The DCAU's mythological deities

[Lorendiac]

So yesterday night I was watching a few episodes of the "Justice League" series, and I refreshed my memory of Season One's "Paradise Lost," wherein Diana goes home to face her mom for the first time since stealing some high-powered artifacts from a temple and flying off into the outside world to become "Wonder Woman" -- and thus a founding member of the Justice League.

(I'd completely forgotten that at one point, during her flight back home, Diana is toying with the idea of claiming she hadn't been "gone" at all; she'd just been lurking quietly in her room for the past eight months, minding her own business! )

It turns out that just before she lands on the island, Felix Faust has been turning every other Amazon into stone, and he uses that as leverage to get Diana to do something for him. One thing leads to another -- four of the male Leaguers end up on Themyscira to help defeat Faust and the god Hades -- and Diana is finally exiled from the island because she deliberately broke the law about never helping any man to set foot on the sacred ground of Themyscira.

Anyway, here's the main question that's nagging at me at the moment:

Was there any other episode of any DCAU series that ever stated or heavily implied that any of Earth's mythological gods, other than the Graeco-Roman pantheon, "really existed" in that world?

Because I suddenly find myself wondering if maybe the Graeco-Roman set -- Zeus, Hades, Ares, Athena, and so forth -- were really "all there was" in the way of "gods and goddesses" who had spent thousands of years taking an active interest in that Earth? Even though most of the local human race had never worshipped them (at least, not under their Greek or Roman names) at any given time -- as far as we know?

Of course I know that in the regular DCU (at least, pre-New 52) we've seen "gods" from several other mythologies appear in various comic books over the decades, making it clear that Zeus and his buddies on Olympus don't hold an exclusive franchise or anything, but is there any solid evidence that the same situation pertains to the Earth of the DCAU?

[Outside_85]

Hmm, outside of purely fictional entities, I am sorry to say that no, I don't remember any other types of mythological deities being real or not.
Besides Hades appearing twice, we only had Hermes appearing once and Poseidon appearing as an Atlantean king.

We did have:
New Gods (by the boat load)
Echultu (or Snake-Face as Grundy called him) and the Old Ones (thinly veiled copies of the Lovecraftian monsters, that were worshipped on Thanagar as gods)
Amazo...who was pretty much a god-liken being when he eventually returned to Earth
Eclipso; but he was heavily rewritten loosing the divine angle he used to have
The Spectre; made an appearance in the comic accompanying the cartoon
Etrigan

I don't remember Batman or Superman dealing with the subject of mythology or gods more than a handful of times, and that was the New Gods, Etrigan or that thing Superman and Dr. Fate fought.
If we move out of what is considered the traditional DCAU and look at the Teen Titans cartoon, we could add Trigon as the incarnation of all evil...basically Satan of every path of faith.

[1505627]

there's that thing deadman talks to. and the prince adam legend

[Volkditty]

I don't know the official DC position on it, but it could be explained the same way Marvel deals with Thor and Norse mythology: Just because they call themselves gods and were worshiped at one point doesn't necessarily make them gods. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, so they may just be very advanced aliens or extra-dimensional beings that have carved out a cushy niche for themselves on our earth. There are some characters, such as Mister Terrific and Doctor Mid-Nite who hold to their beliefs (atheism and Catholicism, respectively) even in the face of experiences that seem to directly contradict their ideology. I think even characters like the Spectre, who is supposed to the divine agent of retribution for the Judea-Christain God has some ambiguity about where his power actually comes from.

Note: I haven't personally read Marvel's Thor stuff, I'm just repeating an explanation that I read elsewhere and might be getting everything wrong.

[Outside_85]

Note: I haven't personally read Marvel's Thor stuff, I'm just repeating an explanation that I read elsewhere and might be getting everything wrong.

If I am not messing it up, I think it was mostly Jack Kirby who was into the whole 'aliens as gods' thing (Thor was his starting point and it ended up with the New Gods and all that). Nowadays, very little of the Kirby science/tech seems to remain in the Thor comics save for how they all dress.

[Lorendiac]

Hmm, outside of purely fictional entities, I am sorry to say that no, I don't remember any other types of mythological deities being real or not.
Besides Hades appearing twice, we only had Hermes appearing once and Poseidon appearing as an Atlantean king.

