Blackest Night: Quotes

Yesterday, I posted my guess as to who is the leader of the Black Lanterns. Because the San Diego Comic Con is ongoing, new information comes out by the day. In this post, I wanted to compile a humble collection of brief, but telling, quotations about where the series is going, particularly regarding the identity of the "big bad" -- or, if it's a more appropriate label, the big "dead". In addition, some facts from the comics that seem to point to that entity's identity:

Quotations from Comic Book Resources:

"Fans will learn a lot about the nature of the universe in Blackest Night as well as the big villain behind everything and much more."

Religion/deity based characters play a role? "The characters discuss it in #2. There's a very specific thing about the Black Rings that I don't want to reveal," Johns said. "You'll see something very interesting in issue 3."

Is there going to be an ultimate entity behind the rings? "You'll have to read and see, I know there's a lot of speculation but I think it's not what people are expecting."

Johns described the black energy as "not necessarily having a good component, but it's not necessarily evil."

Is a villain called Nekron involved in Blackest Night? Berganza: "Who's that?" Johns: "I can't talk about that."

Geoff Johns

"... I wanted to explore – why death is the way it is in the DC Universe. Or why it has been."

Facts from the comics:

The Anti-Monitor is spoken to by the villain and told to rise. Therefore, it seems very unlikely that the Anti-Monitor would be the villain.

Scar says upon Black Hand's death, apparently of the villain, "This pleases him", indicating that the villain is a male, and not her.

The modus operandi of the villain matches very well that of Nekron. But is this too obvious?

All sources of information regarding Blackest Night began with the entities on Ysmault. Qull and Atrocitus spread this information to others.