WARNING: The following article contains spoilers for Batman/Superman #19 by Gene Luen Yang, Emanuela Lupacchino, Steve Lieber, Darick Robertson, Kyle Hotz, Matt Santorelli, Sabine Rich and Saida Temofonte, on sale now.
The latest villain to go up against the World's Finest, Auteur.io, has been crafting worlds in an attempt to create his masterpiece. But what this new foe has truly been battling isn't perfection, but relevance. Revelations in Batman/Superman #19 revealed that Auteur.io is actually a nameless god who was corrupted when trying to keep up with the modern medium of storytelling.
But his origin story bears similarities to the plot of American Gods by Neil Gaiman, where the old gods clash with the new to maintain their power and relevance. And in the process, Auteur.io has dragged many mortals into their machinations.
With the mainstream Superman and Batman trapped within the phantom zone crystal, it was up to the versions of them that Auteur.io created to save them. But Auteur.io made it difficult for them by hopping into different worlds that he deemed failures in order to evade them. Though they were copies, these were still versions of Batman and Superman. They rose to the challenge and pursued the crazed god, weakening him enough to reveal his true form and learn the origins of this mad director.
At certain points, Batman and Superman managed to wound Auteur.io enough that his armor dislodged from the person beneath. When that happened, Auteur.io seemed to be pleading for help, suggesting that something was wrong. Then the armor reformed itself around him and Auteur.io resumed his attacks on the duo. Not satisfied with a moment to get a true answer, Superman began spinning in a vortex, wrenching the armor off of Auteur.io and giving the god beneath a chance to share his tale.
Auteur.io was not his true name. He was an ancient god of tales, one so old that the world eventually forgot his true name. With no temples, scriptures, or followers, the nameless god wandered the surface of the Earth, lost and alone. All that changed when he discovered the first movie theaters though. He found comfort in them for they reminded him of his old temples. Even if the people weren't here specifically for him, in a tangential way, they were. They came to be told a tale, it just so happened that at the time, a god of stories watched along with them.
But one day the theaters closed and the unnamed god discovered the cause. Cellphones had become more prominent, replacing movies as the new god of tales. But the nameless deity could actually see where the source of this new god's power was coming from. Following it up into space, the god attempted to steal the power coming from a satellite. Instead of returning to prominence, however, he was overwhelmed by an intense desire for perfection. It wrapped around him, becoming his suit of armor and transforming him into Auteur.io.
So Auteur.io is actually a god, but one forgotten by time, now pushed into relevance in one of the worst ways possible. But his struggle before being trapped in a permanent state of mania is remarkably similar to the battle between the old and new gods in American Gods. In that story, the old gods have also begun to fade as their numbers of followers waned over the millennia. The people now worshipped gods that represented modern life like the internet, media and technology. While the new gods were replacing the old, people all over the world shared in it. But their battle dragged many innocent mortals into the crossfire.
Auteur.io is no different. How history forgot him is unclear, but that isn't as important as how he handled that struggle. He was alone for so long before finding something that reminded him of a time when he mattered. That was stolen from him with the internet becoming more prominent. But his attempts to stop a modern development from claiming his authority has twisted him into a monster that doesn't care how many people he hurts to get what he wants.