BLACK PRESBYTER
Reality-24117

Real Name: Unrevealed, if any

Identity/Class: Alternate reality (Reality-24117) extradimensional (presumably - see comments) creature

Occupation: Destructor

Group Membership: None

Affiliations: The Anti-All, its sibling(s)

Enemies: The Avengers (Captain America/the Icon, the Engineer, the God, the King, the Star, the Vision, the Witch/Wanda), the Tiger God

Known Relatives: The Anti-All (progenitor), unidentified sibling(s)

Aliases: None

Base of Operations: Presumably mobile throughout Reality-24117

First Appearance: Avengers VIII#7 (January, 2024)

Powers/Abilities: The Black Presbyter's very presence causes reality itself to unravel and the basic rules of physics to come apart. Its presence on Earth was seen to cause intense psychic feedback and sickness in humanity.

    It also possesses superhuman strength allowing it to kill even godlike foes with a single slash. Its superhumanly durable hide is also capable of withstand godlike blows, intense stellar blasts and the best of Earth weaponry without so much as a scratch.

Height: Unrevealed (approximately 130'0")
Weight: Unrevealed (approximately 85,000 lbs.)
Eyes: Red
Hair: None

History:
(Avengers VIII#7 (fb) - BTS) - A spawn of the Anti-All, the howling Black Presbyter was released onto Earth to clear the last remains of reality. Its very presence causing reality to unravel, the Black Presbyter rampaged across Earth, killing anything in its path.

(Avengers VIII#10 (fb)) - The last surviving heroes, the Avengers, sought to stop the Black Presbyter by engaging it in battle.

(Avengers VIII#7 (fb) - BTS) - The Vision was the first to fall against the creature.

(Avengers VIII#7) - Following the Vision's death, the Black Presbyter continued to rampage across the world as the Avengers mourned their loss. Knowing that their reality was coming apart due to the Black Presbyter's presence, the Avengers soon rallied to avenge the world and Thor flew in first, severely pummeling the Black Presbyter. Captain Marvel followed suit, blasting the creature, and Black Panther in turn sacrificed his life to release the Tiger God against the Black Presbyter. Easily keeping the Avengers at bay, the Black Presbyter smiled at it fought them and the Scarlet Witch used her abilities to magically empower Captain America, channeling the belief of every remaining United States resident into the hero. Unfortunately, the Black Presbyter killed the attacking Avengers in one fell swoop, downing Captain America, Thor, Iron Man and the Tiger God in a single slash. The surviving Scarlet Witch was horrified to witness the deaths and the entire scenario was glimpsed by Earth-616's Scarlet Witch in a dream generated by the demon Nightmare.

(Avengers VIII#10 - BTS) - Earth-616's Avengers confronted Nightmare about the dream he had generated involving Black Presbyter and the end of Reality-24117 and Nightmare's belief that the same events would someday occur in Reality-616, depriving Nightmare of the fear he fed on. Nightmare admitted his fear that Reality-616 was in danger and that he had given the Avengers a glimpse of the Black Presbyter and Reality-24117 in an effort to warn and prepare them for the unspecified danger he sensed to Reality-616.

Comments: Created by Jed MacKay and C.F. Villa.

    It was not clear where exactly the Black Presbyter originated, other than not on Earth. It's mentioned that it was a child of the Anti-All dispatched to clean up the remaining parts of the destroyed eighth cosmos, which suggests it did not originate on Earth. It's not clear if it comes from another planet, another dimension or if it perhaps might originate in some realm outside its main reality. While it might have been dispatched to clear out remaining parts of the eighth cosmos, it apparently wasn't doing such a great job, as there's an entire Multiverse still alive and kicking in the current Multiverse. So it's either doing a terrible job or it wasn't so much the entire cosmos it was clearing but just its particular reality...
    Update 8/25/2025: Thanks to Michael Boyd for pointing out the Anti-All's appearance in Defenders VI#5 (2021)! In that issue, the Defenders travel back to the third cosmos, where the embodiment of life and good, Lifebringer One, was battling its polar opposite, the Anti-All. The issue ends with the Anti-All being shattered into multiples pieces equal in number to the number of pieces of the third Multiverse. Avengers VIII#7 establishes the Black Presbyter as a child of the Anti-All. I'm inclined to believe that the pieces of the shattered Anti-All spawned its "children" (basically, the shattered pieces became Black Presbyter & its "siblings") and it was established that the Black Presbyter and the other "children" of the Anti-All were dispatched into each additional Multiverse to destroy any remnants of the previous cosmos. Therefore, it's very possible the Black Presbyter did not originate specifically within Reality-24117 but rather, within the third cosmos before there was a true Multiverse and it was only dispatched to Earth-24117 to destroy some remnant of the previous Multiverse. It's possible Earth-24117 itself was a reality that had somehow survived the destruction of the previous Multiverse and existed within the current Multiverse but without more information on the reality, we really have no way of knowing for sure. It's also possible that IF the shattered pieces of the Anti-All became the Black Presbyter and its siblings, one of the shards seen in Defenders VI#5 could be the one that became the Black Presbyter but since none were identified, we have no way of knowing if one of them became the Black Presbyter or if the Black Presbyter came into existence from a shard we didn't see. With that in mind, I chose not to include Defenders VI#5 as an appearance of the Black Presbyter.

