New Universe

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 71.157.141.176 (talk) at 00:56, 11 September 2006 (→newuniversal). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Jump to navigation Jump to search
File:Newuniverse housead.jpg
Promotional ad for the New Universe.

The New Universe is a comic book line from Marvel Comics that was published in its original incarnation from 1986 - 1989. It was created by Jim Shooter, Archie Goodwin, Eliot R. Brown, Mark Gruenwald, Tom DeFalco and edited by Michael Higgins.

In 1986, in honor of Marvel Comics' 25th anniversary, Editor-In-Chief Jim Shooter launched 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 more 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 your window".

The New Universe was the first pre-conceived "shared" universe. Further, the central concept tied all of the titles together, allowing them to serve as one unified crossover. The books were meant to tell one story (hence the timelines in the back of the later comics) and could either be read from the aspect of a single title or from the aspect of all the titles telling a single story.

Original Era

The premise behind the New Universe line of comics was the question "What would happen if normal people became superhuman overnight?" The event that started it all was known as The White Event...it occurred on July 22, 1986, 4:22 a.m., EST. The White Event was a mysterious enigma at first, 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 Star Brand, the most powerful energy source in the known universe, by placing it on an asteroid (see Star Brand for details). This action bathed the Earth in a bright white light (The White Event) that caused people the world over to develop genetic anomalies which led to the birth of their powers. Many looked completely normal, but for others, the anomaly resulted in a physical manifestation which led to many of them looking horribly disfigured. Thus, all human beings who developed a reaction to The White Event were dubbed "Paranormals".

The original line of New Universe titles included:

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 and certain books lacked focus as creative teams were swapped. Shooter was also involved with complex politics at Marvel Comics (which eventually led to him resigning his position), and thus could not give the line as much attention as he would have liked. Eventually, four of the titles were cancelled: Kickers, Inc., Merc, Nightmask, and Spitfire.

Parody

  • Failed Universe (Blackthorne Publishing, 1986)
  • Legends #5 (DC, Mar 1987)

Second Era

In an effort to save the line, then Editor-In-Chief Tom DeFalco and Editor Howard Mackie ended up removing some of the more fantastic elements from it and in a few cases doing radical revamps - John Byrne was enlisted to write and do breakdowns on Star Brand, altering the title so that it focused less on Ken Connell and more on the power of The Star Brand itself. Similarly, the premise of Justice was revealed to be a hallucination which had been artificially induced in the title's protagonist. 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-shot), and the war with South Africa in The Draft (one-shot) and The War (four-issue limited series).

Despite all of this, sales were poor and the imprint was abruptly discontinued in late 1989 after a total of 174 comics had been published. There was talk of releasing one-shots, but nothing came of it. It seems Marvel had moved on...

Positive Aspects of The New Universe

Marvel Age #76 "Mark's Remarks" (July 1989)
In this issues column, then Executive Editor Mark Gruenwald talks about what he thought made the New Universe truly unique.

  • "The fundamental simplicity of a one-premise universe; you only need to accept that The White Event could cause benign radical mutations in random persons worldwide."
  • "Any ordinary person could acquire super-powers in The White Event; it was the best premise for super-hero reader identification ever invented - it discriminated against no one."
  • "A slew of really interesting characters whose problems were even more reader-relatable than those faced by the usual costumed crimefighter."
  • "The New Universe had 'real time' going for it. One year's worth of comics added up to one year of elapsed time for the characters. As a consequence, characters had the capacity for growth and change."

Reasons Why The New Universe Failed to Catch On

Marvel Age #77 "Mark's Remarks" (Aug 1989)
In this issues column, then Executive Editor Mark Gruenwald talks about why he thought The New Universe "failed to catch on any bigger than it did."

