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Right, so, at the moment the profiles for the Marvel Comics Abstracts are all quite bad, and in pretty dire need to repairs. Not only in terms of tiering, but also of... everything, really. This thread will be Part 1 of an attempt at overhauling them. Beginning from the top (The tiers).
About the ratings
Alright, so, before I get to the meat of the issue, I first had to establish some basic facts that build up to it. As is known, the Abstract Entities in Marvel are personifications of the basic concepts that govern reality, being as such embodiments of the universe at large. Eternity is the embodiment of time, Infinity the embodiment of space, Oblivion the embodiment of nonexistence, and so on. However, one thing that should be made clear, before we move on, is that the cosmos which they encompass does not refer to a single 4-dimensional spacetime. To quote the A to Z Marvel Handbook:
"A reality is the combination of spatial and temporal events and the substance of a single universe (And those dimensions associated with said universe)"
One of the most overt examples of this being demonstrated in the comics themselves is in Doctor Strange - Sorcerer Supreme, Issue #54, where Eternity raises his hand, and the narration notes that it encompasses whole universes, in the plural:
Doctor Strange Vol. 2 #13 also displayed the same idea. Here, Eternity refers to Nightmare's Realm as being a part of him as well, commenting that Nightmare "attacked from within" in reference to how he was able to be put to sleep by the power of 1/3 of humanity's dreams. For reference, Nightmare's Realm is referred to as being as vast as earth's universe and beyond space and time in multiple occasions.
In Strange Tales #147, the narration then goes on to say that Eternity's domain is "all that lies beyond mortal places."
The mystical universe, where Chaos and Order are the governing dual forces and the Vishanti make their home, is also described as having endless dimensions in it, and yet it is still a part of the singular universe that Eternity comprises (What If? Vol. 1 #32), with Lord Chaos and Master Order being bound to one universe and ultimately unable to leave it. The Dark Dimension where Dormammu reigns is also contained in Eternity, as Dormammu refers to himself as being bound by Eternity's will, which prevents him from taking up the mantle of reality's sovereign, and he furthermore has alternate selves in other realities that are bound by their own Eternity, as shown by... all of What If? #18, really. The Dark Dimension for the matter is timeless and infinite, and has more spatial dimensions than the Earth's plane of existence, while also being located "many, many infinities away" from it, the two being set apart by an endless gap.
The Dark Dimension itself is part of the "Outer Planes," a subset of the mystical dimensions comprised of realms that lie far away from the plane in which humans live. Contrasting those, there are also the Inner Planes, which consist of realms existing closer-by. Those planes include Asgard, which of course has an extremely long list of statements referring to it as existing beyond mortal time and space (Although that is not necessarily to say it is infinitely transcendent over it), and which more recently has been referred to as a whole universe.
Despite that, Asgard, like the Norse Gods living in it still has several different versions of itself across the multiverse (Loki Vol. 1 #2 and #3, respectively), and indeed Loki: Agent of Asgard has Odin himself say that, though the Ten Realms are full universes, they are still inside of "this reality," referring to Earth-616.
Another mystical dimension that exists in the same general region as the Dark Dimension, and as such withon Eternity, is the universe of Faltine, where Dormammu and Umar were born, which has an even larger number of dimensions than the Dark Dimension. When you get down to it, all this talk of the universe's full dimensionality extending beyond 4-D isn't inconsistent in this era of comics, either, since after he merges with Eternity and reaches the same level as the Ancient One, Strange notices that once he is back to the normal world, he can see and feel in "many more dimensions" than the usual four (Length, Width, Height and Time)
And, finally, in Incredible Hulk Vol. 1 #312, it is explicitly stated that the universe has a seemingly infinite amount of layers to it, and is thus itself actually a multiverse, which the Beyonder proves by traveling through several of said layers, like Asgard, the Dark Dimension, the Microverse and Mephisto's realm.
Note, of course, that after the retcon to the Beyonder's origin, the "pinhole" that allowed him to peek into the universe turned out to actually be just a tear in a single Eternity (Guardians of the Galaxy #35 and #38, respectively), as shown by the experiences of his Earth-691 counterpart, so the above statements do indeed refer to Earth-616 alone in the context of the Post-Retcon continuity. Furthermore, as these scans show, the Beyonder considers Malevolence, Mephisto's daughter, to be an inhabitant of Eternity, despite her being native to Mephisto's Realm and not to the earth dimension, once again showing that Earth-616 spans a lot more than the latter.
The fact that one of the other dimensions that the Beyonder strolls through is the Microverse is noteworthy, also, because the Microverse itself is elsewhere depicted as existing inside of Eternity. To be exact: The Enigma Force is able to access it, and is the energy that holds it together (Micronauts #31 and #35, respectively). The same Enigma Force that is inextricably tied to a singular instance of Eternity and as such unable to leave its home reality (Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 3 #9).
There is still more, though: In Quasar #18-20, it is stated that the universe has higher planes of existence, with the Abstracts inhabiting these planes:
In Issue #25 of the same storyline, the Watchers also comment on higher planes of existence and note that the Celestials operate on a higher plane than them (Which is in and of itself pretty impressive, since they are listed among the cosmic entities that "transact in transfinite levels of being" in another comic)
At the end of the issue, we are then directly told that the most powerful Abstracts exist in "the highest plane of reality conceivable."
This isn't particular to the 90's Quasar run, either. In What If? Vol. 1 #18, an alternate Doctor Strange meets with Eternity after being hurled to a realm "Beyond space. Beyond time. Beyond death. Beyond dreams. Beyond thought. Beyond life and death. Beyond anything to hold on to." In Strange Tales #146, this realm is described as a "timeless sub-cosmos" of Eternity, and in Eternity's first appearance in Marvel history, we're also told that time and distance as we understand them have no meaning in that place.
Another relevant piece of information relating to this is to be found in Defenders Vol.3 #2-3, by J.M DeMatteis, where Dormammu and Umar confront the Multiversal Eternity, and are told that beings like them are "flickering thoughts in [Eternity]'s measureless consciousness," which Doctor Strange confirms in the next issue by saying that, now that Dormammu assumed Eternity's position, everything in existence is just a reflection of his consciousness. Dormammu himself also reinforces this when he says that the physical contents of the multiverse are "the merest fraction of Eternity."
This establishes that the Multiversal Eternity actually transcends all of the contents of the multiverse it encompasses. Why is this relevant to Universal Eternity, you may ask? Well, as explained in Ultimates Vol. 3 #7, the summary of the relationship between the true Eternity and his facets is "As Above, So Below." Creation is fractal and just like how a single strand of a person's DNA contains a map of the entire person, so too is the entirety of the structure of Eternity replicated in a smaller-scale, in the form of the Eternities personifying individual universes. Therefore everything that is true of the Multiversal Eternity in relation to the omniverse is also true of the Universal Eternity in relation to the universe.
This is actually shown in the scene from Doctor Strange Vol. 2 #13 already posted here, where Eternity explains that his thoughts and dreams are everyone else's reality, and so what happened in the dream he had when Nightmare put him to sleep truly did occur. Elsewhere, this also pops up, with it being stated that the Celestials, together with all that is, are a figment of Eternity's imagination. Secret Avengers Vol. 1 #03 (2010) also makes a mention of "Eternity's Dream," and it then comes back in Marvel Comics #1001, which is currently used as part of the Low 1-C justification in the profiles, where the Masked Raider explains that the Eternity-Mask allows him to see space and time for what they are: A narrative. In Al Ewing's run of Defenders, we also see the Fourth Cosmos bringing the titular team to outside of existence, and it appears like a comicbook from their perspective. So this is not a one-off thing but something that has been mentioned and shown bizarrely consistently throughout Marvel's history.