    While the Avengers of Earth-24117 presumably codenamed similar to their Earth-616 counterparts, we aren't told most of their aliases and only the Witch was referred to by her real name of Wanda. It's possible the Avengers actually went by the names they are referred to in Avengers VIII#7 but Captain America is referred as both the Icon and as Captain America, suggesting that his teammates likely went by their expected codenames rather than what they are referred to as. Here's a breakdown of who they would be:
    The Engineer=Iron Man (He's never called by any other name than the Engineer. We see him wearing the Thorbuster armor and also a version of his classic '60s red & gold armor.)
    The God=Thor (Also never referred to as anything other than the God. He seems to be wearing the armored costume Thor-616 wore around 1996 or so)
    The Icon=Captain America (Like I said, he's referred to as both names)
    The King=Black Panther (He's never referred to as any name other than the King.)
    The Star=Carol Danvers (She's only ever referred to as the Star. Earth-616 Carol Danvers was using the codename of Captain Marvel at the time but Carol on Earth-24117 is wearing her late '70s black Ms. Marvel costume...)
    The Vision=The Vision (He's only ever called the Vision though he appears to resemble the white Vision seen in the late '80s-early '90s)
    The Witch=Scarlet Witch (She's referred to as the Witch and as her real name of Wanda.)

Profile by Proto-Man.

CLARIFICATIONS:
Reality-24117's Black Presbyter should be distinguished from:

The Anti-All

The Anti-All was essentially the physical manifestation of the dark, primal void itself, a being of pure evil and representation of all that was not of the third cosmos. During the third cosmos, the Anti-All battled Lifebringer One, the first sentry and its polar opposite, a being of pure good. While the Anti-All battled Lifebringer One, the time-traveling Defenders of a far future cosmos appeared and briefly witnessed the battle while tracking down rogue scientist Carlo Zota, who drew power from Lifebringer One to generate a force field to hold the Defenders at bay. The Anti-All began to gain the upper hand against Lifebringer One due to Lifebringer's power being siphoned and the Anti-All nearly destroyed Lifebringer One until Carlo Zota donned the Masked Raider's Eternity Mask to make himself the equal of the Anti-All. Zota then fought the Anti-All, buying the Defenders time to restore Lifebringer One, who triumphed over the Anti-All and brought life to the third cosmos. The Anti-All shattered into multiple pieces, one for every piece in the third Multiverse, spawning several beings including the Black Presbyter, which were dispatched into the next Multiverse to clear out the remaining parts of reality.

--Defenders VI#5 (Avengers VIII#7 (fb) - BTS,
images: (without ads)
Avengers VIII#7, p4-5, splash page (Black Presbyter, main image)
Avengers VIII#7, p8, pan2 (Black Presbyter, headshot)
Avengers VIII#7, p11, splash page (Black Presbyter battling the Avengers)
Defenders VI#5, p2-3, pan1 (Anti-All)

Appearances:
Avengers VIII#7 (January, 2024) - Jed MacKay (writer), C.F. Villa (art), Tom Brevoort (editor)
Avengers VIII#10 (April, 2024) - Jed MacKay (writer), C.F. Villa (art), Tom Brevoort (editor)

First posted: 11/06/2024
Last updated: 08/25/2025

Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.

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