William Matthews (New Earth)

Gog was just a child when he witnessed the destruction of Topeka, Kansas. He was saved by Superman, but Superman was too late to save his family. This led to a timeline in which Gog would become a scientist as he wanted to find a way to deconstruct time to save his family.

In that timeline, he finally managed to do unlock the secret of time travel in the year 2032. However, he soon discovered he could not go back in time farther than the exact moment he conceived his dream to save his parents with time travel. Gog tried for 200 hundred years to overcome this limitation but he ultimately failed. This filled Gog with immense rage, and swore revenge on Superman.^[1]

Filled with rage, Gog traveled back in time to see his younger self. He lied to his younger self, telling him that Superman killed his parents and gave him Gog's Staff. He told his younger self to take the staff, unlock its powers, and, when he was old enough, kill Superman. This caused the seeds of vengeance to be planted earlier than in William Matthews’ original timeline. ^[2]

In this new timeline, seemingly created by his own actions in visiting his earlier self, Gog again reached adulthood and, when he was powerful enough, travelled back in time, not to save his family, but to kill Superman. This Gog of a new timeline would try to kill Superman with various tricks, including synthetic Kryptonite. However, he always failed, so finally he decide upon a final plan; he would use time.

Eventually, he coordinated 300 different versions of himself from the future, effectively creating an army which was capable of defeating most of the heroes of Earth and killing Superman's friends and family. He also was seemingly able to kill Superman as well. In response, the heroes of Earth (including a reformed heroic Doomsday) were inspired by Superman to form a "League of Supermen" to oppose Gog. The war between Gog's forces and the League of Supermen would last for a hundred years. Eventually, Gog realized that he could have his revenge without defeating the League of Superman. Thus he allowed them to believe that they won the battle for earth.

In fact, Superman was not dead. Gog had instead captured him in his fortress. There, unbeknownst to the world, Gog would spend two centuries torturing Superman. One day Gog began to ask Superman why he did not try to save his family, and every time Superman told him that he could not trade other lives for theirs. As time went on, Gog began to try other tactics to break Superman's will and prove that Superman was not truly a hero. For instance, he offered to send Superman to the past so he could save his family if he left Metropolis to him. Still, Superman refused. Gog even offered Superman the chance to go back and kill Gog as a child. Superman again refused. He offered him the chance to save Krypton if he would only sacrifice one life. Superman refused this offer as well. Finally, Gog could not take it anymore. He grabbed Superman, demanding to know why he would not sacrifice even one life to save his family or his world. Superman told him that sacrificing one for another renders the sacrifice worthless. At that moment, Superman asked Gog if his parents were murderers, in an attempt to get him to realize that his actions were not what his parents would want. This caused Gog to realize that he had strayed too far from his original purpose, saving his parents, and they would be ashamed of his actions.

At that moment, the heroic Doomsday finally found Superman, breaking into Gog's fortress. Unfortunately Superman finally died in that moment. Gog felt shame for the very first time in his life; he could not bear the sight of the man who could not be broken. Doomsday turned to kill Gog, but Gog told him they could still make things right. Doomsday agreed.

Back in Metropolis at the moment Gog had originally attacked Superman with his army of possible future Gogs, the army suddenly disappeared, leaving only one. Superman easily dispatched the one remaining Gog. Superman immediately thought of his family. Leaving Metropolis, Superman soared to Smallville where he found another Gog, dead, outside of the Kent farm house. Superman saw Gog and the future heroic Doomsday. Gog told him that the future is now unwritten, but a great crisis looms, and he hopes that he can survive it. With that, the two reformed villains disappeared.

However, the one remaining unreformed Gog awoke in Metropolis where Superman had defeated him. He realized that he could still achieve his goals. All he would need is a little time.^[3]

William Matthews Revised Origin

William Matthews was a former missionary who went on an exploration to Africa. While there he stumbled on the entrapped and dormant Gog. Though completely inactive, the large being's powers irradiated Matthews which gave Matthews some of its own powers. ^[4] One of these reactions was a vision of Earth-22 where Williams saw the Superman native to that dimension fail to protect that Earth's Kansas from a nuclear attack. Believing the Earth-22 reality to be the future for his own Earth rather than a completely separate reality happening at the same time, Williams decided to attack the New Earth Superman for what Williams believed was a future failing of his reality's Superman. Despite being powerful, Williams was defeated through the efforts of Superman and Batman.^{[citation needed]}

Killing Believers

William Matthews recently re-emerged with his powers even greater than before in preparation for Gog's return. Matthews began systematically murdering those who he believes were false gods as the so-called "Heartbreak Slayer" as Matthews kills his victims by directly destroying their hearts.

Killing Gods

As Gog, William Matthews murdered several beings with godlike power or who were named for gods, like the New Olympians and Chroma.^[5]^[6] For his crimes he was tracked by Mister America and a taskforce from the FBI, before they asked for help from the Justice Society. Eventually, Matthews ambushed the Justice Society in their own home, where he accused the Earth-22 Superman of being a false idol. However, when the fight did not go well, Matthews used a sort of teleportation device to escape back to the cave where he found Gog. There, he was apparently absorbed by Gog, who used him as a catalyst to make a body from the countryside.

Powers and Abilities

Powers

Divine Empowerment: When coming into contact with Gog and his Power Staff William gained powerful new abilities.
- Superhuman Strength: Gog can hurt the likes of Superman, Hourman and Power Girl.
- Invulnerability: Gog could resist the combined assault of the Justice Society.
- Flight: William already had the ability to fly though it is unknown exactly how he does.
- Time Manipulation: William had the ability to travel through time and even affect time on other people, especially aging.^[7]

Abilities

Theology
Hand-to-Hand Combat (Advanced): William admits that he trained and he planned, to make sure he was ready to kill Superman out of revenge for not saving his family, in time.^[8]

Weaknesses

Power Fatigue: A common problem with having Superhuman Strength while lacking Superhuman Stamina; a person, specifically Gog, is left drained and fatigued. While fatigued his powers do not react well, if at all.

Paraphernalia

Weapons

Power Staff

Notes

Matthews is comparable to the Kingdom Come Magog, as he is the New Earth Counterpart to the successor/advocate of Gog I in the New Earth reality, but Matthews has decided to actually take the same name of his power source unlike that of the actual Kingdom Come successor.

The vision of Earth-22 that William Matthews received has been suggested to be a memory of Gog rather than a projection, which suggests that Gog is native to the Earth-22 dimension. The source of the vision that Matthews received has yet to be clarified in detail to be a memory or a projection from Gog.

Trivia

William Matthews' adventures as Gog were against the New Earth Superman (as shown in Action Comics #812-819) though he recognized that the New Earth Superman was not the same man in his vision and later identified the Earth-22 Superman specifically as the one who did fail to save all the people that Matthews saw to have been killed.^[9]

Before 52 and Infinite Crisis, William Matthews's powers were given to him by the Quintessence, and were of scientific origin. Afterwards, these powers were given to him by coming in contact with the golden staff, which contained Gog's (Third World) energies. The story that retconned his power's origin created a paradox relative to published stories. Specifically, William Matthews is shown to be only two or three years old when his parents were killed in the destruction of Topeka, Kansas in 2001. However, the new origin, published only seven years later in 2008, shows Matthews as an adult when he finds the staff of Gog (Third World). Presumably, the revised origin occurred because Gog and Doomsday's actions erased the timeline of his original origin. However, even given this and sliding timelines, Gog should have only been in his early teens in 2008.

William Matthews (New Earth)

Contents

History

Initial Origins