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Time to fit the (literal) god of DC comics as well as the others in our new tiering system

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Mine aren't either. No need to insult me or strawman my arguments either, as you are fond of doing. And you are literally assuming a correct interpretation for the Overvoid story so lol.

Your questions are made assuming your interpretation is right, answering them would force me to concede to that. Nothing I asled so far requires anyone who disagrees to concede to my view before being able to answer, so.
 
@Kep

"Your questions are made assuming your interpretation is right, anseering them qould force me to concede to that"

Yours absolutely do as well. You are enforcing that your interpretation is absolutely right and that to answer them I must concede to them too.

But you don't need to concede to my view to answer. It's a simple conclusion reached through basic logic.
 
Ultima Reality said:
I really think we should wait and put any big arguments on hold until Kep writes his post, instead of bloating the thread with parallel conversations.
Click to expand...
Okay.
 
Last post for now.

I never claimed the Writer did not exist outright, so I dont have to prove anything. I made a very simple question. Rather than receiving a straight answer, I was told to prove the negative and had the burden of proof flipped on me. If the Writer is a thing, it should be easy to post all the relevant proof instead of asking me to prove the up-to-now nonexistent evidence wrong.
 
But... There isn't nonexistent evidence? I'm sorry but the evidence is all there. I posted several pieces of it in this thread, from the Parliament of Stories to the Writer himself to the Architects.
 
Kepekley23 said:
Last post for now.

I never claimed the Writer did not exist outright, so I dont have to prove anything. I made a very simple question. Rather than receiving a straight answer, I was told to prove the negative and had the burden of proof flipped on me. If the Writer is a thing, it should be easy to post all the relevant proof instead of asking me to prove the up-to-now nonexistent evidence wrong.
Click to expand...
That seems to be a good point.

That said, I don't personally mind The Writer profile. I am just uncertain about the scaling, and if the character's influence has been retconned with Perpetua.
 
I know we're holding off on arguments for now, but I'm just going to post this now because I won't be on this thread for very long since I don't know a whole lot about DC Comics.

As Matt said, The Writer from Animal Man is very obviously an Avatar rather than a supreme being in of himself, and there's many others just like him. Firstly, The Writer refers to himself as a demiurgic power, who does not create the characters he writes about. Secondly, The Writer (also called Morrison, just as more proof that he's a stand-in for one writer) says outright that he doesn't write everything and he's but one member of a commitee. At the end of the story, he even says this'll be his last comic for Animal Ma. Lastly, even the "real world" they're in is still a comic book, where he can materialize and murder fictional characters at will for audience entertainment.

In Suicide Squad comic made in October 1991 (9 months after Animal Man 25), another Writer appears in the story. This one knows directly what people are going to say and writes it down on his computer, unless the "writer who is now writing [him intervenes"], allowing him to see what's going to happen. This one is killed, and it's implied he's another avatar.
 
Okay, just got home and into my laptop.

I feel as if there's no perfect way to summarize everything that happens to be wrong with the profile, so I'll just surf through it via bulleted/numbered lists and go through each objection I have.

  • I. Right off the bat, I know that the view we're promoting here is that of the "Writer" as a composite entity, that then forms one whole, transcendental entity through all of its "avatars" - much like SCP-001-Swann. I always knew about this and never made any arguments on this thread under any other pretense.
  • II. The fundamental, most pressing issue with the Writer is the fact that the character's entire existence undeniably hinges on a particular interpretation of a Grant Morrison interview from 2009. This is completely unacceptable and we have refrained from upgrading much less powerful and much less-prominent supreme entities with far more evidence than this just because the most important parts relied purely on Word of God. Literally no other piece of DC Comics media, interview, blurbs or anything hint at a "metafictional real life writer" who transcends the Void. Absolutely nothing. This alone makes the character's existence extremely unlikely and severely strengthens the possibility that we simply misinterpreted Grant Morrison's words. And even if we hadn't, once again, it'd be unacceptable for this character to exist based solely on that offhanded singular line in the interview with nothing else related to the franchise to back it up.
III. Let's revisit the interview in question.

