Azathoth (Character) - Comic Vine (2025)

Azathoth is the supreme chaotic ex-nihilo Outer God, revered as the most powerful and wicked of all Outer Gods. This grotesque omnipotent entity controls the structure of all cosmic forces that govern life, death, chaos and order at a level that is far beyond of all human comprehension, being able to transcend and manipulate the same space-time continuum. Lovecraft in his work "The Dreams in the Witch House" written in 1931 described the Azathoth as a mindless entity "which rules all time and space from a curiously environed black throne at the center of Chaos". Its essence is part of the very fabric of Universe, and even the Multiverse. However, usually it appears in a slumbering form, as a vast and amorphous visible mass of slug that displays a tangled aura of an unmatched hostile presence, madness, suffering, or infinite terror for the humans (because it reveals the deepest horrors of the Universe). The result of this horrific vision leads to a grisly death as a tribute for all those who have obtained a small portion of its powers through an enchantment with the necronomicon ex-mortis book, or via magical portals located in ancient cities like R'lyeh. City founded by the worshiper or high priest of Azathoth: The Great Cthulhu.

Nyarlathotep, another Outer God, is the messenger, harbinger or vassal of Azathoth. It is seen in comics how both Cthulhu and Nyarlathotep are simply taking advantage of the limitless power of Azathoth for their respective interests and, thus, get a privileged status over other gods in the hierarchical pantheon of gods of the Lovecraftian mythology (Outer Gods: Azathoth, Yog-Sothoth, Nyarlathotep; Elders Gods or Archetypes Gods as Nodens, among others; Lesser Outer Gods; Great Old Ones as Cthulhu and other Gods).

In the Lovecraft's famous novel called “The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath” of 1927, Azathoth is portrayed into a shameful state of deep torpor (idiocy), slumber and blindness under the sinister influence of the endless flutes melodies played by others outer gods who dance for its pleasure. Azathoth under this slumbering form is stripped of all its intelligence and ability to reason. Some contemporary writers who remain faithful to Lovecraft's original arguments as Donald Tyson, in his "Grimoire of the Necronomicon" (2008), refers that if Azathoth casts off his unnatural sleep, the Multiverse itself ends, it all ends, all of it, everywhere, every time, every sentient being, every entity, everyplace, every non place. All the realities end up as would occur of awakening from a dream, because it would unleash in the deepest pit of chaos, the center of a world-consuming vortex that ate both space and time. Similarly, is mentioned that if Azathoth created the universe from the Primordial Chaos also it can destroy it everything, because it represents the ultimate entropic force.