| “ | And, thus far, I'm unimpressed. A crisis is imminent. Someone is coming. Someone far, far more powerful than myself. I mean to prepare. I'm testing universes to find one I hope strong enough to stand against him, in the hope of finding the champions that would save the multiverse entire. | „ |
| ~ The Monitor informing Earth-1's Green Arrow, Earth-1's The Flash, Earth-38's Supergirl and Earth-90's Flash about the incoming Crisis. |
| “ | To survive? You can't. In order for billions to survive this coming Crisis, the Flash must die. | „ |
| ~ The Monitor warning the Flash about his destined fate in the Crisis, worrying him for a long time. |
| “ | In the beginning, there was only one. A single black infinitude. Then the infinitude found release, and, finally, the darkness broke, filling it with life. With the multiverse. Every existence multiplied by possibility. And spread out before space and time in infinite measure. Civilizations rose and fell. And rose again across reality's grasping expanse. Life. A precious gift persevering in the face of every obstacle, until, finally, the age of heroes was born. Chaos. The constant enemy of life kept at bay by champions from across the multiverse... joining forces to fight on behalf of all creation. They found each other just in time, because now, the entire multiverse is about to come under attack. 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. | „ |
| ~ The Monitor's monologue as he witnesses the start of the Crisis of 2019. |
Mar Novu, also known as the Monitor, is the overarching protagonist of the Arrowverse.
He is a powerful cosmic being who is in charge of preparing several worlds for the oncoming Crisis on Infinite Earths engineered by the Anti-Monitor, his malevolent mirror counterpart, during the early 21st century. To prepare them, the Monitor tested multiple worlds to see which one was worthy to join the fight, eventually choosing Earth-1 to fight for the fate of the Multiverse, recruiting Oliver Queen/Green Arrow and Lyla Michaels/Harbinger to assist him.
He was portrayed by LaMonica Garrett.
His Evil Ranking[]
What Makes Him Heinous?[]
Background[]
- His curiosity over witnessing the universe's origins through time travel led to the creation of the Anti-Monitor in the antimatter universe, setting off the events of the Arrowverse.
- His early preparations for the Anti-Monitor's eventual return involved inspiring Earth-1 inhabitant Al-Fatih to create the League of Assassins in order to keep the balance, leading to the deaths of several people as the League survived well into the 21st century through a long line of successors, including the Ra's al Ghul who faced Oliver Queen/Green Arrow and his team.
- Visits different Earths over the Multiverse to test them in an Elseworld if they would be prepared to face the Anti-Monitor and his forces: if one Earth succeeded, he would bestow an individual with the Book of Destiny, but if one Earth failed, he would have that reality destroyed. This led, for example, to the destruction of Earth-90 (the universe of the 1990s The Flash television series) and the deaths of all its inhabitants. Furthermore, when asked by its Flash why he did it after killing all of his fellow heroes, the Monitor coldly and hypocritically tells them that their destruction was brought on by themselves even though the Anti-Monitor is a threat thanks to him in the first place.
- Although Earth-90 was full of truly evil people like Nicholas Pike, The Trickster, Dr. Carl Tanner and Beaugarde Lesko, especially if assumed that they were still alive when the Monitor visited their reality, it still doesn't justify having killed all of that universe's population, leaving a guilty Earth-90 Flash as the sole survivor.
Elseworlds[]
- Gives the Book of Destiny to Dr. John Deegan from Earth-1's Gotham City so he could do whatever he pleased as part of his plan to recruit Deegan, leading Deegan to drastically alter reality to the point that Barry Allen/The Flash becomes the Green Arrow and Oliver Queen/Green Arrow becomes the Flash.
- Refused to help Earth-1 heroes (assisted by Supergirl and Earth-90 Flash) when they demand him to set reality right with the Book of Destiny.
- Vanishes Earth-90 Flash out from Earth-1 when he tries to face him in order to stop him from carrying out a massacre over Earth-1 like he did to Earth-90.
- This later led to the Anti-Monitor kidnapping Earth-90 Flash and using him to power his anti-matter cannon, which was the main weapon used by the Anti-Monitor to wipe out countless realities across the multiverse.
- He breached Supergirl back when she tried to stop him from recovering the Book of Destiny from A.R.G.U.S.
