At the core of the Marvel Universe, there exists a pantheon of omnipotent forces that shape the very building blocks of reality! Many of these strange beings have been around since the earliest days of Marvel Comics, but befitting their roles in the cosmos, their motives and natures have been beyond reach and comprehension… until now!

This October, writer Jonathan Hickman and artist Valerio Schiti will dramatically tear down the established celestial hierarchy and build it back up with fantastic new purpose in G.O.D.S.! The series will debut showstopping new looks for these entities, one of which fans can see right now in a new teaser image!

In this once-in-a-generation title, Hickman and Schiti have also boldly reimagined the entities they follow, including Chaos, Eternity, Infinity, the Living Tribunal, Oblivion, and Order. For the first time in Marvel Comics history, readers will see these primal concepts manifest as ordinary people in order to navigate the world and interact firsthand with humanity. Despite their more down-to-earth appearances, their gravitas and power remain as they scheme, clash, and strike deals, all part of a complex system that keeps the universe in balance. But that system is more fragile than anyone would care to admit, and there’s some among them who desire nothing more but to see it shatter! 

Check out the first of Schiti’s new designs, a street-level human design for the living embodiment of that balance, the In-Betweener, alongside its respective original appearance by creator  Jim Starlin. 

"One of the things we wanted to do was to take the universal abstracts and do a more street-level version of the character," Hickman explained in a special G.O.D.S. retailer conference last week. "That’s the idea behind Valerio’s redesigns. Valerio tweaked the massive god-like aspect of each of these celestial abstracts and then he also made a version of the character that is a more mundane version."

"So I guess in Marvel Universe terms, there’s the Peter Parker version of all these character and then there’s the Spider-Man version of all these characters now. And it’s a very effective storytelling mechanism. It works very well in the way that we’re using it. My belief is that it will make these characters more useable and more frequently appearing in other Marvel books as well," he added.

"We already saw the Marvel gods a lot of times in the past, no surprises here. Or are there?" Schiti teased. "Maybe we saw what they wanted us to see, what our human brains can contain and understand without going insane so maybe there are different, weirder and scarier forms? And if they can change shape and size, what’s stopping them from walking among us, hiding in the crowd, using a human form?"