THE NEW UNIVERSE AT 40: A LOOK BACK AT MARVEL’S UNWANTED RELATIVE
BY MICHAEL HOSKIN
PART 2: “IT WAS A DISASTER.”
The New Universe launch came in a crowded summer; this was the summer of John Byrne’s Superman reboot, the Man of Steel, followed by DC’s line-wide crossover Legends; it was the summer launch of Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons’ Watchmen. It was also the summer Eclipse Comics decided to fuse their titles into a shared universe – and Eclipse editor-in-chief cat yronwode complained bitterly about the resemblance between the Star Brand and Eclipse Comics’ logos (Eclipse’s logo was even created by Mark Gruenwald!).
Prior to the New Universe launch, retailers interviewed by the Comics Journal were apprehensive due to the lack of information and the many other high-profile comics competing for space. “It’s going to be hard on the consumer, as well as the retailers,” said Russ Ernst of Glenwood Distributors. “This summer’s got all the makings of a Black Summer.”
The Comics Journal would later run a straw poll among retailers about New Universe sales; they found Kickers, Inc. was the worst seller. John Davis of Capital City in Wisconsin said, “The retailers don’t have much confidence in New Universe titles. They ordered very conservatively.”
Richard Finn of Second Genesis in Portland said, “I didn’t like their [Marvel’s] marketing techniques. Eight new titles in the span of one month is way too much at one time to expect collectors to buy. They [Marvel] were way too conservative in publicity. They kept it [the New Universe] under wraps too long. They sent out lots of promotions too late. They wouldn’t send out visuals until the first issue was ordered. The three-D display and freebie poster came out after the second issue.” Finn was possibly referring to the handsome New Universe promotional poster painted by Bill Sienkiewicz.
Frank Mangiaracina of Friendly Frank’s Comics in Gary, Indiana also found fault with their promotional methods, likening it to that of the recent Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: “They (Marvel) have a new sales strategy: to undersell the book and create a demand on the consumer level. Like Eastman and Laird- that’s how I saw it. They wanted all the first issues to sell out and create a clamor for the New Universe.”
Scott Rosenberg of Sunrise Comics in Los Angeles said, “They’re respectable numbers and we’re happy to get them… The people who are disappointed in orders are the ones who expected to have another X-Men on their hands. We had talked to Marvel, so we knew what to expect.”
Similarly, Bob Gray of Twilight Book and Game Emporium in Syracuse, New York said in Four Color that “I think people got really sick hearing about the New Universe and not knowing what it was about. When it got here, it just wasn’t any big thrill.”
Critic Paul Carbonaro went through the New Universe titles for Amazing Heroes. “I feel sorry for Jim Shooter,” Carbonaro wrote. “The man had a fair idea of how to celebrate Marvel’s 25th anniversary, and that was to revolutionize the revolution. Stan Lee made super-heroes more human in the early ‘60s. Shooter has attempted to take things one step further by creating a universe where Earth, supposedly, does not have ‘super-heroes,’ but rather humans affected by fantastic fates.” Carbonaro came down negatively on most of the New Universe titles.
Carbonaro was more gracious to Kickers, Inc. than most, noting “it redeems itself by not taking itself too seriously, and works quite well in the tongue-in-cheek style of ‘60s Marvel comics.” Which was, of course, what DeFalco and Frenz had aimed for. Carbonaro also appreciated a scene in Star Brand #2: “The most enjoyable scene springs from the notion that, just because a hero can fly, it doesn’t mean he automatically knows where he’s going. Star Brand has to use a road map to get to the scene of a disaster. Nice.”
The Comics Journal featured a lengthy review by R. Fiore of all the New Universe titles in their October 1986 issue. His preamble cast a dismal picture: “Bold as they [Shooter, Goodwin & DeFalco] may have been to attempt it, the result is pathetic: Sad-ass, washed-out, bald-faced imitations of existing characters.” Fiore even cast criticism over Shooter’s introductory editorial, responding to his staccato “Real pipes. Real people.” with “Though apparently not real sentences.”
Fiore took great exception to the lack of realism in Kickers, Inc., which, of course, had been a source of tension between DeFalco, Frenz and Shooter. “It’s hard to believe that DeFalco and co. have ever read a sports page at all,” Fiore sniffed.
Surprisingly, Fiore was most fond of Peter David & Gray Morrow’s Mark Hazzard: Merc, although he took great exception to the concept:
“The trouble is that it’s a corrupt concept deprived of its squalid attraction because David is unwilling to face up to its implications. Odious as the glorification of what has always been the world’s most despised profession is, it does have its own twisted logic: In a world where the namby-pamby democracies don’t have the gumption to fight the commies, the mercenary eliminates the middle man, taking his pay directly from the bosses to defend capitalism from the red horde. But David wants to have his fascism and eat his bleeding heart too.”