  • "By creating a parallel cosmos in celebration of its 25th Anniversary, Marvel effectively split the fans' allegiance to its mainstream mythos."
  • "Some of the original creative teams did not quite grasp the elegant simplicity of The New Universe's groundbreaking basic concept, namely, The White Event as the sole divergent factor for everything. Let's face it, for a world that was supposed to be exactly like the real world up until the moment of The White Event, a lot of pre-White Event and non-White Event phenomena did their best to creep in to dilute the New U's uniqueness and to confuse readers. Had everyone involved more scrupulously stuck to the main concept of the New U, the critical first year of The New U wouldn't have been so uneven."
  • "The titles were (sometimes) stifled by creative teams that believed The New U had to remain 'the world outside your window,' and thus nothing to earth-shaking could be allowed to happen for fear of having the reader-recognizable world become different."
  • "Judging from the mail, most of the readers were still harboring the misimpression (some) creative teams had fostered, that The New U was meant "to remain the world outside your window" forever. Many fans felt we had betrayed The New U's premise (as they understood it) when we finally started living up to it (as we now understood it)."
  • "The New Universe may have been too different in it's appeal to a mass audience. The New U approach to super-heroic fiction was to question and rethink every single aspect of the super hero experience, from the origin of all super-powers, to the way they worked, to the necessity of costumes and codenames, to the motivation to fight crime, and so on. Maybe this was too revolutionary."

"I could mention business and economic factors that may have hurt The New U, such as altering the format of the line in midstream, making the books direct-only, and hiking the price substantially twice, but these were all steps that were taken once The New U line was already floundering. Truth to tell, these steps actually enabled The New Universe line to last as long as it did."

Reintroduction

Quasar: Prelude To Starblast (1992 - 1994)

In subsequent years, Writer Mark Gruenwald brought the New Universe characters into the Marvel Universe proper, first via appearances in Quasar, then in the Starblast mini series / crossover. At the end of Starblast, the Stranger uses the Star Brand to move the Earth of the New Universe into orbit around his Labworld. The Living Tribunal then judges the Star Brand to be a threat to the hierarchy of the greater powers of the Marvel Multiverse. New Universe Earth is then placed in exile, surrounded by an impenetrable energy barrier so that no one is allowed to enter or leave it, and none of the greater powers are allowed to observe it ever again.

  • Quasar #31 - 53 (D.P. 7, Star Brand)

Starblast (1994)

Spider-Man 2099 (1993 - 1996)

Writer Peter David also introduced the character of Net Prophet into the chronology of Spider-Man 2099; it is later discovered that Net Prophet is an amnesiac Justice who slowly regains his memories during the course of the storyline...

Technically, these characters still exist in the Marvel Universe.

2005

Wha...Huh? #1

In early 2005, writer Brian K. Vaughan and artist Jim Mahfood created a three-page story entitled "What If Galactus Got Food Poisoning?" for inclusion in Marvel's Wha...Huh? (one-shot). It explains, in a very fun way, the origins of The New Universe!

The Official Handbook Of The Marvel Universe: Alternate Universes 2005

This issue features a two page entry for The New Universe. In the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe: Alternate Universes 2005, the New Universe's Earth is designated Earth-148611. However, the Exiles' recent "World Tour: New Universe" story arc focused on an alternate New Universe which is designated Earth-15731. This is due to the fact that the Exiles version of the New Universe is an approximation - but not the same as the original published in the 1980's titles. The version of The New Universe slated to appear in newuniversal is tentatively labeled Earth-555.

Exiles #72 - 74 "World Tour: New Universe"

In late 2005, the Exiles find a Proteus-possessed Mimic in an approximation of New Universe era Pittsburgh on a quest to retrieve the most powerful weapon in the known universe, The Star Brand. After observing this world, Proteus becomes determined to take the body of Star Brand - but also encounters Justice, D.P. 7, and Nightmask. This arc runs through Exiles #72 - 74 and is the second of six stops on their "World Tour".

The 20th Anniversary Of The New Universe

Untold Tales Of The New Universe

In 2006, Editor-In-Chief Joe Quesada and Editor Mark Paniccia set in motion events to celebrate Marvel Comics' 20th Anniversary of The New Universe. In late February and early March, they launched the Untold Tales of The New Universe, a five week comic event that takes place in a pre-Pitt timeframe in the original continuity. These were released as a lead-in to Warren Ellis' forthcoming ongoing title, newuniversal, which would re-introduce the New Universe Saga to the world.