Grant Morrison makes it clear that he views the Overvoid as God himself and the supreme being of the series, metaphysical or not. It'd make absolutely no sense for him to declare this if he were making the statement with the idea of a transcendental writer beyond the void itself.

One might ask why he referred to the DC Multiverse as being "drawn by somebody" if the above were case. One could view it as alluding to classical mythology, where the Gods (the Writers) are born from the background chaotic void, create the universe, pretty much "writing" it over the void (the "ink"), and the same chaotic void (the "canvas") later threatens to destroy/revert the created world to the absolute nothingness it used to be.The same analogy Morrison uses of "ink and paper' would apply - the universe they created would be the ink forced upon the chaotic canvas, against its will, with said chaos then attempting to undo the ink. In my example, no metaphysical transcendental writer is required to have drawn the world into the Canvas. Lower entities than the canvas itself could have done the job. Assuming this is the case, it would reconciliate all Morrison's statements - the void being the supreme God, the multiverse being drawn on its surface and said multiverse being a tiny, infinitesimal stain despite being supposedly drawn by something that transcends the page itself, and the "someone" in question. However, the "metaphysical writer" interpretation fails to reconciliate the above without having to engage on assumptions.

Lastly, ever wonder why the "drawn" is between quotes on the interview itseç? It's simple; because the entire "comic page/white page and ink" issue is not literal, it's simply an analogy representing what the Overvoid really is in-universe. No one in the verse literally drew the multiverse into existence, it's merely the way it is explained to the audience for the sake of a more meta approach to the issue. If the multiverse had actually been drawn into the Overvoid by "The Writer", Morrison wouldn't have blatantly treated it as an analogy/alternate way of interpreting the issue. He'd have just straight up said it was.

  • IV. Now, I want to tackle the in-comic "evidence" posted above for the Writer, which pretty much amounts to "collecting references made throughout DC Comics to distinct, unconnected writer characters who showed the ability to manipulate the comic's plot at different points, merge those characters together and then pretend that they are the same composite, supreme entity interacting through avatars".
Needless to say, the above is never, ever implied or suggested anywhere in those storylines, nor outside them. The mere reference to "writer"-like characters who can shape the story in a meta way in no way implies a correlation - and even if they were, we would the need evidence they're transcendental to the Monitor. We lack both of those things, unsurprisingly.

  • V. And last but not least:
Being a writer on DC or having any sort of control over the meta stuff that it implies isn't all that special.

1. Mr. Mxy, a High 2-A character in the verse, has threatened to "unimagine all existence" beforehand, with the scan literally showing the comic page getting gradually stripped of its color and the very metaphorical pen that "drew" said page getting destroyed. This is far more clear and blatant-meta than any of the stuff about the Writer, yet it's coming from a 5-D character that is nowhere near the upper echelons of the verse.

2. The closest thing to "The Writer' on DC that can be assured t beo legit happens to be the Monitors, which actually debunk the Writer's hype.

In fact, to draw a parallel to "The Architects' storyline brought up earlier, Nix Uotan is blatantly treated as "Grant Morrison" in the Final Crisis storyline, with Mandrakk being Alan Moore.

Yet, as stated both in the comics themselves and by Morrison, the Monitors - the editors and writers of the story - are still just part of the Overvoid, created as the barrier between the "Canvas" and the DC Multiverse. So, once again, all of the different and unrelated "writer" characters shown throughout the story of the comics have absolutely no reason not to be bound to the Overvoid. In fact, nothing suggests they aren't.