Yes, that was Fiore’s positive review.
Writing in Comic Buyer’s Guide, Don Thompson disputed Shooter’s claims that the New Universe would emphasize realism, citing as example an explosion in Star Brand #1 and a fall in D.P.7 #1. “So, what we have here isn’t a new universe at all,” wrote Thompson. “It is the old, familiar comic-book universe, in which explosions and falls don’t hurt in which people do thing that no real person ever does.”
In late 1986, comics publisher Blackthorne put out a one-shot titled Failed Universe in which Cliff MacGillivray and David Cody Weiss mocked the New Universe and all 8 of its titles. However, because it had been released so early, the parodies were thin and had little to do with the actual content of the comics. The one-shot fell furthest from its mark in the climax, where the protagonists were confronted by “the Reader,” the supposed representation of the New Universe’s readers – yet the Reader’s complaints had more to do with Marvel Comics over all than the New Universe specifically; the Reader called out the protagonists for “too many unnecessary crossovers,” when the New Universe had yet to feature crossovers.
The Slings & Arrows Comic Guide called Shooter and Romita’s Star Brand, “excellent examples of the ‘real world superhero’ sub-genre.” To D.P.7 the guide called it “An intelligent, enjoyable read, with likeable protagonists who are refreshingly capable of being selfish and indecisive, rather than the infallible paragons favoured by most comics. Mark Gruenwald turns in the second best writing job of his career (Squadron Supreme being the best), and Paul Ryan’s realistic, low-key art enhances the human scale of the drama admirably.”
Of Justice, Slings & Arrows wrote, “The earth scenes are typical 1980s sub-Frank Miller mean-streets stuff, and the fantasy elements are by way of vintage Steve Ditko strips such as Dr. Strange and Shade the Changing Man. The chief problem is the eccentric penciling by Geof Isherwood, plainly inked by Vince Colletta. It looks a mess.”
Slings & Arrows was lukewarm on Mark Hazzard: Merc: “It’s all completely objectionable, and yet… there’s always enough happening to make you pick up the next one.” To Psi-Force they wrote, “crafting quality stories about super-heroes without the trappings of a superhero universe is highly demanding, and the creators fail to rise to the challenge.”
But Slings & Arrows called Spitfire and the Troubleshooters a “headless chicken of a series,” saying “Every issue overwrites the previous as a rapid succession of writers and artists strive helplessly for a winning format.” They called Kickers, Inc., “thoroughly boring and pointless.”
Gerard Jones gave Star Brand a rave review in Amazing Heroes. “Where’s Jim Shooter been keeping himself?” Jones asked rhetorically. “This is the freshest treatment of a hero on the stands right now – and it really is about a hero, a flawed but basically good man trying to figure out the proper use of his powers. Star Brand reminds us why the super-hero genre exists, show us that heroes can be made fresh and believable without being turned into psychotics, losers, arrested adolescents, two-bit Dirty Harrys, or freaks of nature.”
Responding to those who compared the origin of Star Brand to that of DC’s Green Lantern, Shooter said: “I’m not sure the Green Lantern origin is, in and of itself, a completely original concept. The idea of aliens coming to earth with powers and abilities to pass on to someone else is not all that unique – I think it’s how you handle that concept that makes the difference, that makes the character what it is. Superficially, there may be similarities, but I don’t think the GL origin is completely unique.” Indeed, John Broome & Gil Kane’s Green Lantern has been frequently compared to E. E. “Doc” Smith’s Lensman novels.
Looking back, Fabian Nicieza opined, “Philosophically, the idea was really solid, but it wasn’t in execution, not the development of the characters themselves, not the choices of the creative teams and not the way it was done, so much of it in hiding, in seclusion, and so much of it internally at editorial without the interaction of any of the other departments. And that’s going to hurt because if the direct sales department is not involved in it, when they’re talking to retailers, they’re not going to be talking about it in a positive way because they’re being iced out.”
Fabian also believed, “You don't celebrate the 25th Anniversary of a universe of comics by launching a new, different one. Conceptually, many of the original titles were weak and lacked strong enough, troubled enough identifiable characters.”
Looking back in 2000, Shooter evinced no nostalgia:
“It was me, Archie, assistant editors and anyone who couldn't get work. So, that stuff was awful. It was horrible. They didn't spend any money on promotion. I don't blame them. There was nothing to promote. The stuff was shit.”
