Monitors (DC)

The Monitors are a powerful group of beings from DC Comics.

History

Origin

The Monitors were a powerful group of cosmic beings with ties to the Multiverse. According to the Book of Limbo, the primal origins of the Monitors race were traced to the time of creation itself when there was only a single Monitor. This was a being that was so immense that it was bigger than entire universes and thus beyond comprehension by even superpowered beings. It was an abstract intelligence and among the biggest lifeforms ever encountered that acted as a living conscious void. At that point, a flaw was discovered at the heart of Monitor perfection and a concept was created in order to contain this flaw. An examination later revealed that within this flaw were terrifying unforseen complexities and complications. Further magnification revealed a structure of infinissmal rippling manifolds that contained germ-like processes that thrived and multiplied. These were in fact the various universes within the muliverse that were growing inside the Monitor. As a result, a probe was sent that was designed to blend with its surroundings and investigate. It managed to make contact and lead to the Monitor discovering something it had never encountered before which was a chaotic mass of events within the flaw that consisted of stories of the lives as well as deaths of heroes along with villains. There existed no precedent for this encounter of stories and there was no understanding of how much damage they could cause to an immense awareness without any limits or definition. Lacking any defense, the Monitor was blinded and the probe split into two before withdrawing after which the flaw was sealed with divine metals. Though seemingly safe, the effects leads to the remains of that first contact leads to the Overmonitor being overwhelmed at the thought of a story which spread as if it were a contagion. This led to the emergence of a race of hyper-gods that were descended directly from the first immense unknowable Monitor. (Final Crisis: Superman Beyond v1 #1)

Among the greatest of their kind was Dax Novu who held a brilliant rebellious intellect that allowed him to map the Bleed where he brought its knowledge along with its riches to the Monitor-beings. However, he became corrupted by its power and thus showed the dark truth of his kind as being celestial parasites that fed on the multiverse where they fed on it dry and gave it a slow death. By showing them their true nature, the Monitors shunned Novu and locked him within the Pit of the Sepulchre of the Abyss. However, he entered into his exile, Novu of the Monitor beings forged a weapon of cosmic armor known as the thought-robot to be used against Mandrakk. This served as the dark secret of their kind in existence with this being a guilt held by them and they believed it to be their responsibility. (Final Crisis: Superman Beyond v1 #2)

52

The Monitors observing Rayner and Troy in Ion v1 #11.

The existence of the Monitors was traced to the first Multiverse where only two such beings existed that were known as the Monitor of the Positive Matter Universe and the Anti-Monitor who was formed from the Anti-Matter Universe. Both these beings were involved in a multiversal war that became known as the Crisis of the Infinite Earth's where both were killed.

Despite their death, Alexander Luthor Jr. worked to restore the original Multiverse through the use of a tower he had constructed from the Anti-Monitors body. This act triggered a seed programming that created a Monitor for each of the 52 Earth's. Thus, a new race of 52 different Monitors were formed and worked to protect the Multiverse from corruption by working as a unified community. Each member was assigned their own world and only differed slightly in appearance. (Countdown v1 #40) The gathered Monitors began to watch the activities across the newly re-formed Multiverse. (Brave New World v1 #1)

In the Earth-48 reality, the Monitors were responsible for cultivating the existence of the Forerunners. This reality consisted of the Nine Houses that populated the worlds of the Sol system that warred with one another as part of a combat treaty on a devastated Earth. The survivors of these skirmishes later interbred and led to the emergence of a new hybrid race called the Forerunners. Initially, the Nine Houses intended to eliminate the Forerunners but were stopped by the Monitors who took them under their care and intended to use them as their agents. Unknown to the Forerunners, their genetic makeup prevent any member of their race from harming a Monitor though they willingly provided their best to serve their masters in their goals of policing the Multiverse.

The Monitors began observing all the inhabitants of the Multiverse with Monarch seeking to oppose them. This led to Monarch discovering the Bleed and learning that his foes were unable to track him in that dimension. As a result, he began to make his plans within the Bleed to combat the interference and plans of the Monitors. (Ion v1 #10) One of their number would attempt to eliminate Kyle Rayner claiming he along with others were anomalies that threatened the Multiverse but was recalled by his brothers who stated that they would conduct a joint action in the future. (Ion v1 #12)

