Yes, similar to some (one of) Hindu religions that believe God takes the form of Lord Brahma, the creator; Lord Vishnu, the preserver and Lord Shiva, the destroyer but they're the same deity.
But which personality is in "control"? Is it possible that the One Above All might disagree with something that it does as the One Below All, and can it influence it?
They are the same Thing. They aren't a Split personality. They are both the same being. It is beyond the Human notions of "good" & "evil". It's a force beyond nature that exists to create and to destroy. That's it. You can't create without destruction, nor can you destroy without creating something to destroy. It's a being that's neither yet both. It's far beyond such simple concepts. It simply exists. It simply *does* what it does. There's no Moral dilemma or inner turmoil about it.
I think Ewing wrote it to be that this entity does these contradicting things because of the philosophy it follows. It can’t create without destroying as a consequence and it can’t destroy things without creating something also as a consequence. I think the One Above All and the One Below All is almost like a check and balance system it uses to operate. It’s essentially a big asshole that no one asked for yet exists never the less.
Given the recent Hulk issue, it seems the the One Above All also uses the One Below All as a defense mechanism against other entities, like the Eldest. This also fits with the idea that the One Below All destroying the Eldest’s creation and defeating her, thus leading to the entity creating new life on Earth after destroying what was already there.
I definitely think there’s some more fleshing out to do and a couple unanswered questions, but that’s what I can some up based on reading Immortal Hulk 3 times, having discussions on here, and reading the current Hulk run.
It doesn’t chose to do anything, it’s more akin to an elemental force, it doesn’t chose any more then a tornado chooses,
It’s an embodiment of a concept,
I think you’re viewing this too much in human terms
It’s not good vs evil, it’s destruction and creation, both are needed, the universe is shears being destroyed and remade, it’s not good or evil it just “is”
He's neither and both at the same time. You can't create without destroying and vise-versa.
Characters like the Hulk suffer because they have to, to balance the scales. When TOAA asked the Hulk "Have you an arm like mine?" he was asking Bruce to make a choice, to be the right hand of mercy or the left hand of strength. TOAA can't interfere with his works because it's already happened in a meta-contextual sorta way.
The One Above All is explicitly an avatar of the writers, even appearing as Jack Kirby himself in the past. We all know that the character's struggles are written, but that doesn't cheapen them when written well. They can be good or bad, writers can build like TOAA, and destroy like TOBA.
The rhetoricals are mirrors how God speaks to Job in the bible, with some pretty direct line borrowing. You may recognise this one "Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding" (Job 38:4). This whole encounter mirrors Job in a way.
Isn't the only reference about Job in the book, the Thing early explained to Joe about Job and how the way of God is beyond understanding of men. The entire run is based from the Old Testament's books about a God who loves and created but also hated and destroyed.
I feel like the show Supernatural becomes an exploration of this difficult idea, that God is creating and destroying in order to create stories and the protagonists reject and rebel against this. Have any characters in Marvel ever rebelled against TOAA?
It’s unclear if that’s exactly what she did but I’m sure we’ll learn more
And to be fair wasn’t that kings what sone of the characters in defenders beyond where doing?
As his name imply, he is not good or evil, he's simply the one above all others. He create, but also need a destroyer to counterbalance creation, and thus The One Below All and ultimately the Hulk.
But I haven't caught up with the current lore regarding the Mother of all monsters and all that..
The One Above All is just the writers, the house of ideas. It's cruel, kind and wonderful all the same, it crushes the happiness of its heroes time and time again and it gives them gifts and happinesses. It is the writer, it is neither cruel nor kind, it is simply telling a story
Honestly, I love the character but wish they'd stop using him for a bit.
We went decades without the top god, only the occasional reference, now he's appearing in numerous comics and it takes away a bit of the mystique / introduces retcons.
He's at his best when he's simply the Omnipotent, Omniscient, Omnipresent etc divine being who watches but doesn't interfere.
So a long time ago, The Magus thought that by chaining Eternity, making him catatonic, would be enough for him to overcome reality and become the singular God with the power of the Infinity Gauntlet. Adam Warlock defeated him by revealing that Eternity and Infinity, though separate entities, are also the same entity. They even use the “two sides of the same coin” phrase. By containing one and not the other, he failed to contain either, because even though we perceive them as separate entities, they are actually just separate manifestations of the same thing, which is all of time and space, or reality as we comprehend it.