“If I was smarter, I probably wouldn't have gotten myself into that mess. In any case, it was a disaster, but I had help. A couple of the ideas were pretty good. A couple of the issues of Star Brand were pretty good. It was kind of a shame. It could have worked.”
Shooter attempted to be conciliatory, by way of damning with faint praise: “Some of these guys who grew up to be contenders, like Mark Texeira and Whilce Portacio. But they were brand new. They didn't know what they [were] doing.” Even there, Shooter wasn’t being fair; he’d forgotten Texeira was not brand new (having been in comics since 1982 and freelancing for Marvel since 1984) and that although Strikeforce: Morituri had established Portacio’s reputation, it wasn’t published as a New Universe title.
NEW TALENT DEPARTMENT
In the promotions department, Fabian Nicieza was trying to break in as a writer. “Bob [Budiansky] asked me if I was interested in pitching him inventory stories for Psi-Force,” Fabian told the podcast Ten Cent Takes. “I was more than interested and hungry enough, because I wanted to get a chance to start doing some writing.” Fabian wrote 10 single-paragraph plot ideas and submitted them to Budiansky. Fabian expanded two of his ideas into the stories that were published in Psi-Force #9 & 13. At the same time, Fabian sold an inventory story that was published in Codename: Spitfire #11.
Fabian’s first Psi-Force story spotlighted Wayne Tucker. When one of Wayne’s fellow teens at Sanctuary commits suicide, Wayne fears that he accidentally compelled the teen to kill himself using his psychic powers. Wayne goes into a dangerous spiral where he tries to alter people’s behaviors to avoid unethical choices, before finally learning the suicide wasn’t his fault.
Budiansky came back to Fabian and said, “Do me a favor. If anyone asks you to do anything, could you come to me first?” When Fabian shared that anecdote with his artist roommates Kevin McGuire and Mark McKenna, they told him, “Dude, he wants to offer you the book, but he can’t because he’s got a writer and he hasn’t fired the other writer yet.”
Fabian had to follow Shooter’s rules for writing the New Universe, which included a mandate that every issue was supposed to be self-contained. “I always feel that imposing rules like that across the board is stifling to creativity,” Fabian opined, “because ultimately you’re asking to tell a story within a numerical guideline rather than telling the story to what the requirements of the story actually are.”
Another of Shooter’s rules (for all super-hero comics at Marvel) was that every issue needed a ‘I can’t but I must’ conflict. “Again, I agree with it 1000% from the idea of trying to structure a smart story and good storytelling,” Fabian said. “But what if your ‘can’t-must’ conflict comes at the beginning of your story? Then your resolutions are not going to necessarily depend on your ‘can’t-must’ conflict.” All ten of the plot ideas Fabian sent to Budiansky contained the ‘can’t-must’ conflict because he knew it would be demanded at some stage of the process.
THE FIRST YEAR SHAKE-UP
By the end of the New Universe’s first year, all eight titles had published 12 issues except for Spitfire, which had started one month early and published 13 issues and Star Brand, which published 9, having started one month early yet missed 4 months of publishing. There were also 4 annuals – one each for D.P.7, Mark Hazzard: Merc, Psi-Force and Star Brand.
Inventory stories and fill-in art were depressingly common during the New Universe’s first year, excepting D.P.7., the only series to maintain a consistent creative team for its first year (indeed, Mark Gruenwald and Paul Ryan would remain on D.P.7 to the bitter end).
In terms of inventory stories, Codename: Spitfire ran 3; Justice ran 1; Kickers, Inc. ran 3; Nightmask ran 4; Psi-Force ran 3; and Star Brand ran 2. D.P.7 and Mark Hazzard: Merc didn’t use inventory stories. Along with Fabian Nicieza, another notable young writer of inventory stories was Len Kaminski, who would later be known for his work on Iron Man.
Some of the fill-in artists were novices in comics but were on their way to bigger and better things; Javier Saltares produced some of his first comics work on Justice and Nightmask fill-ins; Todd McFarlane drew an issue of Spitfire and the Troubleshooters. Over on Nightmask, a young Mark Bagley – who’d been discovered through the Marvel Try-Out Book – made his Marvel debut drawing issues #9, 10 & 12.
The big-name fill-in artist, however, was none other than Keith Giffen! Somehow while drawing Dr. Fate for DC, Giffen was able to contribute fill-in art on one issue of Star Brand (featuring dream sequences in which Giffen channeled his best faux-Kirby art) and one issue of Nightmask (an offbeat nightmare issue in which Nightmask was stalked by a ghoulish representation of Justice). Then, Giffen joined Gerry Conway as the new creative team for Justice; Marvel even ran a house ad with art by Giffen to promote the Conway-Giffen team, but they lasted just 3 issues (Justice #9-11).
