point, it may be prudent to try and get ahold of the scans in question whenever you can, for future reference if nothing else.
 
I shouldn't have helped you get your account back

you would be capable of moving the goalposts as much as you want and get away with making any sort of claims without need of evidence, just by claiming that they're so obvious that it isn't needed.
Everyone is always capable of this. Both in and outside of a CRT. The only obstacle really is whether or not other people find that persuasive. If this were a meaningful CRT where a change to the wiki were on the line, I probably would compile the evidence, but I am not going to drop what I am doing to spend hours gathering scans any time anyone asks me to.

As explained by Executor, doesn't really mean much.
I completely disagree, but you're more than welcome to that opinion.
I'm not really sure if there are 70 issues showing the Sphere in a "single Superman run," I think I would've known.
bruh
The reason why I brought it up was to show that it does exist on this wiki.
"Exists on this wiki" just means "at some point more than 2 staff members voted for this" which has varying degrees of reliability.

My guy I don’t have any stake in DC I just lowkey forgot to unfollow this thread, so I wouldn’t even know where to begin. I just take issue with a refusal to provide a source and just going “read the source material.”
I would agree if I was being asked for a specific scan or specific claim. But what is being asked of me is "show me every scan in DC that demonstrates the Sphere being shown or referred to as physical in some way" which is a gargantuan research task. I am allowed to say no.
 
Everyone is always capable of this. Both in and outside of a CRT. The only obstacle really is whether or not other people find that persuasive. If this were a meaningful CRT where a change to the wiki were on the line, I probably would compile the evidence, but I am not going to drop what I am doing to spend hours gathering scans any time anyone asks me to.
0iPA1ig.png
 
Personally, I am not as sympathetic to this viewpoint. Or rather, I can only allow so much of it before I think we're painting a somewhat ridiculous caricature of the stories being told, where we must re-contextualize hundreds of stories by doing our best to explain away every seemingly physical event, with the end result being that our official stance is "never trust your eyes, this visuals of this primarily visual medium cannot be trusted!"

And in some cases, this approach completely doesn't work. For instance, there is a Supergirl comic where Supergirl manages to travel to Apokolips without a Boom Tube, and because of that she is physically smaller than the rest of the citizens. If we consider Apokolips an abstract non-physical space, this suddenly becomes borderline incoherent. It isn't unthinkable that Boom Tubes primarily change someone from being physical to abstract, but why would Supergirl appear physically small for teleporting there differently? Are we to assume then, that her method also changed her to an abstract form, but for some reason Boom Tubes also amplify the power or "abstract size" of one's form? And for some reason, Supergirls other method did not?

Please, goodness, no. In the context of that story it is abundantly clear that Boom Tubes make you physically bigger and Supergirl was small because she didn't use a Boom Tube and simply teleported instead. I can't imagine thinking the best solution to this problem is tons of mental acrobatics to make sense of this clear contradiction.
I'm sure it sounds not good. And of course, I'm sure a lot of authors don't think about that and are completely unaware of any of those ideas. But at that point, it's more about the contradiction between different authors because they don't have the same understanding of the place.

But the idea that something like that can happen is the focus of many stories. One of the funny scenes from Marvel's The Ultimates 2 is Ego hiding behind a door to not enter the conflict only for Galactus to say something like "We are in an informational space, where combat is a metaphor, the door you are hiding, it doesn't exist". Not a concept exclusive to Marvel. In Chiaki J. Konaka's works about information space, he directly came up with using the term Metaphorize to describe turning "physical" in information space because it's not really physical, but rather a metaphor to make sense of a purely unreal place (Something he does in Alice in Cyberland, Serial Experiments Lain, and Digimon Tamers).

I do remember some old Grant Morrison scans talking about that and how you can't truly describe what happens in the abstract realms in terms of physical description because they exist beyond space-time, so everything is a simplification of what happens. I also recall some scans of some characters saying "It's not what it looks like, it's this complex pure idea of a thing and not the thing".

So, I think that at least some authors did at least mention once "Don't trust what you see, this is all a simplification of something that can't be truly described by physical means". However, I'm also sure there are just as many authors who have no idea of what any of this is and just made up stuff from their own interpretation without knowing the deeper meaning of what others said. Which is why we even have a cosmology division.
 