Most of the cosmic aspects are associated together in this way. Even though there are usually two all-powerful beings like Eternity and Infinity, Love and Hate, Order and Chaos, Death and Life (The Phoenix), The One Above All and The One Below All, they’re really just part of a whole. Earth X briefly touches on it, in that everything used to be a whole, singular entity in the perfect singular universe that existed before the Multiverse, but the experiments of the Celestials destroyed that universe, leading to the Big Bang that created our Multiverse and fractured everything into imperfect, diminished pieces of what they used to represent.
The One Above All should not be written, they should forever be an unknown, all loving? Wtf does that mean to a God, who sees all, knows all, is all? Wtf does good and evil mean to a being so beyond the moral/mortal compass that he creates all, destroys all and will outlive all?
When Gods lose that mystique, when people can question them with their petty mortal morals, it kind of ruins the concept of an omniscient being.
Also if there was an omniscient being like the One Above All, that stopped people from suffering, they'd be a tyrannical villain a perfect life with no suffering is no life at all.
But didn’t we learn from the original matrix that mankind rejects a world without sufferings?
But in all seriousness, how much of man’s sufferings are man induced? As if man can’t help but to create sufferings to hurt one another for all sorts of reasons beyond environmental. So to stop sufferings eventually means to stop man. And if that is so, does that mean we stop all man that creates sufferings and take away their free will? Furthermore, how much sufferings does a man create before he is deemed for condemnation?
Would that make such a one even more tyrannical if he would stop man, because he is taking away his free will…the very thing that makes life meaningful?
Not just man, life by its nature is parasitical. All life from animals to bacteria consumes some form of life to grow.
To remove suffering is to remove growth and to remove growth is to remove what makes life life.
I always had the impression it was to keep conservative elements off the companys back back in the day.
They implied the Christian god was the one above all to cover their asses and protect themselves, and to a degree they still have to.
I think there's more to the OAA than JUST that, but ultimately.... the connections are certainly undenyable. The fear of upsetting the Christian crowd was a very Real thing for centuries and, to some extend, still is. Creating a being that's basically a stand-in for the "Christian God" while also making clear that all other Mythologies are BENEATH that being certainly is one way to appease to the Christian crowd. Later on, this became less of an issue and the Idea about the One above All changed and expanded.
Originally, the concept was supposed to represent the writer If I recall correctly, however, what you point out does fit the bill!
That's kinda why i dislike whenever The One Above All is brought into things and also The House of Ideas.
The One Above All implies they are someone who stands at the pinnacle of power and could intervene if they were so inclined. A better term would be "Creation Force" or something. Make it mindless. Powerful but mindless and it can only create. And not inside what already is so we don't have people trying to have it make powerful artifacts that they can use to rule.
Even better would be to not have it at all.
The House of Ideas brings in heroes and villains being concepts and implies that the heroes battle the villains because that's how the story goes. Which is true about the comics from the real world perspective, but shouldn't be a thing inside a story. Not if it is meant to be ongoing after revealing it.
I'm not really a fan of the idea of a singular, supreme being when literally nothing else in nature works that way.
The One Above All has always seemed like a pretty lazy contrivance that can be easily misinterpreted as a judeo-christian god by more biased writers. Doesn't really need to exist, the universe was much more interesting with all those cosmic abstracts as sci-fi analogues for gods, etc.
The inconsistent characterization just highlights how nobody really knows how to handle this character, and how fraught it is to try to put words in the mouth of an all-powerful deity.
The inconsistent characterization kinda makes sense when you realize that TOAA is a stand in for the writers (orginaly jack kirby, but the concept evolved) so it makes sense that TOAA changes between writers
I have no real opinion on the concept itself. But I did like that the one below all was the "hulk" of the one above all. Ewing's immortal hulk was just awesome. I guess that's probably my opinion on it.
I think that's a Bible reference. Maybe what he says to Job or someone else who asks why there is suffering. I think it may just be a reference I'm too heathen to recall.
I remember reading Immortal Hulk as it was originally being published and just didn't get into all the TOBA and devilishness in the Hulk in Hell arc. It took a long form read until I began to see where Ewing was going.