More shocking than inventory and fill-in services was the schedule slippage that disrupted Star Brand. Jim Shooter repeatedly denounced (both before and after) the tendency of Marvel titles to miss their shipping dates, yet his own Star Brand fell badly off schedule, missing 4 months during the first year. Shooter left Star Brand after issue #7 (Roy & Dann Thomas finished that issue’s script) and the remaining two issues were inventory; a dismal state of affairs for the title which had garnered the most positive reviews and had been viewed as the lead series in the imprint. John Romita Jr. exited with Shooter and made his next regular assignment on Ann Nocenti’s Daredevil. Romita determined that, “As much as Shooter was disliked, however, he really helped me out quite a bit as far as my storytelling abilities go. He pushed and forced me to become a good storyteller. I credit him for being a really tough boss, but the book was just a flop, so I decided to get off that book.”
Michael Higgins announced in Marvel Age that Roy & Dann Thomas would be the new writers of Star Brand, but completing Shooter’s script for issue #7 proved to be all they would contribute. Roy Thomas was, like Gerry Conway, a Marvel creator who had fled to DC in the early days of Shooter’s term as editor-in-chief and like Conway, had been brought back through writing on the New Universe.
Kickers, Inc. fell into the hands of writers Terry Kavanagh and Ron Altaville, both of them making their debuts as writers (Altaville’s only credits were on Kickers, Inc., while Kavanagh would write regularly at Marvel for the next 13 years). Most of the remaining issues were drawn by Rod Whigham. With their first issue (#6), Carl Potts began sharing the editing chores with Michael Higgins before becoming full editor; if you’re wondering whether Potts as editor meant there was Mike Mignola art the answer is: Yes! Mignola drew the covers to Kickers, Inc. #9 and 12.
The most unusual shift in the first year happened in Doug Murray & Gray Morrow’s Mark Hazzard: Merc. At the conclusion of issue #11, Mark received a fatal gunshot wound; Mark Hazzard: Merc Annual #1 featured his friends reminiscing about Mark’s life as he died in a hospital bed. In issue #12, the series continued despite the death of its lead, instead following two supporting characters who were fighting alongside the Mujahideen in Afghanistan. Marvel Age featured quotes from Larry Hama (the original choice of writer for the series) who claimed he would be taking over the series from Murray and there would be a new protagonist to replace Hazzard – but issue #12 proved to be the end.
After Psi-Force’s first year, Danny Fingeroth and Mark Texeira (in what would be Texeira’s last story) sent out cast member Michael Crawley in the Psi-Force Annual, replacing him with their former foe Thomas Boyd; Boyd remained in the cast to the book’s conclusion, shaking up the previous team dynamics. Crawley became a supporting character in D.P.7.
Gerry Conway remained as writer through Spitfire and the Troubleshooters #6, then Cary Bates wrote through issue 10 with artist Alan Kupperberg. Bates’ tenure opened with him killing one of the Troubleshooters and permanently crippling a second, then writing the remaining members out of the book. Bates turned Jenny Swensen into an agent of the C.I.A. involved in international espionage, initially fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan. With issue #10 (drawn by Marshall Rogers), the series was renamed Codename: Spitfire, but that proved to be Bates’ farewell; the last 3 issues were all inventory stories (also, inexplicably, Jenny once again had a suit of armor to wear).
Retailer John Davis of Capital City said to Four Color:
“Whenever you produce art by committee it comes out formula-bound. I think the best work is always done by individuals who have something to say, not a committee coming up with something they think will sell. Even given that limitation, if they had put strong, creative people on the books, they would have sold, no question about it.
To add to the problem about not having names, they had a constantly changing roster. Even if they created some fan following it was broken when different creators took over. It was thus very difficult for the books to get off the ground because of that.”
Marvel gave no advance warning that a great shake-up was to come at the end of their first year; indeed, Marvel Age kept happily supplying advance shipping dates for the titles as far as issues #14 (or #15 for Codename: Spitfire).
“NUKE ME WITH THE NEW”
Michael Higgins, who had himself replaced Eliot R. Brown, was squeezed off his four New Universe titles, which Shooter gave to newly promoted editor Howard Mackie (a former assistant to Mark Gruenwald). After the New Universe’s first year, Shooter made Mackie the editor of the entire New Universe line, rather than dividing duties between multiple editorial offices.
