Check Your Sanity at the Door
Bill: “This party never stops! Time is dead and meaning has no meaning! Reality is upside down and I reign supreme! Welcome, one and all, to WEIRDMAGEDDON!”
Gravity Falls “Weirdmageddon” (Season 2, Episode 20)
Fear of the unknown is the absolute worst. If you tell someone a monster or a killer is after them, they can create weapons and defenses. A natural disaster is coming? They can leave. But what happens when the threat is unknowable? Something that shouldn’t, that can’t exist in the universe? Something that takes one look at ordered reality and says “no”? That’s when you’re dealing with a Lovecraftian Monster.
These Lovecraftian Monsters are the bread and butter of Cosmic Horror stories. They are often completely incomprehensible to humans, mixing the unknowable thoughts of fairies with the power and threat of demons. Almost nothing can stop them except a long shot of sealing them away. So what are the top 5 Lovecraftian Monsters? Let’s find out.
Scene Select
#5 Unicron
Played By: Orson Welles and John Noble
[The planet-sized Unicron is eating The Transformers’ homeworld]
The Transformers #75
Shockwave: “Hypothesis… I-I have no hypothesis. This is beyond analysis… beyond logic. My vast data grid simply… cannot compute…”
Imagine it’s a pleasant day. You’re having fun with your friends and family, but everything gets dark. Looking up, something has eclipsed the sun. An enormous hand reaches down and scoops up an entire city. It is brought to the thing’s mouth and devoured. Again it reaches down. Your end has come. Unicron has come.
At the beginning of time, an omnipotent being created two beings to explore the universe, Primus and Unicron. They quickly began fighting because Unicron wanted to destroy all life. The being trapped his creations inside of planets as punishment. Primus created the Transformers to protect the universe and imbued them with his power. Unicron turned his planet into armor and began wiping out all life.
Unicron eats planets to kill the inhabitants as quickly as possible. He’s able to manipulate matter, his gravitational field, and grant power to Transformers in exchange for them becoming his minions. Unicron’s only weakness is The Matrix of Leadership, a relic of Primus that can blast him with his counterpart’s energy.
Unicron exists simultaneously in every universe. The only incarnation of him that was killed instead of being sealed away created the Unicron Singularity, which is the official source of every inconsistency in the Transformers franchise. You know something’s a Lovecraftian Monster when its death causes the multiverse to glitch.
#4 The Anti-Spiral
Played by: Dave Mallow and Takaya Kamikawa
Anti-Spiral: “We defended the universe by killing our fellow Spirals and halting our evolution! Do you possess the sheer fortitude that is on par with that?! DO YOU?! We say, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NO, NOT! AT! ALL!”
Gurren Lagann “All the Lights in the Sky are Stars” (Season 1, Episode 27)
Lovecraftian Monsters are often big and powerful, but this guy takes that to the next level. Its final form stands at 350 billion light years tall. The Anti-Spiral may be the biggest villain in fiction.
An alien race called The Spirals discovered Spiral Power, an energy source created by hope and willpower. They learned to manipulate Spiral Power to warp reality. As time passed, they also learned of an entity called Spiral Nemesis that would destroy the universe if too much Spiral Power existed. The Spirals killed every other species that used the energy and sealed themselves into suspended animation. Their collective minds and power coalesced into a guardian to continue their work: The Anti-Spiral.
The Anti-Spiral watched over the universe to intervene whenever species discovered Spiral Power. It destroyed whatever it couldn’t dissuade. The Anti-Spiral always kept his strength just outside what its opponent had, so that any last minute miracles would cause despair when they failed.
A true threat appeared in Team Dai-Gurren of Earth. They attacked the Anti-Spiral’s realm with galaxy-sized robots to kill it. Their fight escalated from throwing planets to creating Big Bangs that powered attacks. They destroyed several universes before The Anti-Spiral was killed. It warned them with its last breath about the Spiral Nemesis’ inevitability if they kept abusing Spiral Power.
#3 Zamasu
Played by James Marsters and Sean Schemmel
Zamasu: “My form is justice. And my form is the world. Worship me. Give praise unto me. Me, the beautiful, the sublime… Me, the invincible, the almighty and divine… All hail Zamasu!”
Dragon Ball Super “Final Judgement? The Supreme God’s Ultimate Power” (Season 1, Episode 65)
We all know how Hell paves its roads. It’s one thing to serve justice and order, but it’s all too easy for those concepts to twist until the only justice that matters is yours. Twist things enough and even a god will see a Lovecraftian Monster in the mirror.