The line of Untold Tales of The New Universe titles included:

All-New Official Handbook Of The Marvel Universe A - Z #6 (of 12) "Justice To Marvel"

This issue features a biography of John Tensen / Justice.

Marvel Legacy: The 1980's Handbook

In November of 2006, Marvel is releasing a 1980's version of The Official Handbook Of The Marvel Universe. The profiles within cover everything published by the House of Ideas prior to 11:59 p.m. Dec. 31, 1989 and features both D.P. 7 and Nightmask prominently.

newuniversal

Template:Future comic

Writer Warren Ellis and Illustrator Salvador Larocca , in honor of the 20th Anniversary of The New Universe, are creating a single-title re-imagining of the New Universe Saga, with the first issue to be released in December of 2006 under the title newuniversal.

(Portions of the below text copyright Warren Ellis, ComicBookResources.com, and Newsarama.com):
Ellis has stated that newuniversal will be "a mix of old characters and new characters of his creation. The White Event occurs, this huge astronomical event where the skies go white all over the world for a minute, and the aftermath is that the laws of physics have been changed."

"There's a sf book by a writer called Vernor Vinge where the laws of physics are radically different depending on which part of the galaxy you're in. Conventional physics' dirty little secret is that the speed of light appears to fluctuate. Which reminded me of a cheat he (Author Vernor Vinge) used to get past faster-than-light travel -- he simply had his universe contain zones in which our laws of physics do not apply. Vinge has written extensively about the Singularity, also known as 'the Rapture for nerds' -- and what is more Rapture-like than a handful of selected people ascending into superhumanity?"

The first story arc centers around the introduction of the lead characters of the original New Universe - Star Brand, Nightmask, Justice, and Spitfire. "But if there are any surviving fans of the New Universe, there are some things in there that'll be new to them, too. This isn't some amorphous 'new universe.' This is Earth 555 in the multiversal structure, down the spiral from 'Marvel-Earth' 616. It's an alternate world where America is somewhat isolationist, Soviet Russia fell apart early and China took the lead in spaceflight. Ordinary Americans fear Chinese bases on the moon and Chinese invasion-by-culture, with all the kids reading manhwa translated by B-Bop and listening to pop from the Pearl River Delta. It emerges in the first sequence that, by pure fluke, the spin of the planet had America facing the astronomical incident termed The White Event, and so the first superhumans emerge in America. By the second and third sequences, this begins to cause its own [international] strife ..."

"The characters central motivations will be to work out what the hell is happening to them -- only one of the characters knows that -- and to survive to see tomorrow. You see, this isn't the first time this has happened. And certain people are waiting for them."

"That said, you will see things from the Marvel Universe leak into the book. I'm also, in the early issues, using elements from a very old Barry Windsor-Smith job for Marvel's (barbarian hero) called ' Starr the Slayer.' And long-time X-Men readers will know who (New Mutant's member) Cypher is."

"I'm really opening it up for (Artist) Salvador Larocca to make his own statement. His work has evolved dramatically over the last couple of years, taking on European influences and becoming much richer than previously. So what I'm doing is staging the scenes to draw more of that out of him, and encouraging him to emerge out of the superhero vocabulary and get crazy."

The series is predicted to come with a T+ (older teens/adults only) rating.

Collections

  • Exiles Volume 12: World Tour Book 1 Trade Paperback - contains material originally published in magazine form as Exiles #69 - 74. First Printing: March 15, 2006. ISBN 0785118543.
  • Untold Tales Of The New Universe Trade Paperback - contains material originally published in magazine form as Untold Tales Of The New Universe: Nightmask, Star Brand, Psi-Force, Justice, and D.P. 7; and stories from Amazing Fantasy #18 - 19 and New Avengers #16. First Printing: July 26, 2006. ISBN 0785121854.

    Marvel have stated that additional collections of the original New Universe titles will be released to coincide with the release of newuniversal.

See Also

New Universe

newuniversal

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=New_Universe&oldid=75010080"