The Universe News page appearing in most of the book’s issue #12 announced that “Consolidating all of the books under a single editor's auspices will help coordinate the books’ storylines so that the saga of the New Universe can unfold like never before. Howard, once known as the world’s most mysterious assistant editor, approaches the task with the unbridled enthusiasm he is known for, and promises that the New Universe: Year Two will blow the socks off everyone's expectations (that is, if your expectations wear socks!).”
Howard Mackie promised in Universe News that under his editorship: “We'll have more tightly coordinated continuity among the books, more crossovers, more super-powered characters making appearances, and occurrences of much greater magnitude. Oh yes, we'll also be learning what caused the White Event which started the New Universe back in July 1986!”
That same Universe News page also announced: “Four of the eight original New Universe titles have failed to catch on with a big enough segment of the buying public to warrant their continuation at this time.” The remaining comics would be D.P.7, Justice, Psi-Force and Star Brand.
“Talk about having an axe over your head,” Fabian Nicieza suggested, “getting promoted and being given four New Universe titles when four had been cancelled.”
“While the cancellation of four titles does not suggest that the New Universe concept as a whole has failed,” David Caruba wrote in Four Color, “it does suggest it is floundering.”
Jim Shooter hired Fabian Nicieza to be the new writer of Psi-Force, following his two successful inventory stories. “Bob Budiansky didn’t have to fire his friend, Danny Fingeroth. Shooter took that on for himself,” Fabian explained; Budiansky and Fingeroth were both cut loose.
Within one month of promoting Howard Mackie, Shooter was fired from Marvel Comics. He and the New Universe had become so entwined that, according to Marvel Comics: The Untold Story, John Byrne threw a party to celebrate Shooter’s dismissal and built an effigy of Shooter from unsold copies of New Universe comics, then lit it on fire.
Byrne had also taken aim at Shooter in DC’s Legends mini-series, which he’d co-written and drawn. In a memorable sequence in Legends #5 (published when most New Universe titles were on their 6th issues), Byrne pit the Green Lantern Guy Gardner against a new villain called Sunspot; Sunspot wore a costume suspiciously similar to Ken Connell’s jumpsuit, but his hair and face recalled that of Jim Shooter himself. “The ultimate power is finally mine,” Sunspot ranted, “as it always should have been! From this day forward, I will show you all how power is meant to be used!” The depiction played directly into common complaints of Shooter’s heavy-handed editorial style, but Byrne went further as Sunspot declared he had “the power to create a New Universe.” When Gardner caught Sunspot’s foot in an energy shackle created by his ring, Sunspot destroyed the shackle, only to obliterate his own foot in the process; the meaning was clear – through hubris, Jim Shooter had shot himself in the foot.
Shooter left behind a fractured office environment as employees and freelancers suspected each other of spying for their former boss. “Howard was really wary of me,” Fabian Nicieza recalled, “because everyone thought I was a Shooter plant.” Fortunately, Fabian soon won over Mackie, and he stated they remained friends to the present day.
In fact, Fabian was glad Shooter was gone. Prior to his departure, Shooter had a meeting where he suggested ideas he wanted to see in Psi-Force. “I didn’t like any of the ideas he threw out,” Fabian said, “but I couldn’t say anything about it.”
Tom DeFalco became editor-in-chief of Marvel, but he had little to do with the New Universe; Mark Gruenwald was promoted to executive editor and provided direction to Mackie. “Mark was really the overseer of the New Universe from that point on,” Mackie conceded to Back Issue.
Peter David came back to the New Universe to serve as the new writer of Justice; he was assigned artist Lee Weeks, a talent discovered at Eclipse and whose Marvel debut had been on the D.P.7 Annual.
The new Star Brand creative team came together in an odd manner; according to John Byrne in Comics Interview, he had picked up a call from Howard Mackie by answering, “Hi, Howard. No, I don’t want to do STAR BRAND.” Byrne laughed. “And that wasn’t what he was calling about, but as we talked, all of a sudden I realized that I had STAR BRAND stories that I could do. So by the end of that conversation I had agreed that I would do STAR BRAND, provided that I only had to do the loosest of loose breakdowns, and that it stayed bi-monthly.” Tom Palmer was brought into finish Byrne’s art, and the series was given the article The Star Brand because Byrne didn’t intend to keep Ken Connell as the protagonist but would instead follow the Star Brand from one host to another.
It was no small thing to receive Byrne on Star Brand, even on a bi-monthly basis. Byrne had been consistently one of the most popular artists in 1980s comics; he had the star power the New Universe had been mostly lacking up until then. Having been at DC Comics since before the New Universe’s launch, it shone a little extra light on the New Universe for Byrne’s first new Marvel work to be on the Star Brand. But considering Byrne’s Star Brand parody in Legends and his burning of Shooter in effigy, New Universe fans also had cause for concern.