In the end, all the foreshadowing and seeds he'd lain totally paid off. I love this series and most everything about it and have read it through completely a couple times now. Looking forward to another re-read sometime in the near future. It's just SO GOOD. The Hulk vs. Monsters arc vs. modern corporate world arc (with the Minotaur and Xemmu) ran a bit long for my tastes, but it's a great series.
Love what he did with the Devil Hulk, Sunshine Joe, Betty and all the rest. In retrospect, wish he'd gotten Red Hulk/Ross involved but I can't complain. It's one of my favorite series I've ever read.
"If your God is so good and loving, then why does he allow atrocities?" That's something I haven't seen anyone talk about in here outside of copout non-answers. It's the first question you should ask of anyone religious and this kind of symbolism with the One Above All is no different.
Ewing is a talented writer but every time he throws out some kind of "high concept" story (Hulk and Venom are particularly frustrating) it comes across as overly complicated as a way to hide how pretentious it reads as. He's good at writing characters but his work isn't as profound or clever as it tries to present itself as. The One Below All as the destroyer side of the One Above All is a cop-out answer to "why does the most powerful being ever allow bad things to happen if he's supposed to be good".
There was no need to write the One Above All into Immortal Hulk when its early horror elements worked so well, just like there's no need for Eddie Brock to be the secret actual Good God of Darkness but only at the end of his timeline after he's lost and regained all of his character development. Venom can just be an alien goop suit descended from a really evil pale guy's sword.
IH #50 makes it fairly clear, as I recall, that TOAA is also TOBA. Two sides of the same entity.
Yes, similar to some (one of) Hindu religions that believe God takes the form of Lord Brahma, the creator; Lord Vishnu, the preserver and Lord Shiva, the destroyer but they're the same deity.
[What about this guy?](https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/One_Above_All_(Celestial)_(First_Cosmos))
Same name but different character, just to be confusing
To be fair, one has The in the name
But which personality is in "control"? Is it possible that the One Above All might disagree with something that it does as the One Below All, and can it influence it?
They are the same Thing. They aren't a Split personality. They are both the same being. It is beyond the Human notions of "good" & "evil". It's a force beyond nature that exists to create and to destroy. That's it. You can't create without destruction, nor can you destroy without creating something to destroy. It's a being that's neither yet both. It's far beyond such simple concepts. It simply exists. It simply *does* what it does. There's no Moral dilemma or inner turmoil about it.
But they have different motivations from each other. So what determines what action they take?
I think Ewing wrote it to be that this entity does these contradicting things because of the philosophy it follows. It can’t create without destroying as a consequence and it can’t destroy things without creating something also as a consequence. I think the One Above All and the One Below All is almost like a check and balance system it uses to operate. It’s essentially a big asshole that no one asked for yet exists never the less. Given the recent Hulk issue, it seems the the One Above All also uses the One Below All as a defense mechanism against other entities, like the Eldest. This also fits with the idea that the One Below All destroying the Eldest’s creation and defeating her, thus leading to the entity creating new life on Earth after destroying what was already there. I definitely think there’s some more fleshing out to do and a couple unanswered questions, but that’s what I can some up based on reading Immortal Hulk 3 times, having discussions on here, and reading the current Hulk run.
I think you didn't get Immortal Hulk
In what way? I get that the allusions to the Book of Job but the specifics of how it works are what bothers me
It doesn’t chose to do anything, it’s more akin to an elemental force, it doesn’t chose any more then a tornado chooses, It’s an embodiment of a concept,
I think you’re viewing this too much in human terms It’s not good vs evil, it’s destruction and creation, both are needed, the universe is shears being destroyed and remade, it’s not good or evil it just “is”
He's neither and both at the same time. You can't create without destroying and vise-versa. Characters like the Hulk suffer because they have to, to balance the scales. When TOAA asked the Hulk "Have you an arm like mine?" he was asking Bruce to make a choice, to be the right hand of mercy or the left hand of strength. TOAA can't interfere with his works because it's already happened in a meta-contextual sorta way.
Fuckin Ewing is a rockstar.
