Presence (DC Comics) - Vertigo Comics

Vertigo Comics

In Hellblazer #64, it is said (but not confirmed) that Jesus was conceived from the archangel Gabriel's rape of a woman named Mary ("He'd committed rape behind a carpenter's in Nazareth, and a cycle of agony began that ended on a hill above Jerusalem...").

In Neil Gaiman's Sandman mythos, the Presence's angelic servants are shown as residents of the Silver City, a place that is styled upon the mythical paradise or "Heaven" of Judeo-Christian mythology, but is explicitly referred to as a separate place. Within the city there are two towers. At the top of the tallest tower, the Tower of Unendingly High, is the Primum Mobile, the Throne of Light, where God resides. Angels can only approach the Throne if they are summoned there. The second, shorter tower contains an audience chamber where the voice of God, the Logos, can be heard. Sandman's God is, again, never explicitly referred to by name, and is in fact rarely mentioned at all, save an exchange between an Egyptian deity and an angel in Season of Mists: "On whose authority?" "Whose do you think?"

The Sandman series weaves an explanation for the many mythical deities apart from the Presence in the DC Universe. They are described as originating in Dream's realm, born out of people's wishes and fears. They take their power from prayers sent to them and die when they are no longer revered and ultimately forgotten.

A significant character in the Sandman series is the fallen angel Lucifer Morningstar, who rules in Hell. In Season of Mists, he renounces his throne and leaves Hell. His story, and the quasi-Biblical references surrounding him, is expanded upon in Mike Carey's Lucifer series. God, the Presence, in that series is referred to by name as Yahweh. He is the father of Lucifer and Michael Demiurgos. The Lucifer series depicts gods from religions other than the three monotheistic Abrahamic religions, including formless gods dreamt up by the earliest humans before the advent of language, and even tiny, short-lived crustacean gods originating from the hopes and fears of shrimp. Since the end of the series, the Presence has vacated his creation, and his granddaughter Elaine Belloc has taken his place. How this affects other aspects of the Presence has yet to be seen.