The revised line-up of D.P.7, Justice, Psi-Force and the Star Brand was promoted as “The New New Universe.”
With Shooter gone, Gruenwald was able to exert more influence over the New Universe. As previously noted, Gruenwald found the White Event an appealing aspect of the New Universe because it was a single point of origin for all the aspects of that reality that were different from the real world. However, he noted three elements in the New Universe that went against that premise, singling out the Old Man’s claims that he was an extraterrestrial, Justice’s origins as a “Justice Warrior” from another dimension and the advanced technology seen in Spitfire. “Had everyone involved more scrupulously stuck to the main concept of the New U,” Gruenwald opined, “the critical first year of the New U wouldn't have been so uneven.”
The Old Man’s origins were spelled out in Byrne’s the Star Brand #12 to finally put to rest the idea that he was an extraterrestrial, instead establishing him as a human – as well as revealing him to be the man responsible for the White Event (Connell and the Old Man also fought at a comic book convention in that issue, inadvertently killing Byrne, Mackie and Gruenwald’s New Universe counterparts). Meanwhile, Gruenwald co-wrote Justice #15 with Peter David (it was David’s first issue) and completely rewrote Justice’s origins, establishing him to be a human paranormal named John Tensen who had been deluded into believing he’d originated in another dimension. And what of the advanced technology seen in Spitfire? “Oops,” said Gruenwald.
Peter David described the new status quo in Justice for Marvel Age: “Once Tensen realizes that he’s not from another dimension and that it was a delusion foisted on him by a paranormal, he decides that he’s going to be the judge, jury, and executioner of paranormals.” David intended to explore the ramifications of this on Tensen’s mind: “For the problem is that in order to shield away from his more human mind, if you will, the horror of what he’s doing and what he’s become, he has to completely slam shut the door on all conscience and society-ingrained ethics that tell him that what he’s doing is wrong. As a result of having to forcibly repress these emotions, he is a man who is walking on the edge of a breakdown.”
Fabian Nicieza was placed with artist Ron Lim on Psi-Force, debuting as the new creative team in issue #16. Both men were eager to prove themselves in comics. “It’s really great when both sides of the creative team have an equal impetus to prove themselves, to establish themselves, to show people what they can do,” Fabian said. “Because I think that it’s an electric charge. You push each other and your enthusiasm manifests itself on the page.”
Before his exit, Shooter had initiated a “New Universe Slogan Contest,” challenging fans to give the New Universe a phrase similar to “Make Mine Marvel.” In the Universe News that accompanied the Star Brand #11 (Byrne’s first issue), Howard Mackie announced the winner as the phrase “Nuke Me with the New,” created by Ernest Pasoua. Considering Byrne’s plans for the New Universe, Mackie’s selection was probably intended as a dark joke.
ON THE WHOLE, I’D RATHER NOT BE IN PITTSBURGH
Early on, Byrne decided to change up the Star Brand and create an event to draw attention to the New Universe. “What we did, sitting around in Howard’s office that day,” Byrne recalled, “we just said, ‘If the idea is that this is a new universe, that we’re setting a whole new groundwork, then let’s do that. Let’s get rid of this idea that it’s the world outside your window, and have an event that will clearly say it’s new, it’s different, things are happening.’”
Mackie recalled, “The generation of The Pitt was that Star Brand can pass the Brand along to anyone else, but he can never put it into an inanimate object. That is when I suggested the idea, ‘What if he does?’ We figured it would be catastrophic, and then I said, ‘Where would be put it?’ He’s from Pittsburgh, so let’s do it there.” Byrne, Gruenwald and Mackie decided that Ken Connell should recklessly use the Star Brand to destroy his home city of Pittsburgh – which also happened to be the home city of Jim Shooter. Connell would destroy Pittsburgh on the closing pages of the Star Brand #12, which would lead into the graphic novel The Pitt, written by Byrne and Gruenwald with Sal Buscema and Stan Drake on art. The graphic novel also featured Spitfire’s Jenny Swensen, whom Gruenwald set up as a new cast member in D.P.7.
When Comic Buyer’s Guide asked Byrne why he had chosen to destroy Pittsburgh, he simply replied, “In the context of the comic book, because that’s where Star Brand is. In the context of the real world, it’s ‘and the horse you rode in on.’” In Back Issue, Howard Mackie insisted it was not meant as a personal slight against Shooter.