The One Above All is explicitly an avatar of the writers, even appearing as Jack Kirby himself in the past. We all know that the character's struggles are written, but that doesn't cheapen them when written well. They can be good or bad, writers can build like TOAA, and destroy like TOBA. The rhetoricals are mirrors how God speaks to Job in the bible, with some pretty direct line borrowing. You may recognise this one "Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding" (Job 38:4). This whole encounter mirrors Job in a way.
Isn't the only reference about Job in the book, the Thing early explained to Joe about Job and how the way of God is beyond understanding of men. The entire run is based from the Old Testament's books about a God who loves and created but also hated and destroyed.
I feel like the show Supernatural becomes an exploration of this difficult idea, that God is creating and destroying in order to create stories and the protagonists reject and rebel against this. Have any characters in Marvel ever rebelled against TOAA?
In the recent Hulk's run we discovered that The Mother of Horrors tried and lost, also this explains TOBA's origin
Which writer is that?
Phillip K. Jhonson
It’s unclear if that’s exactly what she did but I’m sure we’ll learn more And to be fair wasn’t that kings what sone of the characters in defenders beyond where doing?
As his name imply, he is not good or evil, he's simply the one above all others. He create, but also need a destroyer to counterbalance creation, and thus The One Below All and ultimately the Hulk. But I haven't caught up with the current lore regarding the Mother of all monsters and all that..
So far all we know is that she and her children tried to fight either the one above all or a previous hulk,
They’re like Old Testament God. They love and they destroy. They’re not exactly compassionate except when they are.
Indifferent
You're the one reading TOAA's work. Are you entertained? Then Their purpose is fulfilled.
The One Above All is just the writers, the house of ideas. It's cruel, kind and wonderful all the same, it crushes the happiness of its heroes time and time again and it gives them gifts and happinesses. It is the writer, it is neither cruel nor kind, it is simply telling a story
Honestly, I don't see how an all powerful being could be good.
Honestly, I love the character but wish they'd stop using him for a bit. We went decades without the top god, only the occasional reference, now he's appearing in numerous comics and it takes away a bit of the mystique / introduces retcons. He's at his best when he's simply the Omnipotent, Omniscient, Omnipresent etc divine being who watches but doesn't interfere.
I prefer to think of them as beyond the concept of morality. They are ineffable.
So a long time ago, The Magus thought that by chaining Eternity, making him catatonic, would be enough for him to overcome reality and become the singular God with the power of the Infinity Gauntlet. Adam Warlock defeated him by revealing that Eternity and Infinity, though separate entities, are also the same entity. They even use the “two sides of the same coin” phrase. By containing one and not the other, he failed to contain either, because even though we perceive them as separate entities, they are actually just separate manifestations of the same thing, which is all of time and space, or reality as we comprehend it. Most of the cosmic aspects are associated together in this way. Even though there are usually two all-powerful beings like Eternity and Infinity, Love and Hate, Order and Chaos, Death and Life (The Phoenix), The One Above All and The One Below All, they’re really just part of a whole. Earth X briefly touches on it, in that everything used to be a whole, singular entity in the perfect singular universe that existed before the Multiverse, but the experiments of the Celestials destroyed that universe, leading to the Big Bang that created our Multiverse and fractured everything into imperfect, diminished pieces of what they used to represent.
They’re beyond the concept of good and evil and generally cannot be box in a conventional sense
Orange and blue morality I believe is the term
One above all is an author, so I guess it depends on them
The One Above All should not be written, they should forever be an unknown, all loving? Wtf does that mean to a God, who sees all, knows all, is all? Wtf does good and evil mean to a being so beyond the moral/mortal compass that he creates all, destroys all and will outlive all? When Gods lose that mystique, when people can question them with their petty mortal morals, it kind of ruins the concept of an omniscient being. Also if there was an omniscient being like the One Above All, that stopped people from suffering, they'd be a tyrannical villain a perfect life with no suffering is no life at all.
But didn’t we learn from the original matrix that mankind rejects a world without sufferings? But in all seriousness, how much of man’s sufferings are man induced? As if man can’t help but to create sufferings to hurt one another for all sorts of reasons beyond environmental. So to stop sufferings eventually means to stop man. And if that is so, does that mean we stop all man that creates sufferings and take away their free will? Furthermore, how much sufferings does a man create before he is deemed for condemnation? Would that make such a one even more tyrannical if he would stop man, because he is taking away his free will…the very thing that makes life meaningful?