The division of the Multiverse became a source of debate amongst the Monitors. Some believed that in order to avoid a crisis then the various universes needed to be separate from one another. Such a plan was threatened though by the 'dimension hoppers' and those that had returned from Earth. Thus, Solomon initiated a plan of eliminating these individuals though secretly he planned for all the Monitors to be killed to be merged with him to become one with the Source. Meanwhile, another of their number who came to be known as 'Bob' looked to find Ray Palmer who was set to be at the heart of the coming crisis. To accomplish this, 'Bob' looked to gather a team of Multiversal anomalies and use them to find Palmer so that he could be eliminated. (Countdown v1 #17) The Monitor called Solomon then decided to act on his own in eliminating rogue anomalies in the Multiverse. This saw him targeting Duela Dent and murdering the Joker's Daughter despite the efforts of the Red Hood Jason Todd who was warned to be another target of his kind. (Countdown v1 #51)

Around this time, the Monitors came to lose sight of their brother who had departed with Donna Troy and Jason Todd. Furthermore, they noted that Ray Palmer had disappeared and that the Deep Six had been murdered by the New God Killer. (Countdown v1 #38)

'Bob' then set about his plan to kill Palmer when he was confronted by his kin the Monitors. During this moment, Solomon murdered 'Bob' in an attempt to reclaim his energies with him revealing that this was an attempt to create a single Monitor to unite the Multiverse. This led to his fellow Monitors being appalled at his actions with them arguing with one another. It was the that they were confronted by Monarch and his army with them being ready to achieve a victory in the war between their two sides. (Countdown v1 #17)

Final Crisis

At some point Zillo Valla began collecting various incarnations of Superman from throughout the universe in order to deal with the threat of Mandrakk. Among these included Superman, Captain Marvel, Ultraman, Overman and Allen Adams from their respective Earth's where she promised them their hearts desire. (Final Crisis: Superman Beyond v1 #1)

Ultimately, the existence of the Monitors ended during the events of the Final Crisis when Superman used the Miracle Machine. This act restored the Multiverse to a state before the interference of Darkseid. In the aftermath Nix Uotan returned to his kind where he provided his report on his findings. By this point, the damage to the Orrery of Worlds caused by Darkseid's fall was under repair and the Monitors began to consider replacements for their fallen members. Uotan reported that it was the germ-creatures that had re-established the Orrery, also known as the Multiverse, to symmetry and noted their accomplishments. As such, he advised immediate withdrawal of all Monitors and an end to their exploitations of the Multiverse. Though the Multiverse was restored, some such as Monitor Tahoteh believed that their story was toxic and needed to be ended though others instead ignored his words with them instead seeking to reinstate Nix Uotan. However, Uotan condemned his fellow Monitors and stated that the Multiverse deserved to be free from their kind's interference. Thus, afterwards, the entirety of the Monitors race simply disappeared as a result of Superman's wish of a happy ending. Though all the Monitors faded from existence, Nix Uotan was returned to Earth in his Human form thus he became the last of their kind. (Final Crisis v1 #7) With the destruction of the Monitors, a new race formed to help patrol the Multiverse with these being the Tempus Fuginauts. (The Unexpected v1 #6)

Overview

Their nature on feeding on the multiverse meant that the Monitors acted as vampire gods. (Final Crisis: Superman Beyond v1 #2)

Once the 52 universes were formed, each of the Monitors created were all identical in appearance. However, it was believed that the events following their creation led to each evolving as well as acquiring increasingly divergent identities, physicality and disposition.

The Monitors of Nil were considered masters of the overvoid. (Final Crisis: Superman Beyond v1 #1) The circle of Monitors were responsible for the placement of each of their kind on target universes and was able to either exile a member or reinstate them. (Final Crisis v1 #7) Monitors were exceptionally skilled at reading the smallest nuance in a person's behaviour thus giving them insight into a person's mental processes. (Countdown v1 #26) They had knowledge of both anti-life and the Bleed but the formers true understanding was still elusive to them whilst the latter bedeviled them as they did not know when intrusions from it would appear. (Countdown v1 #39) In their culture, it was given a different name amongst their kind as they called it Ultramenstruum which they did consider the Bleed to be a universal medicine and the secret substance of life itself. A single drop of it was akin to holding ultimate power either for healing or annihilation. However, it was incapable of being touched, held or bottled by anyone except the Monitors. (Final Crisis: Superman Beyond v1 #1) After their emergence, it was said that the killing of a Monitor by one of their own would lead to a merger of their energies. However, as the Multiverse grew more different, this was no longer the case and the death of a Monitor led to their energy being lost. (Countdown v1 #17)

