Are the Spectre, Zauriel, Etrigan, and other extra-cosmic beings also "emanations"?

[resipsaloquitur]

One of the things that DC has pushed for awhile now is that the New Gods we've seen are just "emanations" of the true New Gods who exist outside the Multiverse. So, Earth-0 and Earth-2 both have their own separate Darkseids, but they're aspects of the "real" Darkseid who exists beyond the Speed Force wall (on the new Multiversity map).

Hoooooooowever...the Multiversity map also indicates that a lot of DC's characters also exist beyond the Multiverse, including the Spectre, Zauriel, Santa Claus, the Greek and Roman Gods, Etrigan, Neron, and a bunch of others. Am I to take it that these characters ALSO have a greater existence outside the 52 worlds and we've only seen "emanations" when we've seen them in-story?

Let's take the Spectre. I can't vouch for this, but I've heard that pre-Crisis, there was a Jim Corrigan on each world of the Multiverse, and the Spectre entity simply possessed that world's Corrigan whenever he needed to intervene. Is this true? Does this explain why the Spectre is always wrapped up in big Crisis-level events?

Furthermore, does this account for why certain cosmic-level beings remember all the effects of the various Crises? I know that the Spectre demonstrated knowledge of the pre-Crisis universe in Peter David's Supergirl. (The Spectre is also one of the few characters who survived the destruction in Zero Hour--if the universe was destroyed and replaced with a near-identical universe, the Spectre was outside space-time when that happened.) I wonder if Grant Morrison's theory is that Crisis-level changes only happen inside the Speed Force Wall and stuff outside the wall is unaffected. (Maybe this is also how the Earth-2 Wonder Woman was unchanged between Crisis and Infinite Crisis--because she was on Mount Olympus, outside the wall.)

What are your thoughts???

[MajorHoy]

[colonyofcells]

For Grant Morrison, my guess is even Superman probably has emanations.

[Jody Garland]

Considering what the Thought Robot from Superman Beyond was, I'd wager your right on that front.

[resipsaloquitur]

For Grant Morrison, my guess is even Superman probably has emanations.

Probably! I still haven't read Final Crisis other than in internet snippets. My understanding is that each of the 52 worlds has a Superman.

I wonder if Grant Morrison has emanations. I mean besides on Earth-44.

[resipsaloquitur]

OK, for Major Hoy's benefit, let's try this:



OK. See how the Speed Force wall separates the Multiverse from the Sphere of the Gods? If I'm understanding at least the New Gods correctly, if they pass the Speed Force wall and go into one of the 52 worlds, only an "aspect" of them appears. The true New Gods remain behind the wall. The question is whether the SAME applies to everybody else who lives beyond the wall, such as the Spectre in Heaven or Etrigan in Hell. (And we have at least two Etrigans in the 52--ours on Earth-0 and one on Earth-13.)

Also also, if I'm correct--whenever there's a Crisis, stuff inside the Speed Force Wall can be changed, but stuff outside it isn't. This explains why Flashes are always connected to Crises--they influence the Speed Force which affects the 52 worlds. The Spectre and New Gods and everyone else sits outside the Speed Force wall and are ultimately unaffected, so they can remember all the crap that goes down between Crises.

[NeonZ]

One of the things that DC has pushed for awhile now is that the New Gods we've seen are just "emanations" of the true New Gods who exist outside the Multiverse. So, Earth-0 and Earth-2 both have their own separate Darkseids, but they're aspects of the "real" Darkseid who exists beyond the Speed Force wall (on the new Multiversity map).

DC's official word since they brought up the multiverse after the reboot is that there was only one Darkseid and New Gods. It's the same Darkseid attacking Earth-0 and Earth-2. Multiversity's newest issue is the only one that has brought forth the idea of the "emanations". There's still only one real version, but there might be multiple different emanations of the New Gods in all the different worlds at the same time. I'm not sure the real ones exist "outside of the multiverse" though. Those New Gods in Earth-51 seem to consider themselves the real ones at least, not emanations.

Darkseid is also apparently gathering multiple fragments of himself to grow his power, so there likely isn't a Darkseid for each world at this point, which excuses the Earth-0/-2 situation, where you've got a single Darkseid attacking multiple worlds.

Either way, I guess this might end up used for the Greek Gods and other entities at some point, but so far it hasn't really, since it's an idea just introduced.

[resipsaloquitur]

DC's official word since they brought up the multiverse after the reboot is that there was only one Darkseid and New Gods. It's the same Darkseid attacking Earth-0 and Earth-2. Multiversity's newest issue is the only one that has brought forth the idea of the "emanations". There's still only one real version, but there might be multiple different emanations of the New Gods in all the different worlds at the same time. I'm not sure the real ones exist "outside of the multiverse" either. Those New Gods in Earth-51 seem to consider themselves the real ones at least, not emanations.

Either way, I guess this might end up used for the Greek Gods and other entities at some point, but so far it hasn't really, since it's an idea just introduced.

Not quite. John Byrne did something with these "emanations" (not the term he used) back in his New Gods run in the 1990s. I don't quite remember how it played out, but there was a character who encountered a "Darkseid" who freely acknowledged that he wasn't the real Darkseid, but some kind of avatar of him. I don't remember how that played out.

[Montressor]

For Grant Morrison, my guess is even Superman probably has emanations.

Superman definitely has emanations, or 'echoes' throughout the Omniverse. As the first superhero his very presence has seeped through literally every medium (I'm going meta here). Even some of his 'echoes' are aware that they are mere shadows of 'Him'.

[resipsaloquitur]

Here we go:



I am not sure if this is the first-ever mention of Darkseid having a higher aspect. This page certainly seems consistent with Morrison's take, though.

[FanboyStranger]

No, unless they really tinker around with DC's cosmology, then beings like The Spectre and Etrigan wouldn't be emanations. The New Gods are symobolic manifestations of ideas. The Spectre, even though his role as "God's Wrath" is something of an idea, is an actual angelic entity. He's not an embodiment of a concept. Etrigan is a demon, and demons have been well represented as corporeal beings in the DCU. They may claim to represent or embody something, but more often than not, it's just an affectation or obsession. Same with Zauriel and his class of angel-- they may claim to represent something, but it's more than they embrace a quality rather than embody it.

Now, I guess you could argue that the Spectre and Zauriel are emanations of The Presence, and demons are emanations of its Other, but that seems too simplistic to me. With the New Gods, that framework has always been there since Kirby, but I'd argue grafting those criteria onto the mystical side of the DCU kinda "Starlin-izes" it into a boring abstraction. Other than the Endless, I just don't want to see it because it's almost always poorly done.

EDIT: Basically, I don't want to see Blatloxi, the demon lord of flatulence, end up just being a cosmic fart.

[colonyofcells]

Maybe all things are emanations of the one Presence so it might be similar to masturbation.

[Deniz Camp]

Here we go:



I am not sure if this is the first-ever mention of Darkseid having a higher aspect. This page certainly seems consistent with Morrison's take, though.

It's not at all the first mention; the notion of the New Gods having higher, brighter, bigger forms has gone back to Kirby, and has been a part of every iteration of the character. Not always in this way, of course; Byrne has a different 'true form' than Pollack than Evanier than Simonson. But it's been consistently there as an idea.

[colonyofcells]

I remember the earlier Pollack run on new gods also had the emanations idea.

[Johnny Thunders!]

I still say Kirby has the New Gods as a type of extraterrestrial. The original books are laden with tech talk, DNA, and mutation. More Sci Fi than than the Endless.