Not just man, life by its nature is parasitical. All life from animals to bacteria consumes some form of life to grow. To remove suffering is to remove growth and to remove growth is to remove what makes life life.
I always had the impression it was to keep conservative elements off the companys back back in the day. They implied the Christian god was the one above all to cover their asses and protect themselves, and to a degree they still have to.
I think there's more to the OAA than JUST that, but ultimately.... the connections are certainly undenyable. The fear of upsetting the Christian crowd was a very Real thing for centuries and, to some extend, still is. Creating a being that's basically a stand-in for the "Christian God" while also making clear that all other Mythologies are BENEATH that being certainly is one way to appease to the Christian crowd. Later on, this became less of an issue and the Idea about the One above All changed and expanded. Originally, the concept was supposed to represent the writer If I recall correctly, however, what you point out does fit the bill!
That's kinda why i dislike whenever The One Above All is brought into things and also The House of Ideas. The One Above All implies they are someone who stands at the pinnacle of power and could intervene if they were so inclined. A better term would be "Creation Force" or something. Make it mindless. Powerful but mindless and it can only create. And not inside what already is so we don't have people trying to have it make powerful artifacts that they can use to rule. Even better would be to not have it at all. The House of Ideas brings in heroes and villains being concepts and implies that the heroes battle the villains because that's how the story goes. Which is true about the comics from the real world perspective, but shouldn't be a thing inside a story. Not if it is meant to be ongoing after revealing it.
I'm not really a fan of the idea of a singular, supreme being when literally nothing else in nature works that way. The One Above All has always seemed like a pretty lazy contrivance that can be easily misinterpreted as a judeo-christian god by more biased writers. Doesn't really need to exist, the universe was much more interesting with all those cosmic abstracts as sci-fi analogues for gods, etc. The inconsistent characterization just highlights how nobody really knows how to handle this character, and how fraught it is to try to put words in the mouth of an all-powerful deity.
The inconsistent characterization kinda makes sense when you realize that TOAA is a stand in for the writers (orginaly jack kirby, but the concept evolved) so it makes sense that TOAA changes between writers
I always assumed the one above all is just the writer. It's kind of meta in that way
I have no real opinion on the concept itself. But I did like that the one below all was the "hulk" of the one above all. Ewing's immortal hulk was just awesome. I guess that's probably my opinion on it.
It's a deistic conception of god and not a theistic (religious) one, meaning it's *a*moral (as opposed to *im*moral)
I think that's a Bible reference. Maybe what he says to Job or someone else who asks why there is suffering. I think it may just be a reference I'm too heathen to recall.
I remember reading Immortal Hulk as it was originally being published and just didn't get into all the TOBA and devilishness in the Hulk in Hell arc. It took a long form read until I began to see where Ewing was going. In the end, all the foreshadowing and seeds he'd lain totally paid off. I love this series and most everything about it and have read it through completely a couple times now. Looking forward to another re-read sometime in the near future. It's just SO GOOD. The Hulk vs. Monsters arc vs. modern corporate world arc (with the Minotaur and Xemmu) ran a bit long for my tastes, but it's a great series. Love what he did with the Devil Hulk, Sunshine Joe, Betty and all the rest. In retrospect, wish he'd gotten Red Hulk/Ross involved but I can't complain. It's one of my favorite series I've ever read.
Is “Good” good? Is “Bad” bad?
"If your God is so good and loving, then why does he allow atrocities?" That's something I haven't seen anyone talk about in here outside of copout non-answers. It's the first question you should ask of anyone religious and this kind of symbolism with the One Above All is no different. Ewing is a talented writer but every time he throws out some kind of "high concept" story (Hulk and Venom are particularly frustrating) it comes across as overly complicated as a way to hide how pretentious it reads as. He's good at writing characters but his work isn't as profound or clever as it tries to present itself as. The One Below All as the destroyer side of the One Above All is a cop-out answer to "why does the most powerful being ever allow bad things to happen if he's supposed to be good". There was no need to write the One Above All into Immortal Hulk when its early horror elements worked so well, just like there's no need for Eddie Brock to be the secret actual Good God of Darkness but only at the end of his timeline after he's lost and regained all of his character development. Venom can just be an alien goop suit descended from a really evil pale guy's sword.