@deaditegonzo said:
Also, if you consider what Darkseid says, that his nearly omnipotent true form has never been seen, then that actually makes a lot of sense that he would need help with Imperiex, or get punched around by Superman.
See, I disagree that it makes sense. The reason I brought up being like the Anti-life Entity and Imperiex was to show that Darkseid has, at various times, been put up against true cosmic powerhouses, and every time it was shown that he was simply not anywhere near their level. He is sort of like the New Gods equivalent of Dr. Doom in this regard. He has ambitions of playing in the major leagues, and even has a tech base and intellect that sometimes allows him to approach them, but at a personal level, he just isn't that high up the food chain.
See, to me, claiming that the "real" Darkseid is actually some fantastically powerful multiversal entity, and that every previous appearance wasn't actually him, would be kind of like taking Dr. Doom and claiming that the "real" Dr. Doom is actually a cosmic cube entity. It just doesn't work. There are too many instances that show pretty clearly that he's not at that level, and we also know that if he was, he would have used that power to conquer the Earth (and probably quite a lot besides). And claiming that he simply chose not to use such power is completely at odds with his character.
That's the same problem with Darkseid; if he had that kind of power, he would have conquered New Genesis and Earth ages ago. There would have been no need for the pact, nor for much of anything else. He could have simply won. There is also no reason why he would allow himself to be beaten by other entities if he didn't have to. Maintaining his own image of supremacy is actually very important to him, and all these various losses and setbacks tarnish that image. Allowing this would be severely out of character for Darkseid. Trying to shoe-horn in this kind of power for Darkseid throws him completely out of sync with the rest of the New Gods mythos, and is actually pretty disrespectful to the character and every writer who has worked on him, including Jack Kirby. It creates too many plot holes, and there is just not enough actual, direct evidence of that kind of power to make me willing to accept them.
And even if there is a "real" Darkseid, it is a being that has no real appearances, no real feats, and is so different from the Darkseid we know as a personality, that it is basically pointless to even bring it up. Even if it is only "avatars" we have seen before, they would still be the only way we could meaningfully discuss the character anyway in a battle context.
He makes this claim again to John Stewart (and Anarky as ive said) and mentions that he has Avatars all over doing various things. So basically, he has tiny fractions of his power fulfilling his various tasks.
I believe you are actually thinking of Vykin. And DS actually says there that he only creates them when "necessary," and that he actually prefers not to use avatars. This would actually suggest that most of his appearances are the real deal, unless given a very clear reason to believe otherwise.
And I think what Morrison was going for was following that line of thinking to its conclusion, that Darkseid had his Avatars fulfilling various tasks that the culmination of which all came together with him birthing his true form into our dimension and enslaving all life with the ALE (if thats the case, its like a 30 year plan with various set backs and minor victories).
Maybe. If so, he fortunately wasn't specific enough to do irreparable damage to the character.
I will admit to not having much respect for Morrison's conception of the New Gods, and Darkseid in particular. I remember reading an interview with him concerning Final Crisis, and he claimed to have been reading the Kirby Omnibi to "channel Kirby," but it seemed pretty clear to me all he was really doing was trying to replace Kirby's established takes on the characters with his own. He actually referred to Darkseid as the "God of Evil." I really do not know how anyone could read Kirby's works and come away with something that trite.
I'm not even a big fan of Kirby as a writer, and a lot of the 4th World Omnibus I find very boring, but the ideas behind it all are interesting, and Darkseid is certainly a bit more complex than "God of Evil."
The only way the Beyond 3D story makes sense in the context of Final Crisis is that, up until Superman defeated Mandrakk (in a timeless place, its worth noting), he was the greatest threat to the multiverse.
I always find it funny how time always passes in timeless places.
Yes, Mandrakk was obviously the greatest threat to the multiverse. It is pretty explicitly stated that he is the "ultimate foe" or some such, not Darkseid. If Darkseid's fall perhaps cracked a hole in reality that allowed Mandrakk to feed on it, that would make sense to me, and wouldn't even be hard to believe, given Superman of Earth 2 and Superboy Prime were capable of punching cracks in reality, so to some extent, it's not even as hard as it sounds.
