New Universe
The New Universe was a former 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, gods , mythological beings, magic, or supertechnology. Superhuman characters and powers would be limited, and thus more subdued in their activities. 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.
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".
First Phase
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)
- Marc Hazzard, Merc (12 issues, one annual)
- Nightmask (12 issues)
- Psi-Force (32 issues)
- Spitfire and the Troubleshooters (13 issues; renamed Spitfire from issue #8; renamed Codename: Spitfire from issue #10)
- Star Brand (19 issues, one annual)
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.
In subsequent years, Mark Gruenwald brought the New Universe characters into the Marvel Universe proper, first via appearances in Quasar, then in the Starblast miniseries; technically, these characters still exist in the Marvel Universe. The Starblast miniseries ended when the Stranger used the Starbrand to move the Earth of the New Universe into orbit around his Labworld. The characters remain mostly forgotten to this day.
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.