| “ | There is a malevolent force at work, one driven by a singular goal. The destruction of all there is. I have planned, there are those who say I have schemed, but the time for preparation has passed. The Crisis is now upon us all. | „ |
| ~ Mar Novu in the opening of the Crisis on Infinite Earths crossover. |
| “ | Earth-90 Barry: His name is Mar Novu, but he calls himself The Monitor now. He's been unleashing the Book of Destiny across the multiverse to test different Earths. Barry: Test them for what? Earth-90 Barry: A crisis that he believes is coming. Novu thinks the Elseworlds created by the Book of Destiny approximates the collision of realities that were facing. |
„ |
| ~ Earth-90 Barry explaining Novu's motives to the Earth-1 heroes. |
| “ | No, Mobius, it was foolish to allow for your creation in the first place. | „ |
| ~ Novu's last words to the Anti-Monitor when he said it was foolish to oppose him, facing his death with dignity. |
Mar Novu, also known as The Monitor, is the overarching protagonist of the Arrowverse, serving as the overarching protagonist of both the Pre-Crisis and Crisis (alongside Pariah) sagas and a posthumous character in the Post-Crisis saga.
He is a powerful and cryptic cosmic entity that has been preparing to save the multiverse for millenia against the oncoming crisis of his evil doppelganger, the Anti-Monitor, by testing countless parallel Earths to see which was capable of withstanding the crisis. He recruits 7 paragons from Earth-1, the only Earth to pass his test, to fight for the for the fate of the multiverse and ultimately sacrifices himself to save the paragons from the Anti-Monitor’s destruction of the multiverse and ensure they defeat the Anti-Monitor and rebirth the multiverse.
What Makes Him Magnificent?[]
- He has a very tragic backstory. He was once a normal man with a family on the planet Malthus and whose dream with his wife was to peer into the beginning of time, but the experiment went wrong and despite being granted cosmic powers, he was also transported to the anti-matter universe with an anti-matter doppleganger being created who desired to wipe out the multiverse. He was able to defeat the Anti-Monitor and seal him off, but his family and world got destroyed and he dedicated the rest of his life preparing for the Anti-Monitor’s to make sure he wouldn’t destroy the multiverse like his world was destroyed.
- He is quite affable and professional, always maintaining a calm demeanor. For example, he deeply apologizes to Oliver that his final inevitable fate is death, apologizes to Barry and Iris for inadvertently destroying Nora’s message as an unfortunate side effect of destroying the phinx, and has a pleasant conversation with Lois where he revealed his tragedy to her and respected her for caring for her family as much as her work.
- He has a range of awesome powers and is a extremely powerful opponent that can take down swaths of enemies without breaking a sweat or barely lifting a finger.
- He erected quantum towers throughout several key Earths as the last line of defense, making sure to come up with his backup plans first.
- He is a powerful speaker that easily captures the attention of the room he is in and can manipulate people into fulfilling his goals like giving Al-Fatih knowledge not previously known to man and convincing him to keep the balance on Earth-1, inspiring the creation of the League of Assassins to do just that, manipulating John Deegan and gained his trust to convince him to use the Book of Destiny to reshape reality as he saw fit so Mar Novu could test the heroes of Earth-1, and appealing to Lex’s ego to convince him to help save the multiverse.
- He unleashed the Book of Destiny across the multiverse as an opportunity to test different Earths as part of his plan to find the one that would be strong enough to defend the rest from the Anti-Monitor, ensuring the tests were as hard and destructive as the Anti-Monitor Crisis would be to truly see which Earth was up to the task.
- He single-handedly massacred the heroes of Earth-90 after they failed his test.
- He confronted Supergirl, Green Arrow, Flash, and Earth-90 Flash after they managed to get the Book of Destiny from John Deegan, being impressed that they were the first Earth able to get the Book of Destiny, but simply teleported it out to prevent them from analyzing it and easily defeating the heroes before going back to John Dedham and chillingly convincing him to think the biggest he could to give the heroes the biggest test possible.
- He is a master at having ulterior motives in seemingly small actions that serve a larger plan like answering Lyla’s prayers years ago to convince her in the present to become his agent or giving Oliver a metaphysical arrow to defeat John Deegan and destroy the Book of Destiny to prevent Flash and Supergirl from sacrificing themselves to try and stop Deegan to recruit Oliver later to assist him in saving the multiverse. He also intentionally leaves the Book of Destiny out in the open so Lex would take it and go on a killing spree of Supermen to lead the heroes to the Kryptonian that was the Paragon of Truth.
- He has multiple moments where he demonstrates honor like transporting Oliver Queen’s future adult children to the present so they spend time with each other before Oliver’s death, rewarding Earth-2 Laurel’s loyalty by giving her the opportunity to officially say goodbye to her father figure Earth-1 Quentin, and transporting Felicity to the afterlife to reunite with Oliver.
- While not particularly known for his comedy, he has a funny moment where he is nonchalantly munching on popcorn while he is observing the Legends play at the Heyworld amusement park.
- He has Oliver go on a series of seemingly disconnected missions only to reveal that he did all this so Oliver could gather the materials necessary for him to reforge Lyla into his Harbinger right on time to warn the heroes that the crisis had just begun.
- He easily readjusts his strategy in response to unexpected variables. When the actions of Team Flash caused the crisis to move up 5 years earlier than it was supposed to be, he simply upped his timetable, releasing J’onn’s evil brother from the Phantom Zone to get J’onn to face and overcome his demons and telling him what he did afterwards so he could inform Team Supergirl about crisis, resurrecting Lex Luthor, and informing Team Flash of the earlier crisis date to dissuade them from doing something stupid and inadvertently making the situation worse by trying to prevent it. When Oliver died earlier than expected, he simply traveled back in time to recover a functioning Book of Destiny and discover the 7 paragons that were could defeat the Anti-Monitor and save the multiverse and had the heroes to track them down.
- He faces his death with dignity, telling the Anti-Monitor that it wasn’t a mistake to oppose him as the Anti-Monitor claimed, but it was a mistake for him to have allowed the creation of the Anti-Monitor in the first place, having bought enough time for the Pariah to realize his purpose and transport the paragons to the Vanishing Point to avoid the destruction of the multiverse, ensuring the Anti-Monitor didn’t win and the paragons would defeat the Anti-Monitor and he would posthumously succeed in his millennia-long goal to save the multiverse.
What Makes Him a Baddie?[]
- He unleashed destructive tests on countless Earths via the Book of Destiny. While we don’t see what happened to the other Earths that failed, when Earth-90 failed the test, he single-handedly massacred all the heroes before proceeding to destroy all life there, leaving the Flash as the sole survivor.
- He inspired the creation of the League of Assassins.
- He gave John Deegan the Book of Destiny to reshape reality as he saw fit and cause a lot of chaos.
- He freed J’onn’s evil brother, Malefic, from his imprisonment in the Phantom Zone and brought him to Earth-1 to hunt down J’onn.
- He was complicit in Lex Luther’s killing spree of Supermen across the multiverse.
Trivia[]
- He is the first and only version of the Monitor to be a MB.
External Links[]
- Mar Novu on the Villains Wiki.
- Mar Novu on the Heroes Wiki.
[]
 Magnificent Baddies
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