The idea that Eternity, despite being himself the universe/multiverse, actually transcends his contents entirely may seem weird, but it becomes understandable when taking into account this panel, which explains that the Multiversal Eternity is not just the multiverse per se; he is the concept of the multiverse. So, likewise, his universal facets personify their universes on a conceptual level, which exceeds the physical.
So, to summarize all this: Universes in Marvel (When the term is being used to refer all that's encompassed by the Abstracts) are big. They are not just a single spacetime, but infinitely many of them, all separated by a gap that is likewise infinite as well. Furthermore, they include higher-dimensional spaces with many more dimensions than just the 4 we are used to, as well as several higher planes of existence that transcend spacetime altogether. This last detail also tells us that although some of the highest Abstracts personify things like time (Eternity) and space (Infinity), they are not time and space as conventionally understood at all, but higher forms of those things that are beyond the mortal concepts of them (Also seen with the scans about Asgard and the "timeless sub-cosmos" inside of Eternity). Indeed, Eternity sees all that's inside him as part of his dreams and thoughts.
With this groundwork set, we can get on with the first of the five main points I want to present here, which is to be found in Secret Defenders, more specifically its later issues, #20 through #25.
In those final issues, we are introduced to Slorioth, a demonic being that supposedly ravaged the earth dimension 15,000 years ago, before he was eventually sealed away beneath the town of Sparksboro by a cabal of ancient wizards. We get to see Slorioth in Issues #22 and #24, but the latter is the one with the more noteworthy statements about him: We are told, firstly, that his tabernacle is a "trans-temporal" realm, and further onwards, he mocks Anthony Druid for being a "foolish, limited, tridimensional creature" before taking him as an avatar. Both of these statements tell us in fairly explicitly terms that Slorioth is a higher-dimensional being existing beyond time. Nevertheless, the issue ends with Slorioth manifesting on Earth in seemingly physical form and being confronted by the heroes there:
Come Issue #25, though, and things start getting a bit weird: As he fights the thing, the Silver Surfer realizes that Slorioth is in fact a pan-dimensional entity, and that what broke out of the ground in the previous issue was actually just an infinitesimal sliver of his entirety, though one that regardless is still more than strong enough to kick his and everyone else's ass. Later on, Druid, fully christened as Slorioth's avatar, states that "No lone dimensionality could ever hope to contain the gradiose totality I have now embraced." Okay.
And then at the end of the comic, the Living Tribunal is summoned (This scan is something we currently use on the profiles, btw), and reiterates what Druid said above: "The all of Slorioth has ever been too vast for any lone dimensionality!"
I might note, also, that the topic of alternate dimensions never comes up once in this storyline, and before Silver Surfer's initial statement the sole reference to "dimensions" with regards to Slorioth's nature is him deriding humans for being three-dimensional creatures. Therefore it seems entirely clear to me that Slorioth's pan-dimensionality refers to him existing in all spatial dimensions of the verse; his totality being too large for any "lose dimensionality" cements this, as it's pretty much saying that no single dimensional level can contain him, since he spans all of them.
Secret Defenders #25 was published in 1995. Only one year later, in 1996, was published Ghost Rider 2099 Vol. 1 #25, which has this scan in it. You can most likely tell where I'm going with this: Given infinite dimensions, Slorioth's pan-dimensional nature would be High 1-B.
Slorioth is fairly important for a discussion about the ratings of the Universal Abstracts because his sole physical appearance frames him as being a rival to the Vishanti, being their direct opposition in the War of the Seven Spheres. The Vishanti, as established prior, being entities whose domain is confined to one iteration of Eternity, and who as such obviously rank below him in the cosmic pecking order. By extension this means that Slorioth scales below the Universal Eternity as well, and although our profiles do treat him as able to threaten Eternity just by existing, the very scan we use for that already debunks that being a showing of power: The reason Slorioth was threatening Eternity was that his actions were about to cause a temporal discontinuity by making the War of Seven Spheres happen before its due time. He was threatening him by upsetting a cosmic balance, not by being so powerful that Eternity backs off from his very existence or anything.
Furthermore, Eternity is referred to as "the strongest mystic entity of all" (Doctor Strange vol. 1 - #182) and Doctor Strange states that he seems to have been above the War of Seven Spheres entirely (Doctor Strange, Sorcerer Supreme - #54).
So, if Eternity is scaled above Slorioth (Which he unquestionably does), Eternity would at the least be scaled to High 1-B as well.
Now that I revealed my monstrous intentions, I want to aside for a bit and establish in what circumstances, exactly, someone may scale to this. The answer is... not very often, actually. This was largely the reason behind my spiel about the bunch of different dimensions that are inside Eternity: It was to establish that, although Earth-616 is often referred to as a "universe," the sub-cosmoses existing within it also are, and therefore that in order to scale to the above a character would need far more than a statement of destroying, or being able to destroy, the universe. The feat or statement in question would also need to make clear that they will destroy all of Eternity, and not just the earth dimension.
This is to say that not all universe busters in Marvel will scale to this. The dimensions inside Eternity vary in tier, with the Earth Dimension being just Low 2-C. What will happen under the above proposals is the exact same as our current treatment of Marvel universe busting: We obviously don't scale all the universe busters in the verse to 2-A or Low 1-C just because Eternity is that high, and the same will apply here. So, for example: Galactus' feat of being used as a bomb to destroy both the positive matter universe and the Negative Zone would be only 2-C, since those two are just one of the many realms contained in Eternity.
Contrastingly, something like Maelstrom's black hole from World in Collision would certainly scale, since it was explicitly going to consume the level of the Abstracts and not just the earth dimension. Context is always key when it comes to determine where exactly a universe busting feat scales.
One possible counterargument one might try to use is to be found in these scans, which state that man's universe has only 3 spatial dimensions and lists other realms with varying dimensionalities as universes apart from it. However, it should be noted that they are not necessarily talking about the earth dimension and the realms adjacent to it as being in the domains of separate Eternities, since, as you can see, it lists Nightmare's Realm, Asgard and the Dark Dimension among these different universes, even though it is well-established that they are all inside of Eternity. And that's of course not to mention the fact that Eternity's whole domain having only 3 spatial dimensions is very inconsistent, so the above interpretation is undoubtedly the more correct one either way.
Getting back on track, there are more arguments for the contents of the Universal Abstracts being infinite-dimensional, and the next one revolves around rescaling something that we already accept as being so: The Crossroads of Infinity. To start with, as shown in those panels, it is a realm located within Subspace, "the very edge" of it, in fact. With this established we then move on to Heroes Reborn: The Return, Issue #2, where the Celestial Ashema brings Loki to a realm "beyond the edge of Subspace, to the cusp of Eternity", showing that Eternity contains not only Subspace but also realms beyond it, with this of course being the same storyline where it is shown that everything within Eternity is a figment of his imagination.