When the plans for The Pitt were shared with him, Fabian Nicieza recalled saying aloud, “’That’s interesting.’ And in my brain, I thought, ‘That’s really petty.’” Nicieza felt certain it was meant as an attack on Shooter. In a nonplussed voice, Fabian sighed that, “A lot of the younger generation, myself included, were kind of surprised as we started to realize, ‘wait a minute, we’re freaking a little more mature than you guys.’ It’s ridiculous.”
“It’s just fun to have a universe that’s so messed up and to have a power like the Starbrand that can be passed around and that we don’t have heroes who are necessarily heroic,” Byrne told Marvel Age. “They don’t have to be traditional heroes. They don’t have to wear costumes. Certainly it’s got nothing to do with the world outside our window any more. But it’s interesting to be playing off something that’s that screwed up.”
Part of why Gruenwald supported and co-wrote The Pitt was to combat the “world outside your window” phrase that Shooter had popularized. Gruenwald believed:
“…various titles were stifled by their creative teams’ strict adherence to a mistaken notion that the New Universe was and had to remain the ‘world outside your window.’ What this notorious expression meant was that the New U was identical to the real world-- the world that presumably lies outside each of the readers' windows, and inside it too, for that matter-- up until the instant of the White Event, after which all bets were off. Many creative teams believed that it meant that the New U had to remain ‘the world outside your window’, and thus nothing too earth-shaking could be allowed to happen for fear of having that reader-recognizable world become different. Face it, once paranormals were known to exist by the public, you’d have on significant difference between the New U and the Real U, and the New U would no longer be the world outside your window. This misunderstanding stifled the scope of the New U stories right up until The Pitt happened, giving the New U tales the feel of made-for-TV-movies while most Marvel U tales had the feel of big-budget special effects motion pictures.”
Gruenwald also likened The Pitt to the Chernobyl disaster, the cause of which was not known to the public at the time; just as the public didn’t know what caused the Chernobyl meltdown, the average person in the New Universe would not know Ken Connell was responsible for destroying Pittsburgh. The paranoia generated from Pittsburgh’s destruction would fuel many stories; in one issue of Peter David’s Justice, Libya claimed responsibility for the attack; and later still in Doug Murray’s The War, South Africa pinned the attack on a Mozambican paranormal, hoping to goad the United States in joining their war against Mozambique.
It should be noted that by rejecting the “world outside your window” concept, Byrne, Gruenwald and Mackie were also rebelling against Shooter, which can’t be dismissed as a motivation, given they chose to blow up Shooter’s home city at the same time.
The Pitt attracted attention from the media at large, as Byrne, Gruenwald and Mackie reported to the Bullpen Bulletins page dated June 1988 they’d taken interviews with WXXP radio, the Pittsburgh Press, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Point Park College’s the Globe, WTAE radio and KDKA television. “We tried to explain that the obliteration of America’s Most Liveable City was a dramatic outgrowth of the ongoing storyline in STAR BRAND,” the Bullpen page reported, “but they seemed less than satisfied.” Small wonder, given the previous care Shooter had taken to accurately represent Pittsburgh (and local stations like KDKA) in his Star Brand stories.
Exiting readers of Star Brand appeared upset by Byrne’s changes. “In his zeal to warp the New Universe,” wrote John Trauger in Comics Interview, “to lash our directly against Shooter’s creations, he has bludgeoned and outright contradicted anything that got in his path.” Trauger said Byrne’s the Star Brand was “a petty and vicious vendetta. A kicking of a man when he is down.”
After the Pitt in the Star Brand #16, an insane Ken Connell declared himself a messiah and ranted to the cult who followed him words similar to those Byrne had given Sunspot in DC’s Legends: “We shall be heroes each and every one of us. The new heroes of a bright new continuity!”
Peter David was writing Justice just months after the start of his lengthy time on Incredible Hulk. Just as Incredible Hulk solidified David’s reputation for combining pathos with puns and humorous pop culture references, Justice featured the same mix. One of the more punny characters names in Justice was the villain ‘Judge Mental.’ A good example of David’s mix of humor and drama was David’s tie-in issue to the Pitt, which opened on a woman in a park reading the Wonderful Wizard of Oz to her children. David’s writing would feature numerous shout-outs to Oz over the decades, but here it was a brutal piece of foreshadowing; just as the mother tells her children about the cyclone that brought Dorothy to Oz, nearby Pittsburgh is destroyed, causing a vortex of wind that kills everyone in the park except for an infant in a car seat whom Tensen shields from the storm.
The other New Universe titles likewise fed into the Pitt. D.P.7’s Jeff Walters fled to Pittsburgh in a futile attempt to save his family; other cast members of the series followed Jeff and bore witness to the aftermath of the city’s destruction.