Conclusion:

  • Having analyzed all of the evidence put forward here, I see absolutely no evidence The Writer is or ever was a thing in the DC Comics universe. The way I see it, and I mean no offense, it's pretty much a half-fanfiction character we made up by merging completely unrelated characters shown over the course of decades - with literally no straightforward evidence - using a specific, simply incorrect interpretation of a singular Grant Morrison interview from 2009 as the "glue" to bind those characters together, despite the utter lack of anything implying they were meant to be the same character shown through different avatars, like we pretend them to be. Every single "writer" character shown in DC has absolutely no reason not to be bound to the Overvoid, and, as the evidence suggests, they obviously are, since the most powerful prove Writers in the verse itself, the Monitors, were created by the Void to prevent itself from interacting with the "Flaw" that was the DC Multiverse.
Even if the Grant Morrison interview pointed to such a writer - which I hope my rebuttal convinced people that it's not the case - it would be unacceptable as evidence, since it'd be the only, only statement or implication in the entirety of the DC Comics Franchise to ever point to the character's existence. This would be made even more egregious by the fact the character is Tier 0, the tier that requires the most numerous and straightforward amount of evidence in this wiki.

I rest my case.
 
@Kepekley23

I wanted to disagree with you on the Overvoid, but I think you just convined me. So you got my vote (for whatever it's worth).
 
The Overvoid is a High 1-A though. At least we can agree on that.

Also, using mxy as an argument for saying the writer doesn't exist is dumb because mxy doing so is meant to be a gag while Writer drawing DC on the overvoid is meant to be serious
 
I think that thats not the point hes making. Metafictional stuff is common in DC, you dont need to be the supreme being of the verse in order to do those things.

Define "serious"

Becausw I'm pretty sure that most of Mxys feats are serious. Him being not being serious/being a trickes or joker doesnt affect the legitimacy of his feats.
 
There is a difference between metafiction and the Writer/Overvoid. characters in DC had metafictional feats, none of them have come close to the overvoid, let alone be so powerful to the overvoid he exceeds it like the overvoid exceeds the presence and DC. The writer has

Mxy's metafictional feats were gags meant for jokes. They weren't clearly meant as seriousness of his powers, if we include his metafictional feats like him destroying all of DC in that comic, then we would be saying he is stronger than the presence.

In short, mxy did some breaking the 4th wall gags, NOT seriously affecting the Overvoid and proving he is stronger than it. He is far weaker than even the endless. Let alone the overvoid, the Writer did, that was the difference
 
I think I might have some insight here, but I'm honestly exhausted from the day, and I don't do conflict well. This debate looks pretty intense.
 
let alone be so powerful to the overvoid he exceeds it like the overvoid exceeds the presence and DC

The only proof of that is in the interview with GM. Which is what Kepekley is questioning the legitimacy of. Like, give me a scan, an ACTUAL SCAN FROM THE COMICS that states/shows that the "Writer" is "so powerful to the overvoid he exceeds it like the overvoid exceeds the presence and DC"

Also, you cant discredit all of Mxy's feat as gag. Thats just untrue

Code: 
"Include his metafictional feats like him destroying all of DC in that comic, then we would be saying he is stronger than the presence"
Should we ignore all multiversal destruction in DC because of this?

I dont know why youre bringing up the Presence in this when he's not even mentioned/is not important in those storylines so you cant use him to discredit Mxys feat. Fun fact: the DC multiverse has been destroyed/nearly destroyed by beings that is not the Presence multiple times
 
As a disclaimer of sorts, I should firstly point out that the following post is a very general answer to most of the objections and uncertainties people have with the idea of the Overvoid and The Writer being a thing, and not specifically an answer to Kep's post, as well as to clarify some other things which I believe are misconceptions. I do this so I don't get shot at all sides by "I never said that" and similar stuff. Anyways...

It should be noted that the notion that Perpetua's Multiverse is "The Flaw" as described by the Book of Infinite Pages, and that it was the reason behind the Overvoid being pissed off is... well, flawed, and undermines many essential aspects of the Creation Myth of the Monitors which we use for the Monitor-Mind's profile in the first place.