We did see some of the other Olympians over the years. For instance: In the JLU episode "Hawk and Dove," the story started with Hephaestus completing Ares's special order for a big, scary, walking suit of armor called the Annihilator. (I keep thinking of it as a "killer robot," even though it probably wasn't a "robot" in the strictest sense of the word.) And for all I know, I may be forgetting a few other times when Olympians at least got cameos. (Anyway, if we grant the existence of such Olympians as Hades and Hermes, it's reasonable to assume that all the other Olympian gods are "equally real" in that continuity -- even the ones who may only have gotten mentioned in dialogue we heard from Wonder Woman and her mother and other Amazons, such as "Hera" and "Athena.")

We did have:
New Gods (by the boat load)

I remembered that, but they aren't part of any proud old home-grown terrestrial mythos that I ever heard of.

Echultu (or Snake-Face as Grundy called him) and the Old Ones (thinly veiled copies of the Lovecraftian monsters, that were worshipped on Thanagar as gods)

Same comment as above -- Cthulhu (as I always think of him ) and his buddies were further proof that there were godlike entities who had spent lots of time dominating mortals elsewhere in the DCAU, but not that they had ever been based on Earth -- nor are they mentioned in any "authentic old myths" I ever ran across here on Earth.

Amazo...who was pretty much a god-liken being when he eventually returned to Earth

Yeah, but it's not the same thing as "a bunch of ancient myths had more truth in them than most residents of 21st Century DCAU Earth actually realize!"

Eclipso; but he was heavily rewritten loosing the divine angle he used to have

Yeah -- basically a collection of the evil, vengeful spirits of a bunch of dead snake-men, right?

The Spectre; made an appearance in the comic accompanying the cartoon

Interesting. I wasn't really thinking of the related comics when I started this thread, and offhand, I'm not even sure whether I've read that particular story, much less how much detail (if any) it may have provided about The Spectre's place in a heavenly chain of command or whatever . . .

Etrigan

I suspect there were also other times in the DCAU when "demons" were mentioned and/or depicted -- but "demon" is a pretty vague word; offhand, I don't recall Etrigan (or Jason Blood) ever specifying just which mythological underworld/hell/whatever is the true "home turf" of Etrigan when he is not manifesting himself on the surface of DCAU Earth.

If we move out of what is considered the traditional DCAU and look at the Teen Titans cartoon, we could add Trigon as the incarnation of all evil...basically Satan of every path of faith.

I know what you mean, although in my branch of Christianity (and I think most others?), we take it for granted that Satan does not have a physical body and thus could not seduce a woman and get her pregnant with his daughter. But since, as you acknowledge, the Teen Titans wasn't really a DCAU show, I'll just wave that one aside for now.

P.S. You've reminded me of how, in the two-part episode "Hearts and Minds," Despero was basically claiming to be a prophet acting in the name of The Flame of Py'tar. It turned out The Flame was a real entity with godlike powers; it was just that Despero's behavior in its name ("I must conquer everybody with fire and sword and form a police state to keep them all obeying my every whim") wasn't quite what The Flame originally had in mind as the correct way to make the world of Kalanor a better place . . .

But of course The Flame of Py'tar had no particular interest in Planet Earth and isn't part of our old myths.

[Lorendiac]

there's that thing deadman talks to. and the prince adam legend

Deadman -- Rama Kushna? Been a long time since I watched whatever JLU episode it was that had Deadman prominently featured; I'll have to check that to see if he and Rama Kushna have any one-on-one conversations or whatever.

Prince Adam? I'm drawing a blank on that one.

Closest I can come is "The Viking Prince" -- his name was Prince Jon. A little hasty Googling reminds me that he was supposed to be cursed by Odin for falling in love with a Valkyrie-- I'll need to dust off the relevant JLU DVD and double-check on that one, too, so I can see exactly what (if anything) was "explicitly mentioned" about the status of the Norse Gods in the DCAU!

[Lorendiac]

I don't know the official DC position on it, but it could be explained the same way Marvel deals with Thor and Norse mythology: Just because they call themselves gods and were worshiped at one point doesn't necessarily make them gods. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, so they may just be very advanced aliens or extra-dimensional beings that have carved out a cushy niche for themselves on our earth. There are some characters, such as Mister Terrific and Doctor Mid-Nite who hold to their beliefs (atheism and Catholicism, respectively) even in the face of experiences that seem to directly contradict their ideology. I think even characters like the Spectre, who is supposed to the divine agent of retribution for the Judea-Christain God has some ambiguity about where his power actually comes from.