And even a weakened Spectre has a high position in DC. Its still not at all comparable to Superman heat visioning Darkseid to death, for example.
A weakened Spectre is still powerful, but not so powerful that he should be able to reduce a multiversal power to a pile of bones in moments, or that said multiversal power would require being rescued by an even higher power than that.
And anyway, its never said that Spectre is the one who cannot kill Darkseid, it literally says he's is "NECESSARY", which makes him an essential cosmic entity and fits with Morrisons Darkseid,
Morrison's Darkseid actually contradicts this, because at the end of Final Crisis, Darkseid is killed (by Superman; go figure), and the universe endures. Darkeid was also killed years earlier by Orion, in the Source Wall, and the universe endured.
The only one literally saying Darkseid is necessary there is Darkseid himself. He is hardly unbiased.
It also explains why in Legion of Superheroes when his older, calcifying self removed his younger self from the timeline, the universe and all of time collapsed from the vacuum, only the 30th Century was saved because old Darkseid threw up a time "breakwater".
From what I recall, that story arc basically said moving any powerful entity around in the time stream would cause something like that. I generally like D&A, but I really don't know what they were trying to pull with that, but even with that happening, they also clearly show the younger Darkseid being forcibly kicked back through the boomtube by Superboy and a handful of Legionnaires, and unable to prevent it, and the elder Darkseid is ultimately taken out by (guess who) Superman.
Having cosmic importance in comics simply doesn't equate with having great cosmic power. Taking out Atlez in Marvel would collapse the entire multiverse, yet Atlez was also so weak that a pair of Thanos clones were a lethal threat to him.
With Darkseid, even the stories like the Legion arc and Final Crisis, which look to make him out to be such a cosmically significant character, still do not show him having enough personal power to deal with characters beyond the Superman tier. Even in Final Crisis, how am I supposed to believe that a true multiversal powerhouse cannot survive Superman's singing? Claims of the "real" Darkseid's nature are somewhat obtuse and pretty speculative, as well as contradicted by a lot of other things, including Morrison's own finale. Darkseid being killed by Superman is explicit and on-panel.
Plus, he used to stand toe to toe with Silver Age Super Heroes and they were nothing before him, but even though COIE didnt change him, he is suddenly below Post-Crisis heroes?
Outside of Great Darkness Saga, the only mainstream DC hero I remember PC Darkseid fighting was Firestorm, who beat him in one move by deflecting his own Omega Force back at him.
I've noticed a pretty common belief that Darkseid (pre and post crisis) has encountered and defeated the JLA numerous times, and it just isn't true. PC Darkseid in particular actually had very few combat showings, particularly against anyone noteworthy (although he does have one good durability showing against Mantis). Two of them are actually losses, and in the Hunger Dogs he has a brief scuffle with Orion, which he gets the worse of, before calling upon his guards to take out Orion for him.
This is definitely, DEFINITELY, an interpretation, that cannot be 100% proven on panel, although it does fit with the last Canon showing of the character and pulls all the pieces together. Your interpretation is equally valid IMO, if only because of the reboot, we never get to see the supposed full version of Darkseid again
Maybe, but I simply feel that trying to bring the supposed "real" version of Darkseid into the battle forums is ultimately not useful, if nothing else. There is not enough concrete evidence that it is even real, let alone what its true limits, abilities, or motivations are. The Darkseid we actually have concrete, usable information on is the one that actually made appearances in the comics, even if all of those appearances do get clearly retconned into being avatars.
(hope they go that route in the New52 though, show that glorified Hulk monstrosity was just an Avatar and still kicked the JLA's arse).
I think they need to focus more on the writing. Dr. Doom is an awesome villain because he's Doom, not because he can crush the Silver Surfer between his fingers. Darkseid should be an awesome villain because he's Darkseid. Whether or not he can solo Superman shouldn't actually diminish his character that much, IMO, if he's done right. Kirby never actually portrayed him as having anything like the insane power levels that Silver Age Superman sometimes displayed, but people loved the character anyway.
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