They charged themselves with keeping watch over the Multiverse since the Crisis where they identified and eliminated anomalies that could lead to its unravelling. (Supergirl v5 #18) The Monitors observed the multiverse from a multiversal nexus that was in a unique adjunct within the timestream which existed everywhere and everywhere at once. It acted as the hub of a wheel from which their kind could observe all of the multiverse except for the Bleed. (Countdown v1 #39) They also had 5555 different words for nothing. (Final Crisis: Superman Beyond v1 #2) Their classification system involved giving each universe a number and its own coordinates. (Final Crisis: Superman Beyond v1 #1) The inhabitants of the multiverse were seen as germs by the Monitors themselves and the planets they inhabit as the germ-worlds. (Final Crisis: Superman Beyond v1 #2) Ideominers were able to construct artificial universes through harvesting stations located in concept space. (The Multiversity Guidebook v1 #1)

The Prime Monitor came to be regarded as a myth and legend among the race of Monitors. (Countdown v1 #17)

As a collective group, they had a their disposal a large range of resources. Agents such as the Dark Angel were used to prod and provoke anomalies in order to determine their veracity in their world. (Supergirl v5 #18) They were known to manipulate the universe and engage in breeding programs with the express purpose of creating living weapons. Such experiments led to the creation of the Forerunners that had a breeding failsafe in them that prevented them from harming a Monitor with this being engineered in them to prevent them from ever turning against their masters. (Countdown v1 #45) Among the weapons of last resort used by their kind was the Shadow Demons. (Countdown to Adventure v1 #1)

Their advanced technology allowed individual Monitors to craft items such as a chrono paralyzer that was able to freeze time in select locations yet leave its wearer and those they deigned to be immune to its effects. Its power allowed it to effect a single world in the Multiverse whilst the rest remained unaffected. (Final Crisis: Superman Beyond v1 #1) They were also able to create Sprites that served as an artificial intelligence for their machine constructs. The greatest creation was that of Dax Novu who forged a thought-robot capable of instantly adapting to counter any future threat. This sentinel-suit was designed with the singular purpose of protecting all of existence against the ultimate enemy. (Final Crisis: Superman Beyond v1 #2)

Monitor vessels were extradimensional boats made of frozen music and their capabilities allowed them to vibrate at different frequencies in order to access the various worlds in the Multiverse that occupied the same spot but were separated from one another by a different pitch. (Superman v4 #15) They held a variety of vessels at their disposal which included Carriers, Destroyers, Tankers and Explorers. Though from humanoid's perspective, these were all considered aspects of Monitor nanotechnology that included: (Final Crisis: Superman Beyond v1 #1)

• Destroyers : the most feared Monitor vessels that were massive hell-machines able to sterilize entire universes with self-evolving Reality-Blitzing missile, Armageddon Activators and Contagion Troops that were used to disinfect fatally contaminated continua. (Multiversity #1)
• Carriers : large, vast, multipurpose vehicles used by the Monitors to convey communications, materials and equipment between the Worlds of the Orrery. (Multiversity #1)
• Tanker : these huge craft were sent to collect or precious Bleed and other materials from the Orrery with these resources being returned to the Monitor Sphere whilst a string of seed gravitational singularities anchored solids, liquids and gases behind them resembling small planets or suns. (Multiversity #1)
• Hunters : heavily armed rapid stealth killers that were used to protect Tankers from the mega-fauna indigenous to the Orrery Bleedspace and were used to contain as well as destroy outbreaks of contamination. (Multiversity #1)
• Explorers : swift scientific probes designed to recover data and though they lacked offensive capabilities they made up for this with state-of-the-art empathic navigation with a self-aware chameleon camouflage and faster-than-thought engines. (Multiversity #1)

Monitor Shiftships were powered by caged baby universes and were examples of their creators nano-tech probes designed to facilitate the investigation, maintenance and control of the Multiversal Orrery of Worlds that were microscopic in scale within the Monitor Sphere that appear immense within the Orrery. (Multiversity #1) These craft operated and were powered by the Bleed which was considered life itself. (Final Crisis: Superman Beyond v1 #2) A spacecraft of their kind was capable of moving through Bleedstorm space and between universes with only fourth dimensional vision comprehending the travel. Their vessels capabilities allowed them to even cast an overshadow onto a designate universe from the outside. The personal transport of a Monitor such as the "Ultima Thule" held an artificial intelligence with it holding 10 yottabytes of data on multiversal navigation alone. The glowing power that allowed these vessels to move through the overvoid was a Monitors own heart. Thus, a damaged vessel held only one way of replenishing its reserves which was by tapping into its Monitor. (Final Crisis: Superman Beyond v1 #1) Destroyers were capable of being dispatched to sterilize target universes and were able to evolve on their carapace reality blitzing missiles that were able to make entire races of living beings extinct. (Final Crisis: Superman Beyond v1 #2) One noted Destroyer was known as the "Echo of Midnight" and were massive compared to a Carrier with them being 70 miles long. At high speeds, an impact by them onto a planet was capable of splitting the core and mantle with the resultant act eliminating 98% of terrestrial life. (Final Crisis: Superman Beyond v1 #1)