Note: I haven't personally read Marvel's Thor stuff, I'm just repeating an explanation that I read elsewhere and might be getting everything wrong.

If I am not messing it up, I think it was mostly Jack Kirby who was into the whole 'aliens as gods' thing (Thor was his starting point and it ended up with the New Gods and all that). Nowadays, very little of the Kirby science/tech seems to remain in the Thor comics save for how they all dress.

On the "real origins" of Marvel's version of the Norse gods (and by extension this might apply to other "mythological pantheons of the MU" as well):

I don't know for sure, either, but here's something I typed out a few years ago when I was trying to remember an explanation I had seen somewhere else (maybe mentioned quickly in a magazine article or something) many years earlier!

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

One story that I've seen, maybe more than once over the years, goes like this: Way back in the Silver Age, Stan Lee laid down the law for the benefit of his associates at the Bullpen. He said something along the following lines (paraphrased in my own words, working from rumors I've seen):

"The Asgardians are a bunch of nonhuman immigrants from some other corner of time and space who ended up on Earth, and were a) so incredibly powerful, and b) so susceptible to the power of human imaginations for some reason, that they ended up taking on the roles of the Norse Gods and Goddesses from the legends that were already springing up across Scandinavia. That was probably a few thousand years ago. After all this time, Thor and Loki and the others probably have just about hypnotized themselves into actually thinking they are Supernatural Beings who were born and raised on Midgard -- or in nearby Asgard -- and have been around practically since the Dawn of Time."

Somewhere I saw a claim that something along those general lines was actually inserted into a comic book published back around the 1960s, in order to have that excuse "on the record" in case Marvel was ever accused by angry parents of "promoting paganism" or something by having Thor, an Avenger, run around calling himself "The God of Thunder" all the time.

I don't know if that is actually true. And if it did happen, I don't know if they printed it as dialogue in a story, or just as a one-paragraph-excuse buried in the middle of a letter column in case they ever needed to dust it off and use it to "defend themselves," or what!

I recall that Warren Ellis's scripts explicitly mentioned that version of the background of the Asgardians during his brief run on the Thor title in the mid-90s.

And I think a variation of it was referred to by Loki in a bitter speech in "Earth X" or one of the sequels in the "Earth X" version of the future of the Marvel Universe.

However, I suspect that most of the writers who have followed in Stan's footsteps over the years as they worked with Thor (and/or other Asgardian characters) have either ignored this idea entirely (if they ever heard of it in the first place?) or else blatantly contradicted it. Heck, if the Asgardians have really been doing what they do for a few thousand years, and using magic on each other at the drop of a hat, and taking all those painful blows to the head from their constant brawling, then Thor and his budies may not even remember the truth themselves after all this time!

[Fenaris]

There is a god in the DC Universe, I'm not sure what he has in common with the god found in religions in the real world, but he created the Spectre.

[1505627]

Deadman -- Rama Kushna? Been a long time since I watched whatever JLU episode it was that had Deadman prominently featured; I'll have to check that to see if he and Rama Kushna have any one-on-one conversations or whatever.

Prince Adam? I'm drawing a blank on that one.

Closest I can come is "The Viking Prince" -- his name was Prince Jon. A little hasty Googling reminds me that he was supposed to be cursed by Odin for falling in love with a Valkyrie-- I'll need to dust off the relevant JLU DVD and double-check on that one, too, so I can see exactly what (if anything) was "explicitly mentioned" about the status of the Norse Gods in the DCAU!

prince jon is who i meant

[Lorendiac]

There is a god in the DC Universe, I'm not sure what he has in common with the god found in religions in the real world, but he created the Spectre.

Just one thing -- you mention the DC Universe (also known as the DCU for short), but I was originally only asking about what sort of "gods" we saw in cartoons set in the separate continuity of the DC Animated Universe (or the DCAU for short).

