The Living Tribunal can be frightening

 The cosmic abstracts/entities in Marvel typically tend to be aloof and somewhat unconcerned about mortal reactions to them.  Sometimes they can be quite benevolent and key mortals in to why they are around, even helping them make sense of their lives, something most of us would want from a god.  Many times, however, they go beyond the usual treating us like ants and go as far as expressing hostility, just because their day got interrupted by something supposedly beneath their notice.  

The Living Tribunal is basically the Justice of God (in DC, the equivalent being would likely be the Spectre).  As we can see above from his brief time showing up during the events of the Infinity Gauntlet, he considers himself a part of the natural balance and above even the likes of Eternity.  Despite Thanos having iced a half of the universe, LT judges the event based on a notion of created beings doing what created beings do, and nopes out of the whole affair in what could easily be interpreted as a dick move.  All that said, he usually looks rather statuesque when being judgy.

Here he is in Storm vol. 5 no. 5 (this year back in February, a rather epic in scale issue that I will review later), being serenely statuesque and mildly annoyed that Eternity and Oblivion are bringing him a universal conflict to judge over.  You would think that a conflict brewing over millions, nay, billions of years over where to house Death would earn more than just a passing "sigh" from the LT.  I suppose he always has a lot on his/whatever mind, being directly responsible for the multiverse, or at least a multiversal cluster, under the One Above All, but my point here is not to defend LT but rather to point out that he usually looks very chill.  

Not so much in his first full appearance, Strange Tales no. 158, as drawn by the Mother of Cosmic Marvel, Marie Severin (also more on her later).

Glowing things tend to take on a new level of ferocity or aggression when they turn red, if only from looking just a bit more menacing, especially under that little purple hood thing he has on which shrouds his lovely golden face in DARKNESS.  Darkness equals bad in Cosmic Marvel, being the home of things like Oblivion, Knull... you get the picture.  Marie's art there is simple, but rather brilliant in how it can draw in the viewer with a bit of contemplative terror, much like being uncomfortably high while in a room full of Rothko red paintings.  

It gets a bit worse when you see him in motion, complete with those geometric edges rather than smooth hands.  Keep in mind that LT here was ready to throw down and pretty much end the planet because Strange felt compelled to tap into the power of Zom, one of those nasty extra-dimensional demons that makes even our Judgy McOscar statue take notice.  Long story short, that is NOT a face you want to see on the grand cosmic judge.  

A shout out to a pretty amazing guide

Props to the following guide, which can take you all the way through cosmic Marvel from its early Silver Age dawn in 1963 to 2017:

Cosmic Guide Extraordinaire

Seriously, this thing is pretty extensive and pretty hilarious.  My own experience with Cosmic Marvel is fairly broad, but let's face it, even the most thorough comic reader is going to have gaps in mythos that spans a crap ton of issues in over seven decades of print.  This is the sort of guide that even Comic Book Guy from The Simpsons could salute.

Knowing that there are plenty of Judgy Jim's out there... Yes, there are gaps in the list. Considering that the guide tries to cover nearly three quarters of a century, there are bound to be gaps!  I'll start with an obvious one to me, the lack of mention of the first appearance of the Living Tribunal in Strange Tales 157 (cameo) and 158 (first full appearance). 

Image taken from Marvel's page on the Living Tribunal, or as I've mispronounced it forever, Living Triniball.  

You can't get much more high cosmic than number two after the One Above All!  As you can see, he's a bit judgy himself and might have qualms with being excluded off this otherwise thorough list.  He's pretty smooth here in his first sitting as depicted by his co-creator artist Marie Severin, the mother of Cosmic Marvel.  

Speaking of hot heads, the list also left out another significant moment, as pointed out in the comments on said list, the ascension of Nova (Frankie Raye) into herald status (Fantastic Four vol. 1 issues 243-244).

That's the image of Nova that usually jumps to mind when I think about her, as depicted by John Byrne.  Here she is doing a solo annihilation of the bulk of the Skrull fleet (Fantastic Four vol. 1 issue 257, aka Galactus dines in his Skrull homeworld jacuzzi).  Heralds are incredibly buff, and one imagines what such raw power has on the psyche of the mortals who get elevated to their newfound place among the celestial powers, to say nothing of what feeding whole worlds to Galactus does to even the more ruthless ones like Terrax or Morg.  I take that back.  Morg is a complete asshole.  

Anyhoo... I mention these two omissions not to call out the list compiler, but because they are two great examples of what makes cosmic Marvel so appealing, at least to me: mortals becoming a part of the world of the immortal/divine.  Here we see Dr. Stephen Strange and Frankie Raye, two mortals, (granted, both exceptional, powered mortals) encountering powers and forces very much not-so-mortal.  What always gets me about these two, and others in their shoes, is that they still retain a sense of awe and even a bit of humility (that comes and goes) despite all they have seen.  Even more significant, the forces that encounter them are given that rare chance to consider how mortal eyes see them, even if they might not truly experience said viewpoint empathetically.  Art has tried capturing that many times!

God rocks a pink nightgown, that's for sure.  

Ahem...  Many far wiser and holier than I have pondered the question of just why a perfect, complete God would create someone to know God in the first place, so I'll not bore you with all that (TL;DR, "love").  Many less than holy people have pondered it, too, like me or Hegel.  Some people say "why are we here, does it matter, shit...".  I get that, and if that's your bag, I'm not going to be a Judgy Jim.  

As Frankie Raye experienced though, it's all a wild ride no matter what your angle on it.  Thanks for joining me on a slice of it today, and enjoy the list!