The One Above All

• The One Above
• The One Below

“

I AM THE ONE ABOVE ALL. I SEE THROUGH MANY EYES. I BUILD WITH MANY HANDS. THEY ARE THEMSELVES, BUT THEY ARE ALSO ME. I AM ALL-POWERFUL. MY ONLY WEAPON IS LOVE. THE MYSTERY INTRIGUES ME.

„

“

I AM THE ONE BELOW ALL. WITH THESE HANDS I BREAK. WITH THIS MOUTH I HOWL. I HAVE DEVOURED THE SELVES THAT WERE HERE IN A TIME LONG PAST. NOW THERE IS I. AND ONLY I. I AM ALL-POWERFUL AND MY WEAPON IS HATE. I HAVE MADE OF THIS A THING OF HATE. A HOLLOW SHELL. A HULK. THE MYSTERY FRIGHTENS AND DISGUSTS ME I WILL KILL IT. MAKE ALL HOLLOW AS I. DEAD AND DARK AS I. AND THEN I WILL BE ALONE

„

Summary

“

With these hands I build. With others I break. I break to build anew. Have you my strength? Have you an arm like mine? Would you build, or break? You are my creation. I made you to be the counterweight. To ask of you: Are you Geburah or Golachab? And what of Chesed? What of mercy?

„

The One Above All is the ostensible Supreme Being of Marvel Comics, being the creator of the whole multiverse and the realms outside of it, responsible for setting in place both existence and the clockwork machinery that keeps it afloat. As the entity's name suggests, it resides above and beyond all that exists. As such, its direct appearances in the stories are few and far between. It was first introduced briefly by Uatu The Watcher as a truly all-powerful being "whose only weapon is Love," and later on, was scantly referred to as the mysterious master of The Living Tribunal, from whom the latter derives authority. Its first appearance would only come much later when the Fantastic Four entered the plane of Heaven and encountered "God," who appeared as comics writer Jack Kirby and helped the team by bringing Ben Grimm back to life.

However, just as every light casts a shadow, and every mirror holds a reflection, so, too, does The One Above All have its own shadow: The One Below All is the primal shadow of creation, the other face of God His creations can't bear to look upon. While The One Above All is the highest personification of goodness and compassion, The One Below All is an infinite abyss of hatred and malice, holding nothing but disgust for all of creation and wishing to destroy all life in it so it may be alone in the dark emptiness that remains. Unlike its light counterpart, The One Below All is merely a counterweight used to balance the expanding nature of existence; it remains barred from directly interacting with the lesser worlds, needing hosts and vessels to exact its will upon them.

Powers and Stats

Tier: High 1-A

Name: The One Above All, "Excelso Prae Omnibus Allis", God, The Almighty, The Divine Creator, The Great Love, Tetragrammaton, The Cosmic Mind, The Supreme Will, The Fulcrum, The One Below All, Satan, The Breaker of Worlds, The Devil, The Breaker-Apart, The Counterweight, Jack Kirby, Stan Lee and numerous other names and aliases.

Origin: Marvel Comics

Gender: Inapplicable (Perceived as both male and female, as it is, in fact, all things)

Age: Inapplicable

Classification: Supreme God / Devil, Fundamental Creative / Destructive Force, Author(s) of Marvel Comics, Gestalt Entity

Powers and Abilities:

• Innate Abilities
• Resistances

• Superhuman Physical Characteristics
• Beyond-Dimensional Existence (Type 3)
• Abstract Existence (Type 1)
• Acausality (Type 5; Transcends the White-Hot Room, the source of the "fire of becoming" that enables the turning of all things)
• Creation, Space-Time Manipulation & Plot Manipulation (The One Above All is the author of Marvel Comics itself, with their House of Ideas being where infinite stories are born)
• Basic Magic (Gamma Radiation, the very essence of The One Below All, is both science and magic) & Hell Lord Magic/Physiology (Each hell is a small fraction of The One Below All, and the Below Place is the very concept of Hell)
• God Physiology (Religions are blind men touching God, Nightmare uses the example of the parable of the elephant to explain the relationship between One Above All - Humanity/Belief, which means that the New Gods like Odin, Thor, Zeus, etc. are a subjective and limited expression created by humanity to try to reach The One Above All. Also, all Gods are facets of the One Above All)
• Reality Warping (Created the very concept of "reality" in the form of Eternity. Through the House of Ideas, Nyx could remake the whole of creation in her image, and Gorgon was planning to use the tip of their pencil to rewrite all of existence)
• Immortality (Type 5)
• Conceptual Manipulation (Type 1; Every being, action, particle and concept exists in a perfect equilibrium that serves The One Above All. Commands the archetypal realms that stand in-between the House of Ideas and the omniverse, which are stated to be the primal concepts that precede and ultimately become become reality)
• Fire Manipulation (The fire of the Phoenix Force is stated to be power that ultimately belongs to The One Above All, being the manifestation of their creative energies and the light that births all stories)
• Possession & Corruption (Type 2; The One Below All can take lesser beings as its host-personalities, whereupon it starts wearing their souls "like masks on a stage," simultaneously independent of and at one with it)
• Radiation Manipulation (All gamma radiation, in its most primal and abstract form that is neither particle nor wave, is an emanation of The One Below All)
• Existence Erasure (Can erase things from the comic using the eraser on the back of his pencils. The Phoenix Force's "omni-fire" threatened to erase Loki from the Tree of Life entirely)
• Resurrection
• 4th Wall Awareness
• Nonexistent Physiology (Nature 2; Aspect 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5; Stands in the highest level of the World of Action, several levels of unmanifestation prior to, and above, the whole concept of existence. The realm of The One Above All is "everything and nothing" simultaneously. The One Below All is the absence that remains behind in the total lack of God's divinity, being an empty, dead husk as opposed to The One Above All's creatively-aligned nature)
• Nigh-Omniscience
• Information Manipulation
• Large Size (Type 11)
• Multiple Selves (Type 1; The One Above All is a gestalt entity comprising all of the authors, editors, artists and readers of Marvel Comics, with those being individual entities capable of acting and creating independently from each other and simultaneously facets of a single overarching being)
• Shapeshifting & Transformation (Can shift between their two personas at will)
• Teleportation
• Void Manipulation (Holds full control over the House of Ideas, as well as the several non-existent realms above Eternity, with the very void of nothingness that precedes all of creation being the unconscious, dreamless mind of the Creator)
• Fusionism
• Perception Manipulation
• Omnipresence
• Death Manipulation
• Law Manipulation (Doctor Strange states that The One Above All is the order that fashioned not only the material aspect of existence, but also the laws that govern it. Created the system of weight and counterweight represented by the Sefirot and their corresponding Qlippoth)
• Healing (Healed Spider-Man's hand)
• Soul Manipulation
• Paraconsistent Physiology (Type 3; As The One Above All, it is the pure unity of the divine, where all contending forces exist as one undivided wholeness, even with respect to the lesser planes of the Mystery)