In this context, I wasn't particularly interested in characters from the "regular comic books" who have strong ties to what seems to be the "God" and the "Heaven" of Judeo-Christian religious tradition . . . such as The Spectre, the angel Zauriel, Lucifer Morningstar, and possibly The Phantom Stranger. Not unless they also appeared -- and talked about the God or gods whom they knew personally -- in episodes of any TV show that was considered to be part of the DCAU. And I don't believe that ever happened with any of those characters.

[Outside_85]

We did see some of the other Olympians over the years. For instance: In the JLU episode "Hawk and Dove," the story started with Hephaestus completing Ares's special order for a big, scary, walking suit of armor called the Annihilator. (I keep thinking of it as a "killer robot," even though it probably wasn't a "robot" in the strictest sense of the word.) And for all I know, I may be forgetting a few other times when Olympians at least got cameos. (Anyway, if we grant the existence of such Olympians as Hades and Hermes, it's reasonable to assume that all the other Olympian gods are "equally real" in that continuity -- even the ones who may only have gotten mentioned in dialogue we heard from Wonder Woman and her mother and other Amazons, such as "Hera" and "Athena.")

Forgot about Hepheastus and Ares :)

I remembered that, but they aren't part of any proud old home-grown terrestrial mythos that I ever heard of.

Same comment as above -- Cthulhu (as I always think of him ) and his buddies were further proof that there were godlike entities who had spent lots of time dominating mortals elsewhere in the DCAU, but not that they had ever been based on Earth -- nor are they mentioned in any "authentic old myths" I ever ran across here on Earth.

True true.

Yeah -- basically a collection of the evil, vengeful spirits of a bunch of dead snake-men, right?

Who had a massive hate on for mankind who had driven their species to extinction as cavemen.

Interesting. I wasn't really thinking of the related comics when I started this thread, and offhand, I'm not even sure whether I've read that particular story, much less how much detail (if any) it may have provided about The Spectre's place in a heavenly chain of command or whatever . . .

As far as I remember he was still the Spirit of Vengeance and all that, but in that story he was getting confused or something and the JL had to help him out before he started wiping out prisons.

I suspect there were also other times in the DCAU when "demons" were mentioned and/or depicted -- but "demon" is a pretty vague word; offhand, I don't recall Etrigan (or Jason Blood) ever specifying just which mythological underworld/hell/whatever is the true "home turf" of Etrigan when he is not manifesting himself on the surface of DCAU Earth.

True enough, I suppose it has to be tied into what system of belief Camelot followed...unless Etrigan was simply considered an evil spirit, like a menacing ghost, banshee or stuff like that.

I know what you mean, although in my branch of Christianity (and I think most others?), we take it for granted that Satan does not have a physical body and thus could not seduce a woman and get her pregnant with his daughter. But since, as you acknowledge, the Teen Titans wasn't really a DCAU show, I'll just wave that one aside for now.

I know this may be a bit toxic according to usual forum rules, but I could say that personifications of evil in Christianity isn't entirely out there, since I seem to remember Jesus resisting Lucifer (who came in person) on a mountain one time? (Mel Gibson also went that route with his movie) (mind you it's been over 10 years since I've had my nose near that book).

[Fenaris]

Just one thing -- you mention the DC Universe (also known as the DCU for short), but I was originally only asking about what sort of "gods" we saw in cartoons set in the separate continuity of the DC Animated Universe (or the DCAU for short).

The Spectre appeared in Justice League Unlimited #37. It's a comic following the JLU TV-show that is a part of the DCAU. With this connection I do believe that this "god" person I was talking about, is a part of the DCAU.

Though he didn't appear in person (he hasn't done much of that in the comics either) if that's what you're going at.

[Desean101101]

The DC universe is nice on the Surface but underneath it its alot of Lovecraftian Elder Gods around.

[Lorendiac]

I've recently learned that two episodes of "Static Shock," "Static in Africa" and "Out of Africa," had Static teaming up with a superhero in Ghana who called himself Anansi.

I haven't seen those episodes, but I gather that while the Anansi in question was not calling himself a god (merely recycling the name of a mythological figure of West Africa), it was either stated or implied that his powers came from a magical golden spider which had been created by one of the Ashanti gods.

So that seems to give us the Greek gods, the Norse gods, and the Ashanti gods of West Africa. If we grant the existence of those three pantheons in the DCAU, then it seems likely that there are plenty of other pantheons whose worshippers are (or used to be) based in various other places around the globe!