Armor by all means, feel free to right this wrong by undertaking that task yourself.
 
Everyone is always capable of this. Both in and outside of a CRT. The only obstacle really is whether or not other people find that persuasive. If this were a meaningful CRT where a change to the wiki were on the line, I probably would compile the evidence, but I am not going to drop what I am doing to spend hours gathering scans any time anyone asks me to.
Are you from Quora or Comicvine?
 
Armor by all means, feel free to right this wrong by undertaking that task yourself.
that wasn't meant to be an attack or anything i just wanted to reply with something stupid so i just browser the arkham sub and picked a post at random
 
However, after looking at Darkseids profile it seems the New Gods and their world are already accepted as platonic since we use the Batman statement for Darkseids AE type 1.
If all you meant by "Platonic" was "Trueform Darkseid has incorporeality/abstract existence" then by all means. Even his appearance in the Orrery could've proven that. Actual platonism encompasses a lot more than that, but it's been proven that even TF Darkseid lacks those qualities which is why he does not have them.

But at that point, it's more about the contradiction between different authors because they don't have the same understanding of the place.
Yes, this is largely the case. It's not so much that I think there's no scans suggesting the Sphere is predominantly abstract, it's just that the many contradictions to that notion make it far more complicated a matter than some would be willing to admit to themselves. But as you say, this is something that the cosmology split was created to help alleviate to a degree.
 
Yes, this is largely the case. It's not so much that I think there's no scans suggesting the Sphere is predominantly abstract, it's just that the many contradictions to that notion make it far more complicated a matter than some would be willing to admit to themselves. But as you say, this is something that the cosmology split was created to help alleviate to a degree.
And what are these contradictions?
 
I gave some examples above re: Libra gaining corporeal form in Apokolips, Supergirl being physically smaller in Apokolips when she travelled there without a boom tube.
 
I gave some examples above re: Libra gaining corporeal form in Apokolips, Supergirl being physically smaller in Apokolips when she travelled there without a boom tube.
I have no idea why that would mean the Sphere of Gods isn't abstract. Physical beings entering the world does not contradict this.
 
I have no idea why that would mean the Sphere of Gods isn't abstract. Physical beings entering the world does not contradict this.
It's more the lack of explanation as to how a Physical being can interact with a metaphysical. Looking into the large picture, it's easy to solve this.

If Libra was becoming more spiritually aware and beyond what the physical body can affect, the fact that as he rose he became corporeal to the Sphere of Gods could just be the matter=spiritual equalization some emanationist philosophies apply.

That is to say, what is spiritual and transcendent is to the realm below that is physical from its own point of view, but that spiritual realm is physical to itself and what lies above, which that which lies above seeing the two realms below as physical.
V5rQwWS.png

So, it's possible to in fact use Libra's ascension to showcase it is an emanationist cosmology with the larger reality being transcendental to what lies below, while being physical and limited to what lies above. The only problem is the lack of an actual depiction of that being said in the work itself.
 
So, it's possible to in fact use Libra's ascension to showcase it is an emanationist cosmology with the larger reality being transcendental to what lies below, while being physical and limited to what lies above. The only problem is the lack of an actual depiction of that being said in the work itself.
I'm confused, are you asking if DC works on increasingly more fundamental realms?
 
No, he's referring specifically to a cascading spiritual->physical relationship relative to all layers and the ones below them. As in, every realm can internally interact under a physical conception, but still be seen as spiritual by the realm below it, and still see the one above it as spiritual (which, itself, would behave physically relative to itself).
 
He probably just felt corporeal because he touched the ground tbh, there's an explicit statement of the Sphere of the Gods being outside corporeal reality by Darkseid in Justice League Odyssey, and metaphysical statements in guidebooks
 
No, he's referring specifically to a cascading spiritual->physical relationship relative to all layers and the ones below them. As in, every realm can internally interact under a physical conception, but still be seen as spiritual by the realm below it, and still see the one above it as spiritual (which, itself, would behave physically relative to itself).
As in, each realm is more spiritual then the last, leading up to the most spiritual at the top?
 
Back
Top