New Universe
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The New Universe is a comic book imprint of Marvel Comics.
In 1986, in honor of Marvel Comics' 25th anniversary, editor-in-chief Jim Shooter made an attempt to launch the New Universe line of comics. This was to be a distinctly separate world, fully divorced from the mainstream Marvel Universe, consisting of its own continuing characters and stories in a more realistic setting. There would be no aliens or hidden races, gods or mythological beings, magic, or supertechnology. Superhuman characters and powers would be limited, and thus more subdued in their activities, yet their actions would have realistic consequences. This served to act in direct contrast to the traditional "Marvel Universe", which always purported to take place in a mirror of the real world, and where public knowledge of superheroes, supervillains and their activities had little effect on normal 'day-to-day' business. Adding to the sense of realism, the New Universe titles were designed to operate in "real time;" roughly a year would lapse in the universe for each year that passed in reality.
The limitation of fantasy elements and the low-key nature of the characters' activities in the New Universe gave the imprint verisimilitude, to seem like "the world outside our window".
Original version
The premise behind the titles of the New Universe line was the question 'What would happen if normal people became superhuman overnight?' The event that started this premise was called the White Event. The White Event was a mysterious enigma at first, even inspiring cults and religions, but eventually its true nature was revealed. It was caused when a character known as the Old Man tried to rid himself of the powerful energy source known as the Star Brand by putting it onto an asteroid. (see Star Brand for details)The original line of New Universe titles included:
- D.P. 7 (Displaced Paranormals 7) (32 issues, one annual)
- Justice (32 issues)
- Kickers, Inc. (12 issues)
- (12 issues, one annual)
- Nightmask (12 issues)
- Psi-Force (32 issues, one annual)
- Spitfire and the Troubleshooters (13 issues; renamed Spitfire from issue #8; renamed Codename: Spitfire from issue #10)
- Star Brand (19 issues, one annual)
First Phase
The New Universe was heavily marketed, but faced substantial problems. Shooter had planned to recruit top creators, but this became unfeasible when Marvel's corporate owners unexpectedly reduced his available budget. As a result, many of the pitches were handled by others. Certain books lacked focus as creative teams were swapped. Some critics argued that many of the "innovative concepts" were derivative of existing superheroes (Star Brand, for instance, was accused of having borrowed its basic premise from Green Lantern). Shooter was also involved with complex politics at Marvel Comics (which eventually led to his firing), and thus could not pay much attention to the line. Eventually, four of the titles were cancelled: Kickers, Inc., Merc, Nightmask, and Spitfire.Second Phase
In an effort to save the line, Mark Gruenwald revamped the line and got John Byrne to write and do breakdowns on Star Brand. They ended up removing some of the more fantastic elements from the line and in a few cases doing radical revamps - the premise of Justice, for instance, was revealed to be a hallucination which had been artificially induced in the protagonist.With this revamp, the writers also allowed for major catastrophic events which could not have occurred in the Marvel Universe, such as the sudden obliteration of the city of Pittsburgh in The Pitt (one issue) and the war with South Africa in The Draft (one issue) and The War (four issues).
Despite all of this, sales were poor and the imprint was abruptly discontinued in late 1989 after a total of 172 comics had been published. There was talk about releasing one-shots but nothing came of it.
Reintroduction
In subsequent years, Mark Gruenwald brought the New Universe characters into the Marvel Universe proper, first via appearances in Quasar, then in the Starblast crossover. At the end of Starblast the Stranger used the Star Brand to move the Earth of the New Universe into orbit around his Labworld. After this was done the Living Tribunal judged the Star Brand to be a threat to the hierarchy of the greater powers of the Marvel Multiverse. The New Universe Earth was surrounded by an impenetrable energy barrier but left where it was. Nobody could leave or go there, and none of the greater powers were to be allowed to even observe.Parody
The New Universe was the subject of much derision in comic fandom, both before and after its debut. In particular, the character of Star Brand (and by implication, New Universe prime mover Jim Shooter) was parodied in DC Comics's event miniseries Legends, in which a faux Star Brand (bearing a strong physical resemblance to Shooter) boasted that he had 'the power to create a new universe' in his hands. Guy Gardner used his power ring to restrain the villain, who - in trying to free himself - blew off his own foot. In laters reprints this character was renamed Sunspot.Designation
In the Official Handbook to the Marvel Universe: Alternate Universes 2005, the New Universe's Earth became designated as Earth-148611. However, the Exiles' recent "Worlds Tour: New Universe" storyarc focused on an alternate New Universe which is designated as "Earth-15731". That is apparently because the Exiles version of the New Universe is an approximation, but not the same as the original timeline published in the 1980s.2005
The New Universe once again came in to play in 2005. In Exiles that team comes to an approximation of the New Universe to find a Proteus-possessed Mimic. After observing the world Proteus becomes determined to take the body of Star Brand. This was their second stop of six. While in the approximation of the New Universe, the Exiles also met other characters, most notably Justice, the original DP 7 members and Nightmask.2006
In March, 2006 several one-shots were released as a lead-in to newuniversal (see below). These were all set in the original continuity, and took place in a pre-Pitt timeframe. They all had the name Untold Tales of the New Universe and included Star Brand, Nightmask, Justice, Psi-Force, and D.P.7. In the same month there were also backup stories in regular Marvel Universe books featuring Mark Hazzard: Merc, Spitfire and the Troubleshooters, and even Kickers, Inc.newuniversal
Warren Ellis and Salvador Larocca are working on a single-title reboot of the New Universe, with the first issue to be released in the summer of 2006 with the working title of newuniversal. Very few details have been revealed, but Ellis promises to build a vastly different New Universe experience by completely forgoing the continuity of the original and writing his own world. The series was equated to Ellis' creation of the Authority from Wildstorm's Stormwatch. newuniversal is predicted to come with a T+ (older teens/adults only) rating.See also
External links
- [Shooter on the genesis and failure of the New Universe]
- [Nuke Me With the New]
- [The New Universe Handbook]
- [The Appendix to the Handbook of the Marvel Universe's New Universe section]
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