One of the weapons they forged during God War One was the Geh-Jedollah which was known as the Genesis Box or the Absolute. It could turn a single thought and make it reality thus changing all reality according to the users will with this leading to it being called the Ultimate Destroyer and Supreme Maker. With a single word, an operator was able to remake an entire universe and to the Controllers it was referred to as the Miracle Machine. (The Green Lantern v1 #12)

A Monitor from Countdown to Final Crisis v1 #26.

Members

• Monitor :
• Tahoteh : he came to believe that his peoples story had become toxic to the Multiverse and needed to end though others such as Hermuz dismissed him as being senile. (Final Crisis v1 #7)
• Bob :
• Solomon :
• Rox Ogama :
• Zip Hermuz :
• Weeja Dell :
• Zillo Valla : female Monitor who was the lover of Dax Novu and later brought a number of Supermen of the Multiverse in order to defeat Novu after he became Mandrakk. She spoke out against him and in his anger he lashed out where he accidently killed her. (Final Crisis: Superman Beyond v1 #1-2)
• Dax Novu : male Monitor known as the Radiant One and the first son of the Monitor who was considered the bravest of the science gods. He held a brilliant yet rebellious intellect that probed the flaw in the Multiverse and had mapped its horrors as well as brought both the knowledge along with the riches of the Bleed to his kind. Novu eventually became an outcast amongst this brethren by being the dark Monitor known as Mandrakk. (Final Crisis: Superman Beyond v1 #1)
• Nix Uotan : He became the last of the Monitors after his kind faded from existence. (Final Crisis v1 #7)
• Mandrakk :

Notes

• The Monitors were created by Marv Wolfman and George Pérez where they made their first appearance in New Teen Titans v1 #21 (July 1982).
• According to Grant Morrison, each of the Monitors are named after the writer gods from different cultures. Uotan is named after Odin, Ogama on Ogma from Celtic gods, Hermuz after Hermes of the Greek pantheon and Tahoteh on Thoth of the Egyptian gods whilst Novu was after Nabu from Babylonian myth. The female names of Weeja Dell and Zillo Valla were inspired from Shalla-Bal from Stan Lee's Silver Surfer.[1]
• In an interview on IGN, it was commented that the Monitors were analogous to writers with Morrison commenting:

"Yeah, it's a bit of that. It's also the idea that they're like angels as well. For me, the cool, essential idea of all stories being real creates this great cosmology to play with. It's the notion that the white page itself is a void, and in the context of the DC Universe, well that's God or The Source. In the white page, or the void, anything can happen, everything is possible. As I dug down closer to the very root of the activity I find myself engaged in as a career, I was thinking "what is the basis of the comic book story? What actually is it?"

In the case of comic book stories, it's the war between white page and ink. And who's to say that the page might want that particular story drawn on it? [laughs] What happens if the page is a bit pissed off at the story that's drawn on it? So I thought of the page as God. The idea being that the Overvoid – as we called it in Final Crisis - of the white page as a space is sort of God. And it's condensing stories out of itself because it finds inside its own gigantic white space, self-absorbed pristine consciousness, it finds this little stain or mark, this DC Multiverse somebody has 'drawn'. And it starts investigating, and it's just shocked with what it sees, with all the crazy activity and signifying going on in there. It then tries to protect itself from the seething contact with 'story' and imagines a race of beings, 'angels' or 'monitors' (another word for angel, of course) to function as an interface between its own giant eternal magnificence and this tiny, weird crawling anthill of life and significance that is the DC Multiverse."

Alternate Versions

Ray-Lan vs. Superman from Smallville: Alien #3.