- Upon recovering the Book of Destiny, he returns it to John Deegan and urged him to cause more changes to reality by telling him to "think bigger", resulting in a new reality where Deegan ruled the world as Superman with many of the heroes of Earth-1 are working for him or branded as criminals.
- Summons Green Arrow and the Flash to his realm to discuss their destinies and sends them back without giving them clear instructions on how to defeat Deegan.
- When confronted once again by Oliver Queen/Green Arrow, he agreed to spare the Flash and Supergirl from being killed while trying to stop John Deegan and allow Green Arrow to stop Deegan with a metaphysical arrow capable of destroying the Book of Destiny under the promise that the Green Arrow assists him in whatever he needs when the Anti-Monitor returns.
- That said, the Monitor doesn't specify his deal and when Oliver later finds out that Barry is gonna die in the Crisis of 2019, the Monitor specifies that they never agreed that Barry would survive past the Elseworlds.
Between Elseworlds and Crisis On Infinite Earths[]
- He destroyed the Time Vault's plinth to stop Team Flash from changing the timeline after their act of destroying Cicada's dagger moved the Crisis of 2024 to 2019, fearing that they could make things worse if they somehow prevented the Flash from sacrificing himself during the Crisis as the conflict was inevitable, destroying Nora West-Allen's message to her parents and Gideon. Though he lets Gideon live, he only does so as he feels that she can still of some use for the Flash.
- Upon traveling to Earth-38, he released Malefic J'onzz from the Phantom Zone, set him loose on Earth and incited him to go after his brother and get back at him.
- He tracked down the late Lex Luthor's corpse and uses his interdimensional energy to resurrect him for his help in the Crisis of 2019 under the promise that he will have Lena Luthor survive unscatched with all her memories intact, making him indirectly responsible for all of Luthor's villainous acts in the future.
- He presented himself to Oliver Queen and told him to give up a life with his wife Felicity Smoak and their daughter Mia Smoak in order to heroically sacrifice his own life during the Crisis of 2019 to save countless people, robbing him from a life with his family.
- Visits Barry and Iris West-Allen in the Time Vault to notify them that the Crisis had been moved from 2024 to 2019 and that Barry would have to make the ultimate sacrifice for Earth-1 to survive as everyone would fight for the fate of the Multiverse, denying any possibility for Barry to stop the Crisis and survive, firmly insisting that he had to die for billions to live. While the Flash did ultimately survive the Crisis, it is only because Earth-90 Flash decided to sacrifice himself instead so his counterpart and the other people on Earth-1 would survive, though the sacrifice ended up being somewhat pointless as the Anti-Monitor managed to destroy Earth-1 anyways.
- Refused to explain to Oliver some of the things he needs for the Crisis, resulting in Oliver starting to resent and lose his trust on him.
- After the destruction of Earth-2, he blamed the incident on Oliver Queen's "disobedience" and used it as a warning of what will happen to other universes if the Crisis isn't stopped, insisting Oliver to obey him.
- This is made worse when considering that Earth-2's destruction would've happened anyways regardless of Oliver Queen's actions on said Earth, something the Monitor was aware of but still decided to scold Oliver about it.
- When Lyla Michaels was made aware of John Diggle's presence on Earth-2, she went to confront the Monitor about how John's life was endangered with that universe's destruction, he brushed the incident off as a necessary sacrifice despite the many lives lost in it.
- As a way to test Earth-2's Laurel Lance's loyalty, he tried to encourage her to betray Oliver Queen under the promise of restoring Earth-2 if she did.
- Trapping Oliver Queen and Laurel Lance inside a time loop where Quentin Lance continually dies while guided by Lyla just to make the point of Oliver's fate being unavoidable. The loop finally breaks when Laurel gets to say goodbye (which was a "gift" for her loyalty) and Oliver bitterly accepts his upcoming sacrifice, after which the two are teleported to Lian Yu for a final mission to unlock Lyla's powers, allowing the Monitor to turn her into Harbinger.
Crisis On Infinite Earths[]
- Although he comes up with a plan to evacuate Earth-38, the Monitor quickly calls off the plan when the Anti-Monitor's shadow demons appear, insisting to leave everyone else to their fates so they can save their strenght for the bigger fight, breaching all of them back to Earth-1 save for Oliver, who stayed behind until he gets killed, managing to save 1 billion people more, but it still leaves 3 billion people from 7.53 billion people as Earth-38's survivors.