Firstly, it should be noted that Perpetua was just one of a race of divine entities called the Super Celestials, and was actually sent by higher beings (The Judges of the Source, most specifically) in order to create new systems of life within a Greater Omniverse, containing many other Multiverses much like the Mainstream DC World which we all know, and for this purpose she created Mobius, Mar Novu and Alpheus as her children, which would latter be known as the Anti-Monitor, the Monitor and the World-Forger respectively.

Meanwhile, in the Creation Myth told by the Book of Infinite Pages, as shown in both Final Crisis and Multiversity, in the beginning there was only a vast, unconscious expanse of nothingness without definitio identified solely as "Perfection", which was immaculate and pristine, bereft of any form of existence. It was then that this expanse of nothingness gained some semblance of conscience and awareness, as it noticed the existence of something other than itself, namely "The Flaw" that is DC Comics itself. Perfection is then shocked by its discovery, and defines a relationship of difference and opposition between itself and the Flaw, naming itself Monitor-Mind, before sending a probe in order to analyze the Flaw.

Now, it is true that both stories involve higher forces being upset with the creation of a Multiverse in their expanse, but those two stories are extremely distinct when you really get down to it, and split in crucial points:

Namely, it is shown that Mar Novu saw the malice in Perpetua's intentions, and in turn contacted the Judges of the Source through a machine created by him, who then sent a Raptor in order to defeat and imprison Perpetua by creating the Source Wall, separating Perpetua's Creation from the Greater Omniverse that resided in the Overvoid.

On the other hand, in the Tale of the Monitor-Mind, the Overvoid became pissed off not because of malicious actions of any particular entity, but because it started to perceive the existence of something apart from itself, of material and quality, and thus gained the "desire" to return all of it to its nothingness, though since it is just unmanifest nothingness bereft of definition, this ends up manifested as a living concept, Mandrakk

This is directly stated by Grant Morrison himself in Supergods, and he also establishes in the same sentence that the metafictional aspect of the story is very much literal, with Mandrakk / Dax Novu being an extension of the Monitor-Mind, the conscious aspect of it that desires to terminate The Flaw entirely by corrupting the narrative itself, wiping the Multiverse clean of all stories:

The "final crisis," as I saw it for a paper universe like DC's, would be the terminal war between is and isn't, between the story and the blank page. What would happen if the void of the page took issue with the quality of material imposed upon it and decided to fight back by spontaneously generating a living concept capable of devouring narrative itself? A nihilistic cosmic vampire whose only dream was to drain the multiverse dry of story material, then lie bloated beneath a dead sun, dying.
Given this aspect of The Monitor's Creation Myth, which is also stated to be the most primal of all by Superma, who was directly holding the Book of Infinite Pages at the time, it is really unlikely that this story is the same thing as Perpetua's. These two are completely different narratives that are only tangentially related to each other, and even then only in the most remote sense.

This brings me to another point: Namely, I say that it makes no sense for any lesser being to have existed within the Overvoid in order to have created the Multiverse, as the entity itself only gained a name or anything resembling awareness after it discovered the Flaw and manifested a concept in the form of Dax Novu in order to contain and analyze it. Before that, there was no relation between it and anything else, as nothing existed in any form whatsoever.

Furthermore, by a process of elimination, there is absolutely no entity who could have existed in such a state without evoking the attention of Perfection in the first place. The Monitors were only created after the Overvoid materialized Dax Novu into being, for instance, and Grant Morrison considers The Presence, The Source and The Monitor-Mind to be all one and the same, as the Overvoid is the state of nondual dissolution in which all narrative contradictions are broken down into unity and in also intended to be DC's "God" in the most general sense regardless of contradictions, so the former two are also out of the equation. That's also the reason Morrison refers to the Overvoid as "God, or Kirby's Source", btw.

And like I said before, the Overvoid was upset because the quality of material was inserted upon it, not because a physical Multiverse was created by a lower entity. In all likelihood, the Flaw represents DC Comics itself, as Morrison describes it as the Inkblot from which -all- possibility springs, and where all stories reside and are created from.