Basic Magic & Hell Lord Magic

Attack Potency: High Outerverse level (Dwells at, and as, the apex of the Sefirot of the World of Action, transcending Eternity, The Beyond, The White-Hot Room and The Abyss, and being the governor of The House of Ideas that acts as the crown of all creation and the source of all that is, was and may yet be, holding everything as an idea or a dream in their mind. Simultaneously, as The One Below All, it is also the lowest point of all, the infinite abyss that lies underneath creation as its bedrock, encompassing the Qlippoth that serve as the dark reflections of each Sefirot in the Mystery)

Speed: Omnipresent (Partakes in a state of pure unity, with no dichotomy or separation, with everything in existence being a reflection of them, and the lower Sefirot being aspects and extensions of their existence. The Below Place is stated to be everywhere at once, simultaneously an infinite distance away from creation and all around it, being "where everyone has always been," and The One Below All itself is described as a face of creation as a whole, "the one we can't bear to see"), Immeasurable when manifesting a form (Sees all of creation and beyond from a perspective in which it appears as a comic book, and is able to act on and interact with events from multiple points in the narrative simultaneously)

Lifting Strength: Immeasurable (Can pick up his pencil)

Striking Strength: High Outerverse level

Durability: High Outerverse level

Stamina: Infinite

Range: High Outerversal

Standard Equipment: The House of Ideas, Pencil, Ink, and Paper

Intelligence: Nigh-Omniscient as the One Above All (As the author and creator of all Marvel Comics, the One Above All has absolute knowledge and awareness of all details regarding it, being the source of all that is, all that was and all that may be, presiding over all possibilities and impossibilities, though there are still some things that elude his grasp, such as the nature of the realms higher than their own), Mindless as the One Below All (The One Below All is little more than a force of raw destruction and "a skin, repeating old lines," having only chaotic desires, but no true intelligence, and requiring a host-personality to serve as its ego, though it can seemingly manifest "masks" to interact with lesser beings for brief periods)

Weaknesses: None notable

Gallery

Marvel's first mention of the existence of a Supreme God, in Fantastic Four #72

Eternity explains that neither it nor its sibling Death are God, for while they encompass the universe, God rules all universes, in Doctor Strange #13

Thor talks about the Multiverse's cosmic hierarchy, and how God must be immensely higher than all his creations combined, in Thor Annual #14

The first comicbook mention of The Living Tribunal being merely the servant of an even higher being, in Fantastic Four Annual #23

The Living Tribunal explains that his authority "Comes from on high.", in Warlock and the Infinity Watch #1

The first comicbook usage of the title "The One Above All", in The Infinity War #2

The Protege attempted to gain absolute power and become the new One Above All, in Guardians of the Galaxy #50

A possible manifestation of The One Above All, in Incredible Hulk Volume 1, #-1.

The Fantastic Four's encounter with God in the form of Jack Kirby, in Fantastic Four #511.

Odin mentions the existence of a supreme God, in Thor Annual (2000).

The first physical appearance of The One Above All, talking with Peter Parker, in The Sensational Spider-Man #40.

The One Above All manifesting as "Jack"/The Fulcrum/an afterlife bartender, and talking with Sersi and Tiamut the Dreaming Celestial, in The Eternals Volume 4 (2008-2009).

Mephisto explains that The Living Tribunal isn't God, but merely "The biggest kid in all the playgrounds. And if he knows the Principal, he's not exactly chatty about it.", in Journey into Mystery #627.

The One Above All makes a personal statement in the Ultimates issue #100.

The first direct mention of The One Below All, in Immortal Hulk #6.

What is likely The One Above All takes the guise of a bald parrot and confronts Dimitrios in a void beyond reality, letting him know that 10,000 years in the past, his plan has already failed.

The One Below All confronts the Hulks in its Below-Place in Immortal Hulk #50.

The One Above All discusses their own nature with the Blue Marvel, in Defenders: Beyond #5.

Notable Matchups

Victories:

Losses:

Inconclusive:

Discussions

Discussion threads involving The One Above All