The Pitt was also the debut of Colonel MacIntyre Browning; a U.S. Special Forces officer who takes command of the crisis and thereafter became a government “heavy” appearing in various New Universe titles. “The way I described him was what if Oliver North was created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby?” said John Byrne. “He’s a real-world Nick Fury, he doesn’t have the S.H.I.E.L.D. stuff.”
At the same time Pittsburgh was being destroyed, Fabian decided to destroy Sanctuary, the home for runaways where Psi-Force was set. “San Francisco is not boring,” Fabian emphasized, “but the Sanctuary house is boring, and I want to create some dynamic tension in the book.”
Another change Fabian was eager to make on Psi-Force was to minimize the Psi-Hawk character, which he compared unfavorably to the Infinity Man from Jack Kirby’s Forever People, observing that Kirby eventually removed Infinity Man from the series, “because he realized that the Forever People were by far the more interesting characters than this deus ex machina that they bring out to try to solve the problem. Same thing with Psi-Hawk. In a book that is about a bunch of kids trying to control their power, afraid of their powers, dealing with real life supposedly teen issues that the powers make even more complicated than they normally are--to have this giant, feathered psionic construct show up, it’s really incongruous.” Fabian would eventually use the Psi-Hawk in Psi-Force #25, nearly a year into his run – and he destroyed the Psi-Hawk in that story.
Nicieza also introduced two major adversaries for Psi-Force’s cast: a Russian paranormal called Rodstvow whose power was slowly destroying his body and rendering him insane (he destroyed Sanctuary) and a mercenary organization called the Medusa Web – bounty hunters first hired by the C.I.A. to capture Psi-Force and later the team’s would-be allies, attempting to recruit the cast into their organization.
Nicieza also began gradually introducing new cast members in Psi-Force, keeping the cast at 5 protagonists by retiring some members as he went. Original cast member Anastasia Inyushin died in Psi-Force #24, replaced by Lindsey Falmon, who could see the past through psychic residue on physical objects. He later added Dehman Doosha, an autistic Russian pyrokinetic and Sedara Bakut, a teleporter from Afghanistan.
Ron Lim moved on to Silver Surfer and Psi-Force shifted from artists Graham Nolan to Rodney Ramos but there were also two Psi-Force stories drawn by Mark Bagley – the first time Nicieza and Bagley would collaborate.
The four New Universe titles also underwent a change in format as they went to direct sales only; the titles were printed on high quality mando paper, enabling the artists to employ full-page bleeds when they desired. The only advertisements were house advertisements, meaning the stories ran uninterrupted. They were also permitted to run longer than the conventional 22-page story format when so desired. All four titles featured additional back-up material, including 8-page stories featuring new or forgotten New Universe characters, along with character profiles done in the style of Gruenwald’s Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe. Letters pages, which had been published infrequently in the past, become more frequent.
The Pitt was followed by a second graphic novel, The Draft, in which President Reagan reinstituted the military draft, ostensibly to raise an army to combat whoever was responsible for Pittsburgh’s destruction, but also to give the U.S. Army control over America’s paranormal population by singling out all adult male paranormals for a special “Paranormal Platoon.” The Draft featured two orphaned characters (Keith Remsen of Nightmask and Jack Magniconte of Kickers, Inc.) plus several D.P.7 cast members; it was written by Gruenwald and Nicieza, with art by Spitfire’s Herb Trimpe.
The Pitt and The Draft were both designed to shake up the New Universe and hopefully draw the interest of new readers. “Let’s try to do something interesting and different,” Fabian Nicieza said. “Just blowing up a city and having characters drafted and be conscripted into the Army, all of that is kind of unexpected and different.”
Don Thompson wrote in favor of the changes in Comic Buyer’s Guide: “I found myself looking forward to The Star Brand, Justice, and, to a lesser degree, D.P.7. When The Draft came along, things began to pick up just a bit more, as all the surviving New Universe characters (including former losers like Nightmask and Spitfire) began becoming darned near interesting.”
Towards the final months of the New Universe, Mark Gruenwald brought in the all-powerful paranormal Philip Nolan Voigt – the former director of the Clinic in D.P.7 – as the Democratic candidate for President, defeating George H. W. Bush thanks to his psychic powers. This was another effect of Gruenwald and his collaborators freeing themselves from Shooter’s “world outside your window” concept – they could turn the nation over to a super-villain (more than a decade before DC would do the same with Lex Luthor).
Continued in Part 3: The New Universe comes to an end, but some writers won’t give it up! World War III arrives, followed by Starblast!