This allows us to recontextualize some things in different ways that actually provide more coherence to the cosmology: Subspace (Also referred to as the Distortion Area, which the Crossroads of Infinity are the heart of) has been previously defined as being the barrier between realities, however this seems to refer specifically to it being the space between the dimensions contained within one universe, as it largely is used as a medium to travel to the Negative Zone, which is a a sub-cosmos of Earth-616, also referred to as contained within "hyperspace." Recent comics support this notion, with them defining the Superflow as the space between universes in the larger multiverse, while simultaneously acknowledging the Crossroads of Infinity as still being something that exists. In fewer words: The space between dimensions in a single universe is Subspace / The Crossroads of Infinity, but the space between universes in the wider multiverse is the Superflow.
Subspace being contained in one Universal Eternity is also shown in other comics: Fantastic Four Vol. 1 #400 speculates and then confirms that the Celestials inhabit a higher dimension in Hyperspace (Synonymous with Subspace), and the Celestials, though their origins trace all the way back to the First Firmament, still stick their bases of operations to the confines of singular realities. In the same storyline, Hyperstorm, despite being one with Hyperspace and having full domain over it, still refers to himself being limited to a single universe, and expresses his wish to extend his reign to other realities, the timeline where he took over the universe being itself treated just one of many possible futures.
The Crossroads of Infinity being a realm that takes from all dimensionalities (Limitless dimensions, after all) and yet still being a part of a single universe also lends to the character of Slorioth, who as shown above is a pan-dimensional entity that nevertheless is still depicted as relative to entities below Universal Eternity in the cosmic hierarchy, thus restricting his sphere of influence to Earth-616 alone. The two points raised (Slorioth and the Crossroads) can certainly stand on their own, but they also feed off each other very well, which of course also applies to all points made here.
The third point revolves around something that I've already explained in-depth in another thread, so, I will just copy-paste the explanation I gave there, with slight alterations to fit the context of this thread.
The central story for this argument is Children of the Voyager, which spans four issues. Basically, in Issue #3, we have a mention of a thing called "the Cascade," where "infinite dimensions converge." Seems to be referring to parallel realms without more context, but in Issue #4, the "Voyager" mentioned in the title of the comic shows up, and he wants the main character's soul, which he says is because it will serve as fuel for his ascent into "the Cascade of dimensions above." When the protagonist asks what he means by that, another character explains that he's talking about is "The... next plane up, Heaven. Whatever you want to call it."
Then at the end of it story, he finally gives his soul to the Voyager, and we get a description of the latter's ascension into the aforementioned Cascade:
"...It passes Celestial Pagodas whose balconies and hanging gardens drip sumptuous fruit earthward... It passes ever-increasing spheres and sedimentary layers of heavens that encrust the tiny shell of this universe... It passes oceans of higher dimensions until, as my split second ability to comprehend what I am seeing contracts... The Voyager bursts, scattering a chorus of voices."
From this, it is clear that the infinite dimensions that the "Cascade" here comprehends are indeed higher dimensions. They're even described as "layers of heavens that encrust the tiny shell of this universe," and their amount is described as "ever-increasing," which supports the first scan saying that the Cascade is where infinite dimensions converge, and shows (Alongside it being described as "the Cascade of dimensions") that said dimensions are indeed tied to the layers that the Voyager pierces through on his way to it.
The Voyager, for the matter, is earlier on referred to as "Eternity's Bastard." He is Eternity's progeny. So that probably speaks for itself.
The fourth point comes from something that may be either more or less controversial than the rest of this thread, but, anyway: The context is from Quasar #25, where Quasar has a full internal monologue about his current circumstances and the nature of Infinity (As 90's comics be), and says this:
"That's why she [Infinity] plucked my life-essence from my dead body and imbued it with the aspect of her truly infinite power. The trouble is... Just as in mathematics there are numbers greater than infinity, there are apparently trans-infinite forces in the universe as well."
Hard to sum this up even further, but as you can see, Quasar is saying that the universe has transfinite forces in it, greater than infinity in the same manner that mathematics has "numbers greater than infinity." As a good chunk of you all already knows: Transfinite numbers in mathematics aren't the same as additions of +1 dimensions. In fact, everything from 1-dimensional space to countably infinite-dimensional space is included in 2^aleph-0 (The cardinality of the real numbers, which the wiki currently equates to aleph-1), and therefore something with a greater size than this is inherently Low 1-A or higher.
Of course, there are the infamous scans where authors ended up giving comically wrong explanations of how infinities in Set Theory work. Those obviously won't be taken into account, and neither are they to be taken as "How infinities work in Marvel," since that'd lead to a plethora of obvious issues. Only the scans that don't accidentally explain this shit wrong are worthy of consideration in this scenario.
That aside, one tidbit from the text that might be perceived as a potential issue is that the text at a glance seems to refer to forces even greater than the prime Abstracts of the universe, since Quasar mentions the concept of transfinite numbers after mentioning Infinity's "truly infinite power." However, given that Infinity and her cohorts are well-established as governing absolutely everything in Earth-616, and the aforementioned trans-infinite forces are mentioned as being elements of the universe, the statement can only be referring to them, and not something above them. Indeed, as shown above, they operate in the highest plane of existence of the universe.
So, what Quasar is really contrasting the trans-infinite forces with is himself. As he says, Infinity plucked him out of death and imbued him with "an aspect of her truly infinite power," which refers to his connection to the Quantum Zone, the infinite non-space of potential energy that acts as the source of all the power in the universe (Even for beings like the Watchers), which he can tap into and control as his main ability. So the aspect in question is referring to the Quantum Zone, that, although infinite, is still just a part of Infinity's power, which is on a higher level of infinity (In terms of alephs, not singular dimensions) than it.
Since the Quantum Zone would be a source of all energy, fueling even the higher-dimensional entities of the universe (The Watchers currently are scaled to the Celestials, based off of their existence-spanning war), thus having power equivalent to aleph-1, the top dogs of the Cosmic Hierarchy being in turn whole aleph above it, as said above, would make them Low 1-A.
Then there's the fifth, and final, point, which largely stems from this scan, from Marvel Super Villain Team-Up, Issue #17. That one pretty much speaks for itself: The Cosmic Cubes are described as being omni-dimensional constructs. From this statement we have two possible interpretations:
1) The Cosmic Cubes are objects extending over all spatial dimensions of the verse.
2) The Cosmic Cubes have some form of omnipresence, and exist across all realities (Meaning the "dimension" here is referring to planes of existence and not axes).
The latter, as all the evidence indicates, is impossible. The Beyonder, who was himself a Cosmic Cube (Albeit a flawed one) explicitly had no clue of anything pertaining to realities apart from his own realm until he noticed a hole in Eternity serving as a window for him to peer into reality. This wouldn't happen if he existed in all dimensions simultaneously. Even when he evolves into a complete Cosmic Cube and becomes Kosmos (Ditching mortal perspective entirely in doing so, also), the resulting entity still has to manually travel across the universe and discover everything by actual experience. So, all-in-all, the first interpretation seems to be the more correct one.
Given the other statements about infinite dimensionality in the verse, this alone would make the Cosmic Cubes into constructs that are High 1-B at worst. That said, however, it also gives us more leeway to look back into a rather well-known scan that I'm sure most of you all are already familiar with, namely:
""Time"? Once in the "recent past," he knew not of "time," for in his realm, he was all things and all things were him, all at once, ever. "Physical"? Having but three dimensions, instead of an infinite number? Such a thing was unknown to him."