- He had Harbinger steal the Earth-74 Waverider for the sake of getting the ship's time travel technology.
- Brings Lex Luthor to the Waverider's bridge even though Kara was there, causing Luthor to provoke Kara and getting her understandably angry at them.
- He gave Lex Luthor access to the Book of Destiny, causing the latter to empower himself and go on a quest to kill every version of Superman in the multiverse, under the claim that this was necessary to find the Paragon of Truth, who turned out to be Earth-96 Superman.
- He tricked Kate Kane into going to Earth-99 to meet that reality’s Bruce Wayne by saying that the Paragon of Courage could be found on that Earth, when in reality the Paragon of Courage was Kate all along.
- Kate Kane’s experience on Earth-99 traumatized her for some time, fearing the possibility of becoming like Earth-99 Bruce Wayne and keeping a piece of kryptonite in case Supergirl or Superman turned evil.
- Restores Cisco Ramon's Vibe powers even though he didn't wish to have them again, having taken a metahuman cure beforehand. Moreover, Cisco lost his powers again when the Crisis ended, so it was a moot point anyway.
What Makes Him Inconsistent?[]
- He is genuinely tragic, as him time-travelling to the beginning of time resulted in the accidental creation of the Anti-Monitor, something Mar Novu never predicted and, feeling responsible and remorseful for it, decided to stop his counterpart by any means necessary as the Monitor knew he was going to bring an end to all of existence at some point.
- He is a well-intentioned extremist and an anti-villain, as most if not all of his actions are to prepare the heroes of several worlds so they could be ready to face the Anti-Monitor Crisis, and it was thanks to his efforts that the heroes were able to restore the multiverse and defeat the Anti-Monitor once and for all.
- He is affably evil, often being seen acting polite to those around him and not being above complimenting people whenever they impress him.
- Destroying Nora's message and Gideon didn't make him proud, but still did it because he believed it was a necessary sacrifice to do.
- He has a few comedic moments like watching the Legends performing with magical creatures, eating popcorn amused and using the Book of Destiny as a stool inside the Heworld when a dragon appears. There's also the moment in which he tries to explain who the Seven Paragons are but Jonathan Kent's cries constantly interrupt him until Mick Rory takes him away from the room. However, these moments are extremely minor and he’s taken seriously for the most part.
- He has several Pet the Dog moments:
- During Elseworlds, he informed Cisco Ramon of the current situation so he and his friends could stop John Deegan.
- When he goes to recruit Oliver Queen to work with him to stop the Crisis, he lets Oliver say his final goodbyes to Felicity and a baby Mia, assuring the latter two were going to survive the Crisis.
- He travels to 2040 and takes Felicity Smoak to the afterlife so she could reunite with Oliver Queen even long after his death, warning her that this was a one-way trip and letting her say her final goodbyes to her children.
- He brings Mia Smoak, William Clayton and Connor Hawke from 2040 to 2019 so Oliver could spend some time with them before the start of the Crisis.
- He is On & Off as he is seen doing good actions on some occasions, such as appearing before Lyla Michaels after the latter was looking for answers due to her survivor’s guilt, preparing and recruiting the heroes for the Crisis and installing quantum towers on several Earths to help hold off the antimatter waves. This becomes more evident in Crisis on Infinite Earths, as he is seen doing more good than evil during that crossover, thus redeeming himself.
Trivia[]
- LaMonica Garrett once compared the Monitor to the Marvel Cinematic Universe version of Thanos in regards to how their goals make them see themselves as the heroes of their own stories, which is very fitting, as the MCU's Thanos is likewise Inconsistently Heinous.
- The Monitor's doppelgänger that moves on from his ambitions thanks to Lex Luthor's intervention doesn't count as Inconsistently Heinous as he never goes on to create the Anti-Monitor and lives happily ever after with his family. However, any other doppelgängers who create the Anti-Monitor offscreen may count.
External Links[]
- Monitor on the Villains Wiki
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 Inconsistently Heinous
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Canon Arrow The Flash Supergirl Fanon See Also | ||
 Inconsistently Heinous
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Comics Live-action Video Games | ||