The character debuted in More Fun Comics #52 (February 1940), and was created by Jerry Siegel and Bernard Baily.

According to writer Greg Rucka in an interview about his Final Crisis: Revelations miniseries: "The sort of unspoken rule in the DCU is that God sits above all others".

Significant examples of God surrogates include: The disembodied "Voice of the Presence" that spoke to and empowered Jim Corrigan as the Spectre in More Fun Comics #52.

In Ganthet's Tale, it was revealed to be an illusion created by the Guardians to prevent investigation into the beginning of the universe.

[6] This idea was visually called back to in DC Rebirth when a hand was seen reaching through time to change history.

Some events from Abrahamic mythology are assumed to be a part of the fictional timeline of the DC Universe, but they often involve significant artistic license.

For example, it was Eclipso (the original agent of God's wrath) who caused the mythological Great Flood, and it was his replacement, the Spectre, who unleashed the ten plagues on Egypt and later parted the Red Sea for Moses.

The DC Universe is repeatedly shown to have been created via a variation of the Big Bang and human evolution through natural selection, yet paradoxically it also has a Garden of Eden and a version of Lilith, Adam's first wife (e.g., Peter David's Supergirl series).

A hint to reconcile this occurs in a Sandman issue (reprinted in Fables and Reflections) in which Cain, Abel, and Eve tell a story to Daniel Hall (grandson of Carter Hall) about their past and Abel says, "Oh, this whu-wasn't on Earth, thuh thu--" before being hushed.

Asmodel is stripped of his angelic powers and condemned to Hell by the Presence to burn for eternity for his treachery.

In Neil Gaiman's The Sandman mythos (Vertigo Comics, later DC Black Label), the Presence's angelic servants are shown as residents of the Silver City, a place that is styled upon "Paradise" or "Heaven"; it was initially referred to as a separate place,[11] but has since been equated with Heaven.

Sandman's God is, again, never explicitly referred to by name, and is in fact rarely mentioned at all, save an exchange between Anubis and an angel in Season of Mists: "On whose authority?

A significant character in the Sandman series is the fallen angel Lucifer Morningstar, who rules in Hell.

[15] In volume 2 of the Lucifer series, He was temporarily killed or severely damaged by one of His fallen archangels, wielding a sword of His own creation.