"But Ultima," I hear you say, "This statement is talking about his pre-retcon incarnation! You can't apply it to the post-retcon one!"
So, to address that will require me to explain what exactly the retcon of the Beyonder's origins was: In short, Secret Wars 1 and 2 were not fully retconned, as the events we see in both stories still happened. What was retconned, instead, was the interpretation of the events, namely those related to the Beyonder's old characterization as the most powerful being in existence. Those events happened, but not how the Beyonder thought they did: For example, in Secret Wars II, we are shown him interacting with members of the Cosmic Hierarchy and being generally treated as far more powerful than all of them. After the retcon, that turned out to be just them sending in illusions and partial manifestations to interact with the Beyonder, to assist in his evolution to a sentient being.
So, to put it simply, the statement describing the Beyonder as an infinite-dimensional being wasn't retconned. What was retconned was his characterization as the most powerful entity in existence, which would mean the statements that became invalidated by later storylines would be the ones that directly tie into this characterization (e.g The Beyonder being described as "millions of times more powerful than everything in the multiverse combined"). The infinite-dimensional statement, however, does not fall under that criterion, seeing as it's pretty much just a little factoid we're given about the Beyonder that stands independently from other statements done about him.
Combine that with the aforementioned statement of the omni-dimensional nature of the Cosmic Cubes, and I can fairly confidently say the statement is still applicable even to the Post-Retcon version of the Beyonder. This applies to Eternity and the Abstracts for obvious reasons, namely the fact the Beyonder is a far, far below them in power. Kubik says that himself and Kosmos are both insignificant compared to the higher members of the Cosmic Hierarchy, and Molecule Man likewise says that, while he and the Beyonder are very powerful, they're not really up there with Eternity. Later on, Eternity himself also refers to the Beyonder as a "godling" and generally treats him very lightly, confirming that his standing in the pecking order is way higher.
So, my proposal for for the Universal Abstracts, in short, is the following:
Eternity:
Low Outerverse level (Superior to the Vishanti, who rival Slorioth, a pan-dimensional entity whose totality is described as vast beyond what any "lone dimensionality" could hope to contain, extending over all higher dimensions, of which there are infinite. Encompasses and exists beyond Subspace, which spans an infinite number of higher dimensions, holding it and the rest of his own contents as a figment of his thoughts and dreams, perceiving all of space and time as a narrative. Fathered the Voyager, an entity native to the Cascade, a realm existing above an infinite number of higher-dimensional realms described as "ever-increasing spheres and sedimentary layers of heavens that encrust the tiny shell of this universe." The highest forces in the universe, which Eternity and his cohorts command and personify, are described as "trans-infinite," with Quasar explaining their nature as akin to how "In mathematics, there are numbers greater than infinity," a statement made in reference to the Quantum Zone, a well of power shown to energize lesser members of the Cosmic Hierarchy that themselves already display uncountably infinite power)
Infinity is quite literally the same being as Eternity, so, by and large, they share the same AP description, with some tweaks here and there.
Death:
Low Outerverse level (Forms a dichotomy with Eternity, the two comprising all that exists in the reality of Earth 616 and being among the four heaviest Abstracts in reality, forming, alongside them, the prime directions of the cosmological compass)
Oblivion
Low Outerverse level (Equal to Infinity, having fought her in "the highest plane of reality conceivable," and being himself one of the four prime abstracts of Earth-616, forming the totality of the cosmological compass alongside Eternity, Infinity and Death)
Characters who scale to, and below, Slorioth, meanwhile, are going to be High 1-B. In this case, people like the Vishanti and, under the current scaling in the profiles, the Skyfathers. Although I plan to do a big revision for those, too, since their profiles are in just as dire a need of repair as the Abstracts. The focus of this thread in particular will be strictly on the latter, though.
On M-Bodies
Quoting one of our summaries:
Yeah, so, this is a gross misinterpretation of what M-Bodies actually are. To summarize it: M-Bodies, as described in Quasar #37, are temporary shapes assumed by the Abstracts in order for them to interact with lesser entities, created and led by the entity Anthropomorpho, whose name gives away what his role in the cosmology is supposed to be: In virtually every instance where an abstract entity appears in an anthropomorphic shape, we are not seeing the true abstraction, but a Manifestation Body through which they act.
Guardians of the Galaxy #47 further elaborates on how M-Bodies work: As Eternity explains, conceptual entities have no physical attributes, and therefore the anthropomorphic shapes lesser beings interact with are thought-forms manifested by their own perception and imagination. Since perception is reality, these manifestations have actual substantial being, instead of existing solely as images. Adam Warlock and the Infinity Watch reiterates that: After being attacked by an Infinity Gauntlet-wielding Adam Warlock, Eternity says that what he just blasted was just a "visualization" of his totality, and that were this not so, the effect of the Infinity Gauntlet on him would have been nonexistent.
Note that in both of these scans, the Universal Eternity is treated being the entity that the M-Body is an avatar of, and the Abstracts of a single universe in that storyline are treated as having multitudes of manifestations, infinitely many of them to be exact. And even the Living Tribunal, who is specifically a singular entity for the entire multiverse, also employs M-Bodies when taking action in lesser planes.
So, in short, it is not that M-Bodies are the Universal Abstracts, with the true Abstracts being their Multiversal counterparts. Instead the Universal Abstracts themselves have two forms: The anthropomorphic, manifested images that are created by the perceptions of lesser onlookers, and their true states, which have no physical attributes whatsoever and form the basis for the aforementioned manifestations to exist in the first place. And this distinction breaks down entirely in the level of the multiversal aspects, the Superflow, where metaphors and reality meet, "signifier and signified" becoming one.
Compressing it even further: Universal Abstracts are cells of their higher counterparts that span the entire multiverse. M-Bodies are visualizations of these cells brought into existence by the perception and imagination of lesser beings, with a single Abstract being able to have infinite M-Bodies. Those are different things. Hence the profiles will have to account for both the M-Bodies and the true Abstracts. How are the latter supposed to be tiered? Well, let's look at scans already posted above:
Here, Anthropomorpho states that Eternity is "so transfinite" that countless avatars of him exist in the Dimension of Manifestations, and indeed Infinity is stated to have infinite M-Bodies, all of which are powered by an exchange of energies with the Abstracts. Here, as shown above, Eternity says that the Infinity Gauntlet could only damage his M-Body, and that if it was used against his full totality, its effect would've been nonexistent. The same issue, for reference, says that a fight between the Living Tribunal's M-Body and a Gauntlet-wielding Adam Warlock would lay waste to the Dimension.of Manifestations.
The Dimension of Manifestations, for its part, is described in various ways emphasizing transcendence: It is apart from all temporal existence, removed from all things, real or imagined, and encompasses the multiverse.
In this scan, meanwhile, we get what seems to be a direct comparison between a M-Body and an Abstract proper, with the narration explaining that Eternity's man-spawned aspect has shape and size, something that Death's true form lacks, and that as such it is insignificant and practically invisible next to her. This coincides with the explanation that Eternity gives to Protege and Beyonder, which lays out that the true states of the abstracts have no physical attributes at all, those things being particular to their M-Bodies.
