Is Marvel’s Version of GOD Really The ‘One Above All’?

One of the most time-honored traditions of comic book fandom is the versus debate. Fans and creators alike love to imagine and argue about who would win between their favorite characters, and sometimes this can even lead to some pretty great fanart. Whenever people are debating who the strongest characters are there’s one character everyone can agree ranks at the very top of the list- the Marvel Universe’s omnipotent creator God, The-One-Above-All.

Explaining just who The-One-Above-All (or TOAA for short) is a bit difficult, because he isn’t really a fleshed out character — but more of an avatar for the writer themselves. TOAA rarely shows up in a physical form in Marvel Comics, but when he does he typically appears in a disguise or proxy. The most notable exception to this rule was Fantastic Four #511, where TOAA instead took on the appearance of Lee’s collaborator (and comics legend in his own right) Jack Kirby. But despite appearing as a literal God who can do anything, there’s one question about TOAA that has never been definitively answered by the comics: Is The-One-Above-All really God?

Related: Spider-Man & The X-MEN Fight The Hindu Gods (Wait, What?)

The most obvious proof that TOAA is the actual monotheistic ‘God’ of Marvel’s Universe is that, from a meta perspective, TOAA represents Marvel Comics writers and editors intervening on their creation. DC’s Animal Man did something very similar in the ’90s when Writer Grant Morrison had Animal Man literally meet his own writer. And while metafiction is a consistent theme in Morrison’s bibliography, Marvel uses it much more sparingly, so when TOAA does show up in a comic, it’s much more significant.

The second in-universe explanation for TOAA’s godhood is that it’s been confirmed as true by the strongest entities in the multiverse. Next to TOAA is another being known as the Living Tribunal, the most powerful being in Marvel canon (but not powerful enough to avoid being cut out of Avengers Endgame) who usually serves as a cosmic judge sent to enforce the laws of reality. The Living Tribunal answers only to TOAA and is regarded by him and every other abstract entity in Marvel as being omnipotent and literally “above” them all in terms of power and importance. Other abstract entities, including Death and Eternity, have similarly confirmed that TOAA is Above all other beings in the cosmic hierarchy in the Multiverse.

Comic books aren’t always consistent, and there are a few counterarguments to TOAA’s claims to godhood. The first one is that The-One-Above-All literally being God doesn’t account for other, similar beings who appear to be omnipotent as well, the most famous of which being The Beyonder, named because he apparently comes from “Beyond” the normal Marvel Multiverse. 2015’s Secret Wars crossover, possibly the most ambitious Event comic ever published, introduced an entire race of Beyonders who were so powerful they could permanently kill the Living Tribunal, and despite these aliens threatening all of existence The-One-Above-All was nowhere to be found in that comic.

There’s also the fact that several people in-universe actually doubt TOAA’s godhood. During the 2011 crossover Fear Itself the demon Mephisto makes the claim that The-One-Above-All wasn’t really God but just “the biggest kid in all the playgrounds.” Most recently in the 2019 book The Infinity Ending (intended by Thanos creator Jim Starlin as a grand finale for the character) Thanos himself manages to seize power from The-One-Above-All, and in a conversation with the Living Tribunal TOAA himself implies that he isn’t really omnipotent.

Is The-One-Above-All the real God of Marvel, or is it someone else? No one has ever outright confirmed or denied TOAA’s godhood, and the only people to argue against it in-universe are Mephisto (a literal Satan archetype) and Thanos. But The Infinity Ending has never been confirmed as canon either, and most of what Jim Starlin has written for Thanos post The Infinity Gauntlet tends to get ignored by the rest of Marvel.

The truth is that from a story perspective whether TOAA is actually the real “God” doesn’t matter. TOAA has always been an ambiguous, all-powerful figure in the Marvel cosmology and directly confirming who he really is would take away his luster. The-One-Above-All certainly appears to be God, and so far he’s done a pretty good job as the omnipotent ruler of Marvel’s multiverse.