The Hand At The Start of Everything: What Do We Know?

[Jackalope89]

Your Auntie Grizelda, maybe?

Nah, Uncle Jack Napier.

[Ascended]

I will say, I think originally it was meant to be the Presence/Abrahamic God (we do have the Archangels, Lucifer, etc, so who else would it be?).

In the DCU? Who knows. DC cosmology is very different from any real world example. It could be the Presence. Or God (take your pick which one), if you prefer to keep the two separate. Or it could be a Old God of the Third World, creating our multiverse (and New Gods) out of the dying embers of his reality. Or Dr. Manhattan, because Johns is trying to tell a good story out of a unholy premise.

So....what we know about the blue hand is.....that we don't know anything. Other than it's been hinted at being many different things over the years, but never confirmed, and always revealed to be a false lead? Really?

I am amazed that DC has resisted the temptation to answer this question for so long.

Hmm. What other mysteries are still out there in the DCU? Do we know what's beyond the Source Wall yet?

[Thor-Ul]

In fact, the image of the hand had different explanations, two of them coming from the greenlantern titles, the same from which the concept came:

The first one can be read in Ganthet's tale, where Ganthet reveals than the hand was really an illusion created by another Guardian to keep hidden the real past of the oans, and in that way be
protected from any attack through time. The effect for looking beyond that barrier would be a very explosive feedback.

466529-glganthetstale.jpg

The other explanation is than the hand was the hand of Volthoom who left his hand imprint when he traveled from the multiverse to the moment where Krona was looking into the past.

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Despite being different, both explainations doesn't cancel each other.

The explanation from Multiversity is very metatextual, it implies that is the unseen hand of the reader/consumer or creator/comicbook artists, an empty hand which either can consume or create.



Also there is the "homage" origin, seen in JLA/Avengers, where the hand is the Hand of Eternity, over-looking the universe existence. But we can consider that not canon.

[Flash Gordon]

Sometimes it is more interesting to not have an answer.

I like not knowing what's beyond the Source Wall or who's hand is mixing the cosmos about at the dawn of time. When we give definitive origins for more abstract concepts, the world that these comics exist in shrinks more and more.

[Buried Alien]

What if we were to discover that the hand belongs to Superman, and not just ANY Superman, but the original one from ACTION COMICS # 1 (1938)?

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

[Doctor Kent Nelson]

It's... drumroll please...Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson!

[MajorHoy]

It's... drumroll please...Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson!

I'd prefer to think of it as more like Jack Kirby . . .

[Ascended]

What if we were to discover that the hand belongs to Superman, and not just ANY Superman, but the original one from ACTION COMICS # 1 (1938)?

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

Well, you know I wouldn't argue with that.

But Golden Age Superman does seem the wrong version of the Man of Steel for such cosmic-ness. Perhaps instead a more inclusive, "omni-Superman" approach, as Morrison has occasionally tackled? Superman as a manifestation of concept.

[MajorHoy]

Well, you know I wouldn't argue with that.

But Golden Age Superman does seem the wrong version of the Man of Steel for such cosmic-ness. Perhaps instead a more inclusive, "omni-Superman" approach, as Morrison has occasionally tackled? Superman as a manifestation of concept.

How about either the Flashpoint or New52 versions of Superman (considering how screwed over they were)?

[Phoenixx9]

A long time ago in Marvel's Avengers book, there was a hand that reached in from beyond, and (re) animated a stone figure...

...that hand was more silvery/metallic but perhaps the same hand...?

[CaptCleghorn]

Your Auntie Grizelda, maybe?

Auntie Grizelda would have put more doilies up and covered half of the galaxies in plastic.

[WillieMorgan]

Hmm. What other mysteries are still out there in the DCU? Do we know what's beyond the Source Wall yet?

That's rather an apt question at the moment actually. We don't know what's beyond the Source Wall but the nature of it has been altered slightly recently. Like, end of Metal recently.

WARNING SPOILERS IN THIS LINK:

http://uk.ign.com/articles/2018/03/2...he-dc-universe

[MajorHoy]

Auntie Grizelda would have put more doilies up and covered half of the galaxies in plastic.

I keep wondering how many people got the original reference, but then again, I'm older than a wooly mammoth . . .

[CaptCleghorn]

I keep wondering how many people got the original reference, but then again, I'm older than a wooly mammoth . . .

I totally missed it. I give you credit for the reference, though.

[Ascended]

How about either the Flashpoint or New52 versions of Superman (considering how screwed over they were)?

Oh, I wouldn't want any singular version of Superman to be responsible for the hand at the start of all things. That's far too big for any single continuity's Superman.

Morrison's Superman Prime (DC 1 Million), who was implied to have a kind of multiversal awareness (not so unlike Manhattan perhaps), might be a viable option. But anything less inclusive and cosmic than that is a no-go.

I gotta get down to the LCS and finish off Metal. This site is like a mine field of spoilers right now.