So, in short, while the M-Bodies are Low 1-A, the true Abstracts are 1-A for transcending them.
NOTE: STAFF ONLY
About the ratings
Alright, so, before I get to the meat of the issue, I first had to establish some basic facts that build up to it. As is known, the Abstract Entities in Marvel are personifications of the basic concepts that govern reality, being as such embodiments of the universe at large. Eternity is the embodiment of time, Infinity the embodiment of space, Oblivion the embodiment of nonexistence, and so on. However, one thing that should be made clear, before we move on, is that the cosmos which they encompass does not refer to a single 4-dimensional spacetime. To quote the A to Z Marvel Handbook:
"A reality is the combination of spatial and temporal events and the substance of a single universe (And those dimensions associated with said universe)"
One of the most overt examples of this being demonstrated in the comics themselves is in Doctor Strange - Sorcerer Supreme, Issue #54, where Eternity raises his hand, and the narration notes that it encompasses whole universes, in the plural:
Doctor Strange Vol. 2 #13 also displayed the same idea. Here, Eternity refers to Nightmare's Realm as being a part of him as well, commenting that Nightmare "attacked from within" in reference to how he was able to be put to sleep by the power of 1/3 of humanity's dreams. For reference, Nightmare's Realm is referred to as being as vast as earth's universe and beyond space and time in multiple occasions.
In Strange Tales #147, the narration then goes on to say that Eternity's domain is "all that lies beyond mortal places."
The mystical universe, where Chaos and Order are the governing dual forces and the Vishanti make their home, is also described as having endless dimensions in it, and yet it is still a part of the singular universe that Eternity comprises (What If? Vol. 1 #32), with Lord Chaos and Master Order being bound to one universe and ultimately unable to leave it. The Dark Dimension where Dormammu reigns is also contained in Eternity, as Dormammu refers to himself as being bound by Eternity's will, which prevents him from taking up the mantle of reality's sovereign, and he furthermore has alternate selves in other realities that are bound by their own Eternity, as shown by... all of What If? #18, really. The Dark Dimension for the matter is timeless and infinite, and has more spatial dimensions than the Earth's plane of existence, while also being located "many, many infinities away" from it, the two being set apart by an endless gap.
The Dark Dimension itself is part of the "Outer Planes," a subset of the mystical dimensions comprised of realms that lie far away from the plane in which humans live. Contrasting those, there are also the Inner Planes, which consist of realms existing closer-by. Those planes include Asgard, which of course has an extremely long list of statements referring to it as existing beyond mortal time and space (Although that is not necessarily to say it is infinitely transcendent over it), and which more recently has been referred to as a whole universe.
Despite that, Asgard, like the Norse Gods living in it still has several different versions of itself across the multiverse (Loki Vol. 1 #2 and #3, respectively), and indeed Loki: Agent of Asgard has Odin himself say that, though the Ten Realms are full universes, they are still inside of "this reality," referring to Earth-616.
Another mystical dimension that exists in the same general region as the Dark Dimension, and as such withon Eternity, is the universe of Faltine, where Dormammu and Umar were born, which has an even larger number of dimensions than the Dark Dimension. When you get down to it, all this talk of the universe's full dimensionality extending beyond 4-D isn't inconsistent in this era of comics, either, since after he merges with Eternity and reaches the same level as the Ancient One, Strange notices that once he is back to the normal world, he can see and feel in "many more dimensions" than the usual four (Length, Width, Height and Time)
And, finally, in Incredible Hulk Vol. 1 #312, it is explicitly stated that the universe has a seemingly infinite amount of layers to it, and is thus itself actually a multiverse, which the Beyonder proves by traveling through several of said layers, like Asgard, the Dark Dimension, the Microverse and Mephisto's realm.
Note, of course, that after the retcon to the Beyonder's origin, the "pinhole" that allowed him to peek into the universe turned out to actually be just a tear in a single Eternity (Guardians of the Galaxy #35 and #38, respectively), as shown by the experiences of his Earth-691 counterpart, so the above statements do indeed refer to Earth-616 alone in the context of the Post-Retcon continuity. Furthermore, as these scans show, the Beyonder considers Malevolence, Mephisto's daughter, to be an inhabitant of Eternity, despite her being native to Mephisto's Realm and not to the earth dimension, once again showing that Earth-616 spans a lot more than the latter.
The fact that one of the other dimensions that the Beyonder strolls through is the Microverse is noteworthy, also, because the Microverse itself is elsewhere depicted as existing inside of Eternity. To be exact: The Enigma Force is able to access it, and is the energy that holds it together (Micronauts #31 and #35, respectively). The same Enigma Force that is inextricably tied to a singular instance of Eternity and as such unable to leave its home reality (Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 3 #9).
There is still more, though: In Quasar #18-20, it is stated that the universe has higher planes of existence, with the Abstracts inhabiting these planes:
In Issue #25 of the same storyline, the Watchers also comment on higher planes of existence and note that the Celestials operate on a higher plane than them (Which is in and of itself pretty impressive, since they are listed among the cosmic entities that "transact in transfinite levels of being" in another comic)
At the end of the issue, we are then directly told that the most powerful Abstracts exist in "the highest plane of reality conceivable."
This isn't particular to the 90's Quasar run, either. In What If? Vol. 1 #18, an alternate Doctor Strange meets with Eternity after being hurled to a realm "Beyond space. Beyond time. Beyond death. Beyond dreams. Beyond thought. Beyond life and death. Beyond anything to hold on to." In Strange Tales #146, this realm is described as a "timeless sub-cosmos" of Eternity, and in Eternity's first appearance in Marvel history, we're also told that time and distance as we understand them have no meaning in that place.
Another relevant piece of information relating to this is to be found in Defenders Vol.3 #2-3, by J.M DeMatteis, where Dormammu and Umar confront the Multiversal Eternity, and are told that beings like them are "flickering thoughts in [Eternity]'s measureless consciousness," which Doctor Strange confirms in the next issue by saying that, now that Dormammu assumed Eternity's position, everything in existence is just a reflection of his consciousness. Dormammu himself also reinforces this when he says that the physical contents of the multiverse are "the merest fraction of Eternity."
This establishes that the Multiversal Eternity actually transcends all of the contents of the multiverse it encompasses. Why is this relevant to Universal Eternity, you may ask? Well, as explained in Ultimates Vol. 3 #7, the summary of the relationship between the true Eternity and his facets is "As Above, So Below." Creation is fractal and just like how a single strand of a person's DNA contains a map of the entire person, so too is the entirety of the structure of Eternity replicated in a smaller-scale, in the form of the Eternities personifying individual universes. Therefore everything that is true of the Multiversal Eternity in relation to the omniverse is also true of the Universal Eternity in relation to the universe.
This is actually shown in the scene from Doctor Strange Vol. 2 #13 already posted here, where Eternity explains that his thoughts and dreams are everyone else's reality, and so what happened in the dream he had when Nightmare put him to sleep truly did occur. Elsewhere, this also pops up, with it being stated that the Celestials, together with all that is, are a figment of Eternity's imagination. Secret Avengers Vol. 1 #03 (2010) also makes a mention of "Eternity's Dream," and it then comes back in Marvel Comics #1001, which is currently used as part of the Low 1-C justification in the profiles, where the Masked Raider explains that the Eternity-Mask allows him to see space and time for what they are: A narrative. In Al Ewing's run of Defenders, we also see the Fourth Cosmos bringing the titular team to outside of existence, and it appears like a comicbook from their perspective. So this is not a one-off thing but something that has been mentioned and shown bizarrely consistently throughout Marvel's history.