So, yeah, the Flaw couldn't have been created by the Overvoid (and by extension not by The Presence or the Source, at least in the context of Grant Morrison's works), nor by the Judges of the Source, and most certainly not by the Super Celestials.

Rather, it shoud logically have come from something above, and given the fact that Grant himself compares the Flaw's formation to somebody having drawn the story into the blank page of the comicbook, it is absolutely no stretch to say that the Writer was the one who created it, especially given all of the context clues, and how Superman Beyond was literally all about Morrison revisiting concepts he introduced in his run of Animal Man, such as the Comicbook Limbo where all Stories end and people "run out of Multiverse". Heck, the story itself has the Thought Robot feeling the presence of the Reader and describes it as "something immense beyond understanding".
 
I obviously agree with everything Ultima said.

It's worth nothing that the Main Antagonist of Multiversity, Morrison's personal sequel to Final Crisis, is also intended to be representative of "The Reader". The Empty Hand is supposed to represent the Readers who over time lost interest with comicbooks and thus abandoned them, leaving them behind. In other words, leaving their hands empty by not holding a comic.
 
I do agree that the Monitor story very clearly implies a force from beyond the Overvoid created the multiverse. Parallels to gods "emerging from the void" in certain creation myths are forced and require a generous reading of both source materials. Most of Grant Morrison's highest cosmology is directly utilizing concepts explored in his brief Animal Man run, where the parallels are much more apparent, from the Overvoid's first canonical appearance to Limbo's first appearance. His depiction of these things has not changed much over the years and it remains staunchly metafictional in a way that unfortunately cannot be separated from DC's structure at this point. If the concepts introduced in that run are the basis of Grant Morrison's cosmology, then I don't see why he would suddenly throw out The Writer, who appears at the very climax of his run to cap off the metafictional elements that have led up to that point. Heck, Limbo's introduction to continuity is inseparable from the character's appearance. The two lead directly into each other . And the character is pretty unabashedly clear about what it is supposed to represent and how it is related to DC's reality. I see no reason to speculate on what put the "flaw" within the Monitormind that represents paper. Grant Morrison is pretty clear about what put it there and plays with these ideas so much that it's practically his signature.
 
This might be off topic a little, but can someone list stuff that indicates Grant considers the Presence and the Overvoid are the same?
 
The Presence, The Source, and The Overvoid being connected are consistently reemerging themes throughout DC Comics. I can post some examples, but I feel like the original point of this thread is kind of losing traction as it is. We should save that discussion for the revision that focuses on combining the profiles.
 
I know that, but many Morrison fans on Reddit like to reject this, say that the Void that the Presence is merged with is just somewhere in the Sphere of the Gods and that the Monitors are the True Gods of DC.
 
Question, how does the eonymous fit into these, I mean they do literally view the overvoid as a blank piece of paper, so if the overvoid is high outerversal, shouldn't they be high outerversal too?
 
I personally think that both Kepekley and Ultima make good points.

Regardless, I shouldn't have overreacted in public earlier. Sorry about that. I was just trying to stand up for myself in as polite manner as I could manage.
 
TheBestBoi said:
Question, how does the eonymous fit into these, I mean they do literally view the overvoid as a blank piece of paper, so if the overvoid is high outerversal, shouldn't they be high outerversal too?
Click to expand...
Milk Wars in its entirety is pretty much supposed to be a giant meta joke that at most only significantly affects Young Animal, so I am not sure if we cross-scale shit from there.
 
Didn't you literally use the Overvoid when you made the Retconn Corps? Why wouldn't it apply to Eonymous
 
I actually considered to use the Overvoid to scale them (and some other characters) at first but it was then decided to not do that so, whatever.
 
So are we removing the link to the overvoid when it talks about the Blank Page in their profile or?
 
It's right there.

Retconn Corps should easily be 1-A still. And very high-up there.

The Eonymous could be argued as Tier 0 but again, the reaction that would bring to people is something else.
 
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