Zamasu was a god-in-training who was obsessed with justice. He hated mortals for their constant violence and other gods for their inaction. Zamasu encountered a mortal named Goku who beat him while sparring. Zamasu feared that mortals would become strong enough to overthrow the gods and snapped. He swore to kill all mortals and gods to become the embodiment of divine justice.
Zamasu’s plan was convoluted. He made a wish on the Dragon Balls to steal Goku’s body and become the increasingly stronger Goku Black. He traveled through timelines slaughtering mortals and gods until he met another incarnation of himself. Black recruited this Zamasu and had him wish for immortality. With Goku Black’s ever-increasing strength and Zamasu’s invincible body, they were ready to scour the multiverse.
The villains were opposed by the last hero from Zamsu’s world, Trunks, who went back in time to recruit Goku and his allies. They nearly trapped Zamasu, who responded by using a divine technique to fuse with Black. The fused Zamasu was even stronger than his components, but had a flaw. He was simultaneously mortal and immortal, a paradox that made his body unstable. This allowed the heroes to finally kill him.
Even death wasn’t enough to stop Zamasu. His soul merged with the universe through sheer willpower and began mindlessly destroying everything. Goku had to summon the strongest god, Zeno, and have him destroy the future timeline to finally eradicate Zamasu from the multiverse.
#2 Cthulhu
Played by: N/A
Thurston: “The Thing of the Idols, the green, sticky spawn of the stars, had awaked to claim his own. The stars were right again, and what an age-old cult had failed to do by design, a band of innocent sailors had done by accident. After vigintillions of years great Cthulhu was loose again, and ravening for delight.”
The Call of Cthulhu
There’s one name that everyone thinks of when they hear the phrase Lovecraftian Monsters. You know him, you fear him, it’s HP Lovecraft’s mascot: Cthulhu.
Cthulhu is one of the Great Old Ones, beings so old, powerful, and alien that humanity barely registers to them. Cthulhu sleeps in the underwater city of R’yleh until the stars are aligned. His role is to awaken the rest of the Great Old Ones so that they can reclaim the Earth.
He can’t do much while asleep, but Cthulhu is able to influence the dreams of psychics and madmen. He screams an unpronounceable word (Cthulhu being the closest approximation) and coerces victims to embrace their worst instincts. The victims form cults and commit atrocities hoping to awaken Cthulhu.
A crew of sailors once found R’yleh, which had briefly surfaced and accidentally woke Cthulhu up while exploring. The monster slaughtered them. Luckily, the last sailor rammed Cthulhu with their boat and stunned him long enough for the stars to fall from alignment. Cthulhu returned to his slumber as R’yleh sank
#1 Mr. Mxyzptlk
Played by Gilbert Gottfried and Howie Mandell
Mr. Mxyzptlk: “Did you honestly believe a fifth-dimensional sorcerer would resemble a funny little man in a derby hat? Would you like to see how I really look?”
Whatever Happened to The Man of Tomorrow
Lois Lane: [telling the story later] “I can’t describe what Mxyzptlk became. It had height, length, breadth, and a couple of other things. As we entered the fortress I glanced back. It was following us… looking at it made my head hurt.”
Many Lovecraftian Monsters don’t care about lesser beings. Do you care about ants when they aren’t interrupting a picnic? Some enjoy torturing those who can’t hope to stop them, but our number one monster is just here for a good time.
Mr. Mxyzptlk (pronounced mix-yes-spit-lick) is an imp from the Fifth Dimension where science is so advanced that it resembles magic. Mxyzptlk visited Earth, playing tricks on humans while inspiring stories of genies and leprechauns.
Mr. Mxyzptlk found a worthy opponent in Superman, whose powers let him keep up with the trickster. Superman agreed to play the imp’s game on one condition. If Mr. Mxyzptlk said or spelled his name backwards, (Kltpzyxm, pronounced kill-tip-zay-zim), he would return to the Fifth Dimension for ninety days.
He’s not the strongest Lovecraftian Monser on our list, but Mr. Mxyzptlk has charm and style. He frames his antics as games and gives color commentary as Superman tries to figure out how to trick the trickster. Lucky for him, Mxyzptlk is gullible and has a short fuse. The few times Mxyzptlk has gotten serious or had his powers stolen were apocalyptic.
Who is your favorite Lovecraftian Monster? Is there one worse than these? Tell us in the comments.
Jared Bounacos has written for Movie Rewind since 2016.
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