The idea that Eternity, despite being himself the universe/multiverse, actually transcends his contents entirely may seem weird, but it becomes understandable when taking into account this panel, which explains that the Multiversal Eternity is not just the multiverse per se; he is the concept of the multiverse. So, likewise, his universal facets personify their universes on a conceptual level, which exceeds the physical.
So, to summarize all this: Universes in Marvel (When the term is being used to refer all that's encompassed by the Abstracts) are big. They are not just a single spacetime, but infinitely many of them, all separated by a gap that is likewise infinite as well. Furthermore, they include higher-dimensional spaces with many more dimensions than just the 4 we are used to, as well as several higher planes of existence that transcend spacetime altogether. This last detail also tells us that although some of the highest Abstracts personify things like time (Eternity) and space (Infinity), they are not time and space as conventionally understood at all, but higher forms of those things that are beyond the mortal concepts of them (Also seen with the scans about Asgard and the "timeless sub-cosmos" inside of Eternity). Indeed, Eternity sees all that's inside him as part of his dreams and thoughts.
With this groundwork set, we can get on with the first of the five main points I want to present here, which is to be found in Secret Defenders, more specifically its later issues, #20 through #25.
In those final issues, we are introduced to Slorioth, a demonic being that supposedly ravaged the earth dimension 15,000 years ago, before he was eventually sealed away beneath the town of Sparksboro by a cabal of ancient wizards. We get to see Slorioth in Issues #22 and #24, but the latter is the one with the more noteworthy statements about him: We are told, firstly, that his tabernacle is a "trans-temporal" realm, and further onwards, he mocks Anthony Druid for being a "foolish, limited, tridimensional creature" before taking him as an avatar. Both of these statements tell us in fairly explicitly terms that Slorioth is a higher-dimensional being existing beyond time. Nevertheless, the issue ends with Slorioth manifesting on Earth in seemingly physical form and being confronted by the heroes there:
Come Issue #25, though, and things start getting a bit weird: As he fights the thing, the Silver Surfer realizes that Slorioth is in fact a pan-dimensional entity, and that what broke out of the ground in the previous issue was actually just an infinitesimal sliver of his entirety, though one that regardless is still more than strong enough to kick his and everyone else's ass. Later on, Druid, fully christened as Slorioth's avatar, states that "No lone dimensionality could ever hope to contain the gradiose totality I have now embraced." Okay.
And then at the end of the comic, the Living Tribunal is summoned (This scan is something we currently use on the profiles, btw), and reiterates what Druid said above: "The all of Slorioth has ever been too vast for any lone dimensionality!"
I might note, also, that the topic of alternate dimensions never comes up once in this storyline, and before Silver Surfer's initial statement the sole reference to "dimensions" with regards to Slorioth's nature is him deriding humans for being three-dimensional creatures. Therefore it seems entirely clear to me that Slorioth's pan-dimensionality refers to him existing in all spatial dimensions of the verse; his totality being too large for any "lose dimensionality" cements this, as it's pretty much saying that no single dimensional level can contain him, since he spans all of them.
Secret Defenders #25 was published in 1995. Only one year later, in 1996, was published Ghost Rider 2099 Vol. 1 #25, which has this scan in it. You can most likely tell where I'm going with this: Given infinite dimensions, Slorioth's pan-dimensional nature would be High 1-B.
Slorioth is fairly important for a discussion about the ratings of the Universal Abstracts because his sole physical appearance frames him as being a rival to the Vishanti, being their direct opposition in the War of the Seven Spheres. The Vishanti, as established prior, being entities whose domain is confined to one iteration of Eternity, and who as such obviously rank below him in the cosmic pecking order. By extension this means that Slorioth scales below the Universal Eternity as well, and although our profiles do treat him as able to threaten Eternity just by existing, the very scan we use for that already debunks that being a showing of power: The reason Slorioth was threatening Eternity was that his actions were about to cause a temporal discontinuity by making the War of Seven Spheres happen before its due time. He was threatening him by upsetting a cosmic balance, not by being so powerful that Eternity backs off from his very existence or anything.
Furthermore, Eternity is referred to as "the strongest mystic entity of all" (Doctor Strange vol. 1 - #182) and Doctor Strange states that he seems to have been above the War of Seven Spheres entirely (Doctor Strange, Sorcerer Supreme - #54).
So, if Eternity is scaled above Slorioth (Which he unquestionably does), Eternity would at the least be scaled to High 1-B as well.
Now that I revealed my monstrous intentions, I want to aside for a bit and establish in what circumstances, exactly, someone may scale to this. The answer is... not very often, actually. This was largely the reason behind my spiel about the bunch of different dimensions that are inside Eternity: It was to establish that, although Earth-616 is often referred to as a "universe," the sub-cosmoses existing within it also are, and therefore that in order to scale to the above a character would need far more than a statement of destroying, or being able to destroy, the universe. The feat or statement in question would also need to make clear that they will destroy all of Eternity, and not just the earth dimension.
This is to say that not all universe busters in Marvel will scale to this. The dimensions inside Eternity vary in tier, with the Earth Dimension being just Low 2-C. What will happen under the above proposals is the exact same as our current treatment of Marvel universe busting: We obviously don't scale all the universe busters in the verse to 2-A or Low 1-C just because Eternity is that high, and the same will apply here. So, for example: Galactus' feat of being used as a bomb to destroy both the positive matter universe and the Negative Zone would be only 2-C, since those two are just one of the many realms contained in Eternity.
Contrastingly, something like Maelstrom's black hole from World in Collision would certainly scale, since it was explicitly going to consume the level of the Abstracts and not just the earth dimension. Context is always key when it comes to determine where exactly a universe busting feat scales.
One possible counterargument one might try to use is to be found in these scans, which state that man's universe has only 3 spatial dimensions and lists other realms with varying dimensionalities as universes apart from it. However, it should be noted that they are not necessarily talking about the earth dimension and the realms adjacent to it as being in the domains of separate Eternities, since, as you can see, it lists Nightmare's Realm, Asgard and the Dark Dimension among these different universes, even though it is well-established that they are all inside of Eternity. And that's of course not to mention the fact that Eternity's whole domain having only 3 spatial dimensions is very inconsistent, so the above interpretation is undoubtedly the more correct one either way.
Getting back on track, there are more arguments for the contents of the Universal Abstracts being infinite-dimensional, and the next one revolves around rescaling something that we already accept as being so: The Crossroads of Infinity. To start with, as shown in those panels, it is a realm located within Subspace, "the very edge" of it, in fact. With this established we then move on to Heroes Reborn: The Return, Issue #2, where the Celestial Ashema brings Loki to a realm "beyond the edge of Subspace, to the cusp of Eternity", showing that Eternity contains not only Subspace but also realms beyond it, with this of course being the same storyline where it is shown that everything within Eternity is a figment of his imagination.