• In Smallville Season 11 (2012), the Monitors appeared in the setting of the comic continuation of the live-action television series. They were shown as being inhabitants of the Multiverse where they sought to maintain order. It was shown that their society was divided into numerous classes such as Architects or special Weavers that could manipulate the Bleed that was used to erase their enemies and the powerful Omega-Monitor along with other lower classes. The Monitors were shown to be destroying alternate Earth's one by one and some of their kind held the view that they needed to hide the existence of the Multiverse to the inhabitants of these worlds. The destruction of the world's was following a set agenda though one Monitor by the name of Ray-Lan believed in accelerating this plan though this was a decision not approved by his superiors. One of them were responsible for the destruction of Earth-2 with one of their kind following that planet's only survivor Chloe Sullivan to Earth. She attempted to meet her counterpart but her body was riddled with the Bleed that was the Anti-Matter of the Multiverse causing the two to be repelled by one another. The Monitor managed to track her down and ultimately killed her where he revealed that Earth itself would be destroyed. Following that point, the body of a Monitor known as Ray-Lan fell from the sky in Russia several months later where the unconscious being was taken for kept locked away by the government. The Monitor was later imprisoned when Lex Luthor uncovered his existence and where Ray-Lan revealed his name who offered to remove the gaps in his memory. Superman later arrived at the facility that was being defended by Rocket Red's when Ray-Lan managed to free himself. The Monitor proceeded in killing the soldiers when he encountered Luthor who asked Ray-Lan why he was killing people to which he responded that if Lex did not understand then he did not deserve to live. It was only the timely arrival of Superman who managed to wound the Monitor with Ray-Lan escaping though he managed to wound Kal-El as well. He later returned to his space ship at Chernobyl where he was once more confronted by Clark Kent and Lex Luthor where he revealed his intention to destroy the planet as it had outlived its usefulness. On board the ship, he managed to knock Clark Kent outside the vessel whereupon Ray-Lan proceeded to drown Luthor. However, Superman arrived where he destroyed the Monitor's arm cannon and proceeds to destroy his vessel. At some point in the battle, Ray-Lan was killed by some falling debris where secretly Luthor stole a communication device. A regretful apologized for not saving his foe and closed his eyes whereupon the body of the Monitor was studied by Dr. Emil Hamilton who performed an autopsy on it. Agent Diana Prince of the DEO managed to determine a piece of the Monitor's equipment was missing and at that time Lex Luthor amplified the taken communication device in order to send a signal into the Multiverse.
• In Infinite Crisis: Fight for the Multiverse (2014), the Monitors appeared in the setting of the tie-in to the MOBA video game. It was said that the Monitors were a race of beings native to the world of Nil that resided outside all realities in the Overvoid. Their existence came following the creation of the Multiverse and the Bleed where they watched the infinite Earth's and sought to protect the infinite strands of creation. It was claimed that they were a people that cared little about the existence of the inhabitants of these universes and more for the preservation of their grand order. Such was their existence until one of their kind turned against the others and became the Anti-Monitor. A Crisis emerged as a result whereby many universes were destroyed but the Anti-Monitor was defeated but at the cost of almost the entire Monitor race. From this Crisis, there existed only 52 universes left in the Multiverse that were kept in perfect balance. The only survivor of their race was Nix Uotan who detected a new Crisis emerging from an unknown menace who made use of corrupted Monitor technology and struck at Earth-48. Nix Uotan returned to his peoples homeworld in order to reactivate the machinery to help contain the damage from the Crisis. As a result, he began to seek out champion's and even villains to help combat this menace from across the Multiverse. These individuals would be charged with recovering artifacts from across the many Earth's that were being taken by the mysterious enemy to aid in their assault. Among his agents was a human female from Earth-48 who went by the name of Harbinger. In this reality, the Monitors had access to energy constructs that were able to record messages and transmit communiques across the Multiverse. They also forged orbs that glowed with light and served as a guide across the alternate universes as well as serve as a communicator with the Monitors. On their homeworld of Nil, there were spatial engines that could be used to help prevent large scale universal breaches that would damage the Multiverse.

In other media

Video games

• In Infinite Crisis, the MOBA's backstory had the Monitors being mentioned as the custodians and guardians of the Multiverse that were all killed in a great betrayal with only Nix Uotan being the only survivor of their race. He would seek to protect the various Earth's of the Multiverse where he used the Construct to manage his operations but an unknown threat emerged that began causing the Cataclysm threatening to destroy all realities. As a result of this disaster, entire worlds were shunted into the Bleed to be destroyed and the enemy subverted Monitor technology for their needs. This led to Nix Uotan assembling teams of Protectors from the Multiverse as champions to combat this foe. Champions fought on islands displaced into the Bleed where they participated in the Protector Trials.

Appearances

• Ion v1:
• Countdown v1:
• Final Crisis: Superman Beyond v1:

External Link

• DC Database Entry
• Comicvine Entry
• Wikipedia Entry

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