Urizen (comics)
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Urizen is a fictional character in the comic book world of Spawn. He is a Dark God, a powerful entity that existed before the current universe and the coming of God and is a fan favorite character despite his brief appearance and minor role in the book.
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[edit] Background
Since he consumes and negates souls, this poses a threat to both Heaven and Hell. Both forces combined powers and, in the end, lost legions of angels and demons in the great war to subdue and ultimately imprison Urizen, since he is incapable of being destroyed. His size increases as he consumes souls and he has an ability to spread malice in the souls of man and release them of their inhibitions so that they might commit horrific deeds. Greenworld fears his very presence on Earth because his existence in the realm poisons the planet.
The real Urizen was the being which was worshipped by the cult. They were correct in how to bring about his return, but wrong about what he actually was. Like William Blake, they got most of the story wrong. He was not a force which would fill the void left by the war between good and evil. He was not the replacement stitch for the part of the great fabric of existence that was missing. He is one of the missing threads, along with the other Elder Gods who together brought balance to the universe. Urizen is one of these Elder Gods, a great deity that existed before Heaven and Hell which consumed souls, freed them of the wheel of life and death and perpetuated conflict as a means of cleansing the universe. The easiest way to maintain peace is to destroy those who create conflict or have them destroy themselves. Urizen represents balance in that he ends existence. This frustrated the upstart factions of Heaven and Hell and kept them weak. They needed souls in order to increase their ranks and Urizen was a direct threat to this need. As long as he was free to roam the universe neither side could gain an upper hand over the other. Thus they teamed together for the first time since The Fall and banished Urizen from this level of reality, the only thing they could do to him since he cannot be killed.
[edit] The Cult of Urizen
An English cult devoted to Urizen attempted to harness his power and bring about his return. They felt that there was a fundamental lack of a balancing force between Heaven and Hell and that in the absence of this force Urizen would rise to fill that void. It began with a series of ceremonies which began with 13 souls and during each full moon one member of the group was chosen as the sacrificial lamb or “bunny”. The bunny would be hunted by the group, killed, cooked and then eaten. The act of consuming the bunny was supposed to fuse their souls together and the goal was to continue until only one soul remained, which would be the vessel through which Urizen would return. This ceremony was interrupted by Spawn, who altered the pig with his magic. When they consumed their friend the remaining members of the cult began to vomit up their own organs, insects and bile which lead to the death of the remaining, ending the threat.
[edit] Free at Last
Unknown to Spawn, someone else had a plan for Urizen. Two minor opener-demons, Ab and Zab, were sent to earth and possessed two bodies from a car crash outside the town of Malice, Pennsylvania. They went to a nearby diner and waited until they had 13 innocents to sacrifice. They executed them and took them to a nearby hill where they painted a mystical emblem on the ground and burned the bodies, completing an opening spell that released Urizen from his banishment and allowed him to return through the smoke. As they worked they refrenced that Urizen had been forgotten over time. Only a few really knew of his existence, and only limited information. Blake was one such person and he wrote about him in The Book of Urizen, but like the cult most of what Blake believe was wrong.
Spawn sensed that a great power had arisen and headed to face Urizen, but was easily defeated. Spawn was then pulled into Greenworld where he was given a gift of great power to return to Earth with and confront Urizen. Angela was there when Spawn awoke, eager to aid him in his fight. She had captured Ab and Zab and found out what they were up to. Urizen was laying waste to the land and the forces of Heaven were about to go to Earth to stop him. This would have jumpstarted the Apocalypse, since it would have also permitted Hell to invade. Angela went to distract the Angels while Spawn fought Urizen. Angela returned, and Spawn used his new powers to create a wall of trees to slow Urizen down. With the Chains of Hell, the Ribbons of Heaven and the Gift of Greenworld (a powerful necroplasmic blast charged with the four forces of nature) Urizen was defeated and the Earth opened up to swallow and imprison him. Interrogation of Ab and Zab led Spawn and Angela to find that Malebolgia had been the one who had sent them on their mission in the hopes that he would draw Heaven into the war early, since his army was far larger and more powerful. This led to the confrontation between Spawn, Angela and his master in issue 100.
It should be noted that that Malebolgia might not have been the true mastermind behind the release of Urizen, as he was not created until long after Urizen was imprisoned. Mammon was around, though. Fan conjecture cites that Malebolgia was probably set up by Mammon, given the idea to release Urizen, and then left to pay the consequences when Spawn returned to Hell to face and kill his master. Given Mammon's penchant for scheming, this theory seems plausible.
[edit] The Return… Sort Of
His defeat in issue 99 was not the end of Urizen’s involvement in Spawn, however. The god’s hand was encased in stone and stuck out from the very spot where he was swallowed and was deemed a natural landmark called The Demon’s Right Hand. Preston Miller and his two brothers were playing at The Hand once day when Preston stepped on something sharp. It appeared to be a small black rock that bored into his foot, but really it was a piece of the god himself. The Miller Boys were possessed by the spirit of Urizen, through the minute piece that lived inside Preston. He was filled with all of the Dark God’s knowledge, especially the events that occurred in Malice. Urizen amplified their cruelty and caused them to taunt and harass a boy at school they called “Piggy.” They captured him, tied him up in a barn and were ready to slit his throat when Spawn arrived. Preston began to transform into a pig-like beast and screamed,
"I am The Void. I am The Night. I am The Wolf that hunts the child in the crib. I am The Darkness that knows no dawn. You are the door. You are the gate through which my thunders shall pass. I am the cold breath of The Grave. I am The Eater of Worlds. I am The Destroyer. I shall bury you." --- Urizen, through Preston Miller.
Spawn used his powers to rip the shard of Urizen out of Preston’s chest and presumably obliterated it. Whether he destroyed it or teleported it back to Urizen’s prison is unknown.