This allows us to recontextualize some things in different ways that actually provide more coherence to the cosmology: Subspace (Also referred to as the Distortion Area, which the Crossroads of Infinity are the heart of) has been previously defined as being the barrier between realities, however this seems to refer specifically to it being the space between the dimensions contained within one universe, as it largely is used as a medium to travel to the Negative Zone, which is a a sub-cosmos of Earth-616, also referred to as contained within "hyperspace." Recent comics support this notion, with them defining the Superflow as the space between universes in the larger multiverse, while simultaneously acknowledging the Crossroads of Infinity as still being something that exists. In fewer words: The space between dimensions in a single universe is Subspace / The Crossroads of Infinity, but the space between universes in the wider multiverse is the Superflow.
Subspace being contained in one Universal Eternity is also shown in other comics: Fantastic Four Vol. 1 #400 speculates and then confirms that the Celestials inhabit a higher dimension in Hyperspace (Synonymous with Subspace), and the Celestials, though their origins trace all the way back to the First Firmament, still stick their bases of operations to the confines of singular realities. In the same storyline, Hyperstorm, despite being one with Hyperspace and having full domain over it, still refers to himself being limited to a single universe, and expresses his wish to extend his reign to other realities, the timeline where he took over the universe being itself treated just one of many possible futures.
The Crossroads of Infinity being a realm that takes from all dimensionalities (Limitless dimensions, after all) and yet still being a part of a single universe also lends to the character of Slorioth, who as shown above is a pan-dimensional entity that nevertheless is still depicted as relative to entities below Universal Eternity in the cosmic hierarchy, thus restricting his sphere of influence to Earth-616 alone. The two points raised (Slorioth and the Crossroads) can certainly stand on their own, but they also feed off each other very well, which of course also applies to all points made here.
The third point revolves around something that I've already explained in-depth in another thread, so, I will just copy-paste the explanation I gave there, with slight alterations to fit the context of this thread.
The central story for this argument is Children of the Voyager, which spans four issues. Basically, in Issue #3, we have a mention of a thing called "the Cascade," where "infinite dimensions converge." Seems to be referring to parallel realms without more context, but in Issue #4, the "Voyager" mentioned in the title of the comic shows up, and he wants the main character's soul, which he says is because it will serve as fuel for his ascent into "the Cascade of dimensions above." When the protagonist asks what he means by that, another character explains that he's talking about is "The... next plane up, Heaven. Whatever you want to call it."
Then at the end of it story, he finally gives his soul to the Voyager, and we get a description of the latter's ascension into the aforementioned Cascade:
"...It passes Celestial Pagodas whose balconies and hanging gardens drip sumptuous fruit earthward... It passes ever-increasing spheres and sedimentary layers of heavens that encrust the tiny shell of this universe... It passes oceans of higher dimensions until, as my split second ability to comprehend what I am seeing contracts... The Voyager bursts, scattering a chorus of voices."
From this, it is clear that the infinite dimensions that the "Cascade" here comprehends are indeed higher dimensions. They're even described as "layers of heavens that encrust the tiny shell of this universe," and their amount is described as "ever-increasing," which supports the first scan saying that the Cascade is where infinite dimensions converge, and shows (Alongside it being described as "the Cascade of dimensions") that said dimensions are indeed tied to the layers that the Voyager pierces through on his way to it.
The Voyager, for the matter, is earlier on referred to as "Eternity's Bastard." He is Eternity's progeny. So that probably speaks for itself.
The fourth point comes from something that may be either more or less controversial than the rest of this thread, but, anyway: The context is from Quasar #25, where Quasar has a full internal monologue about his current circumstances and the nature of Infinity (As 90's comics be), and says this:
"That's why she [Infinity] plucked my life-essence from my dead body and imbued it with the aspect of her truly infinite power. The trouble is... Just as in mathematics there are numbers greater than infinity, there are apparently trans-infinite forces in the universe as well."
Hard to sum this up even further, but as you can see, Quasar is saying that the universe has transfinite forces in it, greater than infinity in the same manner that mathematics has "numbers greater than infinity." As a good chunk of you all already knows: Transfinite numbers in mathematics aren't the same as additions of +1 dimensions. In fact, everything from 1-dimensional space to countably infinite-dimensional space is included in 2^aleph-0 (The cardinality of the real numbers, which the wiki currently equates to aleph-1), and therefore something with a greater size than this is inherently Low 1-A or higher.
Of course, there are the infamous scans where authors ended up giving comically wrong explanations of how infinities in Set Theory work. Those obviously won't be taken into account, and neither are they to be taken as "How infinities work in Marvel," since that'd lead to a plethora of obvious issues. Only the scans that don't accidentally explain this shit wrong are worthy of consideration in this scenario.
That aside, one tidbit from the text that might be perceived as a potential issue is that the text at a glance seems to refer to forces even greater than the prime Abstracts of the universe, since Quasar mentions the concept of transfinite numbers after mentioning Infinity's "truly infinite power." However, given that Infinity and her cohorts are well-established as governing absolutely everything in Earth-616, and the aforementioned trans-infinite forces are mentioned as being elements of the universe, the statement can only be referring to them, and not something above them. Indeed, as shown above, they operate in the highest plane of existence of the universe.
So, what Quasar is really contrasting the trans-infinite forces with is himself. As he says, Infinity plucked him out of death and imbued him with "an aspect of her truly infinite power," which refers to his connection to the Quantum Zone, the infinite non-space of potential energy that acts as the source of all the power in the universe (Even for beings like the Watchers), which he can tap into and control as his main ability. So the aspect in question is referring to the Quantum Zone, that, although infinite, is still just a part of Infinity's power, which is on a higher level of infinity (In terms of alephs, not singular dimensions) than it.
Since the Quantum Zone would be a source of all energy, fueling even the higher-dimensional entities of the universe (The Watchers currently are scaled to the Celestials, based off of their existence-spanning war), thus having power equivalent to aleph-1, the top dogs of the Cosmic Hierarchy being in turn whole aleph above it, as said above, would make them Low 1-A.
Then there's the fifth, and final, point, which largely stems from this scan, from Marvel Super Villain Team-Up, Issue #17. That one pretty much speaks for itself: The Cosmic Cubes are described as being omni-dimensional constructs. From this statement we have two possible interpretations:
1) The Cosmic Cubes are objects extending over all spatial dimensions of the verse.
2) The Cosmic Cubes have some form of omnipresence, and exist across all realities (Meaning the "dimension" here is referring to planes of existence and not axes).
The latter, as all the evidence indicates, is impossible. The Beyonder, who was himself a Cosmic Cube (Albeit a flawed one) explicitly had no clue of anything pertaining to realities apart from his own realm until he noticed a hole in Eternity serving as a window for him to peer into reality. This wouldn't happen if he existed in all dimensions simultaneously. Even when he evolves into a complete Cosmic Cube and becomes Kosmos (Ditching mortal perspective entirely in doing so, also), the resulting entity still has to manually travel across the universe and discover everything by actual experience. So, all-in-all, the first interpretation seems to be the more correct one.
Given the other statements about infinite dimensionality in the verse, this alone would make the Cosmic Cubes into constructs that are High 1-B at worst. That said, however, it also gives us more leeway to look back into a rather well-known scan that I'm sure most of you all are already familiar with, namely:
""Time"? Once in the "recent past," he knew not of "time," for in his realm, he was all things and all things were him, all at once, ever. "Physical"? Having but three dimensions, instead of an infinite number? Such a thing was unknown to him."
"But Ultima," I hear you say, "This statement is talking about his pre-retcon incarnation! You can't apply it to the post-retcon one!"
So, to address that will require me to explain what exactly the retcon of the Beyonder's origins was: In short, Secret Wars 1 and 2 were not fully retconned, as the events we see in both stories still happened. What was retconned, instead, was the interpretation of the events, namely those related to the Beyonder's old characterization as the most powerful being in existence. Those events happened, but not how the Beyonder thought they did: For example, in Secret Wars II, we are shown him interacting with members of the Cosmic Hierarchy and being generally treated as far more powerful than all of them. After the retcon, that turned out to be just them sending in illusions and partial manifestations to interact with the Beyonder, to assist in his evolution to a sentient being.
So, to put it simply, the statement describing the Beyonder as an infinite-dimensional being wasn't retconned. What was retconned was his characterization as the most powerful entity in existence, which would mean the statements that became invalidated by later storylines would be the ones that directly tie into this characterization (e.g The Beyonder being described as "millions of times more powerful than everything in the multiverse combined"). The infinite-dimensional statement, however, does not fall under that criterion, seeing as it's pretty much just a little factoid we're given about the Beyonder that stands independently from other statements done about him.
Combine that with the aforementioned statement of the omni-dimensional nature of the Cosmic Cubes, and I can fairly confidently say the statement is still applicable even to the Post-Retcon version of the Beyonder. This applies to Eternity and the Abstracts for obvious reasons, namely the fact the Beyonder is a far, far below them in power. Kubik says that himself and Kosmos are both insignificant compared to the higher members of the Cosmic Hierarchy, and Molecule Man likewise says that, while he and the Beyonder are very powerful, they're not really up there with Eternity. Later on, Eternity himself also refers to the Beyonder as a "godling" and generally treats him very lightly, confirming that his standing in the pecking order is way higher.
So, my proposal for for the Universal Abstracts, in short, is the following:
Eternity:
Low Outerverse level (Superior to the Vishanti, who rival Slorioth, a pan-dimensional entity whose totality is described as vast beyond what any "lone dimensionality" could hope to contain, extending over all higher dimensions, of which there are infinite. Encompasses and exists beyond Subspace, which spans an infinite number of higher dimensions, holding it and the rest of his own contents as a figment of his thoughts and dreams, perceiving all of space and time as a narrative. Fathered the Voyager, an entity native to the Cascade, a realm existing above an infinite number of higher-dimensional realms described as "ever-increasing spheres and sedimentary layers of heavens that encrust the tiny shell of this universe." The highest forces in the universe, which Eternity and his cohorts command and personify, are described as "trans-infinite," with Quasar explaining their nature as akin to how "In mathematics, there are numbers greater than infinity," a statement made in reference to the Quantum Zone, a well of power shown to energize lesser members of the Cosmic Hierarchy that themselves already display uncountably infinite power)
Infinity is quite literally the same being as Eternity, so, by and large, they share the same AP description, with some tweaks here and there.
Death:
Low Outerverse level (Forms a dichotomy with Eternity, the two comprising all that exists in the reality of Earth 616 and being among the four heaviest Abstracts in reality, forming, alongside them, the prime directions of the cosmological compass)
Oblivion
Low Outerverse level (Equal to Infinity, having fought her in "the highest plane of reality conceivable," and being himself one of the four prime abstracts of Earth-616, forming the totality of the cosmological compass alongside Eternity, Infinity and Death)
Characters who scale to, and below, Slorioth, meanwhile, are going to be High 1-B. In this case, people like the Vishanti and, under the current scaling in the profiles, the Skyfathers. Although I plan to do a big revision for those, too, since their profiles are in just as dire a need of repair as the Abstracts. The focus of this thread in particular will be strictly on the latter, though.
On M-Bodies
Quoting one of our summaries:
Yeah, so, this is a gross misinterpretation of what M-Bodies actually are. To summarize it: M-Bodies, as described in Quasar #37, are temporary shapes assumed by the Abstracts in order for them to interact with lesser entities, created and led by the entity Anthropomorpho, whose name gives away what his role in the cosmology is supposed to be: In virtually every instance where an abstract entity appears in an anthropomorphic shape, we are not seeing the true abstraction, but a Manifestation Body through which they act.
Guardians of the Galaxy #47 further elaborates on how M-Bodies work: As Eternity explains, conceptual entities have no physical attributes, and therefore the anthropomorphic shapes lesser beings interact with are thought-forms manifested by their own perception and imagination. Since perception is reality, these manifestations have actual substantial being, instead of existing solely as images. Adam Warlock and the Infinity Watch reiterates that: After being attacked by an Infinity Gauntlet-wielding Adam Warlock, Eternity says that what he just blasted was just a "visualization" of his totality, and that were this not so, the effect of the Infinity Gauntlet on him would have been nonexistent.
Note that in both of these scans, the Universal Eternity is treated being the entity that the M-Body is an avatar of, and the Abstracts of a single universe in that storyline are treated as having multitudes of manifestations, infinitely many of them to be exact. And even the Living Tribunal, who is specifically a singular entity for the entire multiverse, also employs M-Bodies when taking action in lesser planes.
So, in short, it is not that M-Bodies are the Universal Abstracts, with the true Abstracts being their Multiversal counterparts. Instead the Universal Abstracts themselves have two forms: The anthropomorphic, manifested images that are created by the perceptions of lesser onlookers, and their true states, which have no physical attributes whatsoever and form the basis for the aforementioned manifestations to exist in the first place. And this distinction breaks down entirely in the level of the multiversal aspects, the Superflow, where metaphors and reality meet, "signifier and signified" becoming one.
Compressing it even further: Universal Abstracts are cells of their higher counterparts that span the entire multiverse. M-Bodies are visualizations of these cells brought into existence by the perception and imagination of lesser beings, with a single Abstract being able to have infinite M-Bodies. Those are different things. Hence the profiles will have to account for both the M-Bodies and the true Abstracts. How are the latter supposed to be tiered? Well, let's look at scans already posted above:
Here, Anthropomorpho states that Eternity is "so transfinite" that countless avatars of him exist in the Dimension of Manifestations, and indeed Infinity is stated to have infinite M-Bodies, all of which are powered by an exchange of energies with the Abstracts. Here, as shown above, Eternity says that the Infinity Gauntlet could only damage his M-Body, and that if it was used against his full totality, its effect would've been nonexistent. The same issue, for reference, says that a fight between the Living Tribunal's M-Body and a Gauntlet-wielding Adam Warlock would lay waste to the Dimension.of Manifestations.
The Dimension of Manifestations, for its part, is described in various ways emphasizing transcendence: It is apart from all temporal existence, removed from all things, real or imagined, and encompasses the multiverse.
In this scan, meanwhile, we get what seems to be a direct comparison between a M-Body and an Abstract proper, with the narration explaining that Eternity's man-spawned aspect has shape and size, something that Death's true form lacks, and that as such it is insignificant and practically invisible next to her. This coincides with the explanation that Eternity gives to Protege and Beyonder, which lays out that the true states of the abstracts have no physical attributes at all, those things being particular to their M-Bodies.
So, in short, while the M-Bodies are Low 1-A, the true Abstracts are 1-A for transcending them.
NOTE: STAFF ONLY
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