THE NEW UNIVERSE AT 40: A LOOK BACK AT MARVEL’S UNWANTED RELATIVE Part 4

 

THE NEW UNIVERSE AT 40: A LOOK BACK AT MARVEL’S UNWANTED RELATIVE

BY MICHAEL HOSKIN

PART 4: WHITED OUT

NEWUNIVERSAL AND UNTOLD TALES

In 2006, Warren Ellis announced he would be rebooting the New Universe with artist Salvador Larroca in the series newuniversal. “Reading the original work,” Ellis told Wizard magazine, “it became clear to me that all the books were attempting to tell the same story, but the effect was muted by half a dozen writers naturally pulling themselves in half a dozen different directions. Newuniversal pulls all these books into a single series, weaving all those stories into one.”

Before newuniversal launched – but after it had been announced – editor Mark Paniccia launched an event titled Untold Tales of the New Universe to celebrate the New Universe’s 20^th anniversary. As Paniccia explained to Comic Book Resources, “We thought it would be fun to go back to the New U one last time before Warren did his thing.”

Untold Tales of the New Universe would include new stories of all eight of the original headliners: one-shots for Star Brand, Justice, D.P.7, Psi-Force and Nightmask; 8-page back-up stories starring Mark Hazzard and Spitfire that appeared in Amazing Fantasy; and an 8-page Kickers, Inc. story that appeared in New Avengers #16 to promote the other stories.

Peter David was the only New Universe writer to pen one of the Untold Tales, returning to write Justice one last time. Despite his apathy towards Star Brand, John Romita Jr. drew the one-shot’s cover. Marshall Rogers also came back to draw the Spitfire story, one of his last published stories. Otherwise, the Untold Tales fell to other hands, including artist Mark Bright (D.P.7), writer and future editor-in-chief C. B. Cebulski (D.P.7), Exiles writer Tony Bedard (Psi-Force), writer Jeff Parker (Star Brand) and writer Fred Van Lente (Nightmask).

Looking back at the New Universe, Mark Paniccia noted, “I think the thing that's been most fascinating for me is to look back at this attempt to create something new from universes that organically happened (Marvel and DC) and see just how difficult a job that can be. It's been tried so many times after with companies too numerous to mention. It ran for 3 years, though, and that's pretty impressive.”

Rather than follow-up on the New Universe in 2006, obeying its real-time rules, Untold Tales of the New Universe set its stories within the imprint’s first year of publishing. Indeed, the Spitfire story was set prior to the events of Spitfire and the Troubleshooters #1! Fred Van Lente used his Nightmask story to finally tie-up the cliffhanger Archie Goodwin had left in Nightmask #4, 20 years earlier.

In his Star Brand one-shot, Jeff Parker went meta; his story, set just before John Byrne’s first issue, featured Ken Connell meeting a multiverse traveler named Arden who learned about Connell through reading comic books about him from another reality (which is to say, Arden did the same research Jeff Parker had). Arden told Connell she’d found the comic books underwhelming. “No one here should really have anything like the power you have, Ken,” Arden stated, “So essentially, nature itself keeps throwing mundane situations and relationships at you… like some self-correcting mechanism.”

Warren Ellis’ newuniversal proved a different take on the New Universe; in this version, Ken Connell received the Star Brand from the White Event while asleep and its destructive power destroys his girlfriend. Simultaneously, Izanami Randall was a female, Japanese American equivalent of Nightmask who discovered an extraterrestrial intelligence existing within the Superflow, a space between universes. Philip L. Voight was introduced as a government agent who hunts and kills superhumans to prevent them from supplanting humanity.

Unlike the New Universe before it, newuniversal didn’t depart from real world history at the moment of the White Event; Ellis’ scripts were peppered with references to divergences from real world history, such as John Lennon being alive in 2006. One character was even seen attempting to diagram when the planet’s divergence moment occurred. There were also minor appearances by characters from the Marvel Universe, such as General Ross from Incredible Hulk, whereas the New Universe eschewed Marvel Universe counterparts. The presence of Marvel’s characters sent a subtle message: Gruenwald intended the New Universe to exist within the Omniverse; Ellis was planting it within the Marvel Multiverse.

More bizarrely, Ellis chose to tie newuniversal into the obscure sword & sorcery character Starr the Slayer, who had appeared in a single issue of Chamber of Darkness in 1970 when creators Roy Thomas and Barry Windsor-Smith were still trying to lobby Marvel to pick up the Conan the Barbarian license.

When he heard about Ellis’ newuniversal, Fabian Nicieza joked, “Let me guess: He deconstructed the super-hero myth, and he left before he bothered to reconstruct it?” Nicieza guessed correctly; newuniversal ran just six issues with Ellis and Larroca. It returned as newuniversal: Shock Front with artist Steve Kurth replacing Larroca, but at that time Ellis lost the hard drive to his computer and his scripts after issue #2 of Shock Front were lost. Shock Front, like most of the books Ellis’ had been writing at the time, was abandoned rather than being rewritten from scratch. Marvel attempted to keep newuniversal going, first with the one shots newuniversal: 1959 by Kieron Gillen, then newuniversal: Conqueror by Si Spurrier, followed by a Starr the Slayer mini-series by Daniel Way and Richard Corben, but just as these placeholder titles wrapped up, Ellis informed his readers newuniversal would not continue.

Or, at least, it wouldn’t continue under Ellis’ pen.

ANOTHER WHITE EVENT?!

Jonathan Hickman had evidently been reading newuniversal – specifically that series rather than the New Universe titles. First, he used the Star Brand in a Fantastic Four story where it was wielded by an alternate reality’s Reed Richards. Then, while writing the Avengers, he brought back the Superflow from newuniversal and introduced Earth-616’s counterparts to Nightmask and Ken Connell; while the new Nightmask was an artificially grown man named Adam Blackveil, the new wielder of the Star Brand was Kevin Conner.

In a story titled “The Last White Event,” Kevin Conner received the Star Brand in a violent fashion, similar to Ellis’ version in newuniversal – but where newuniversal had killed Ken Connell’s girlfriend, Kevin Conner was at a crowded college in Pittsburgh when he received the Star Brand; the explosion was said to have killed 3,203 people. This was familiar to readers of the Pitt – the idea of the Star Brand being destructive and poorly-understood by the person wielding it.

Yet while the scope of the deaths in Hickman’s story was less than the Pitt, the consequences were telling. That is, while Kevin Conner continued to stumble and falter in his use of the Star Brand (generally being more destructive than necessary), the 3,000+ lives snuffed out in his origin did not come up again. The Pitt took time to consider the environmental, social and political repercussions of destroying an entire city; even in newuniversal, Ellis’ Ken Connell spent the rest of the book’s short run traumatized from his girlfriend’s death – but in the Marvel Universe, deaths are mere numbers on a spreadsheet.

With New Universe concepts now formally introduced into the Marvel Universe, interest was taken by Al Ewing, who debuted a variety of counterparts to New Universe characters in his series the Ultimates². These included Jim Tensen (instead of John Tensen), Terry Jessup (instead of Tyrone Jessup) and Philip Nelson Vogt (instead of Philip Nolan Voigt).

Eventually, Jonathan Hickman’s Avengers storyline led to the collapse of the Marvel multiverse, setting up the 2015 Secret Wars crossover event. Afterward, a new version of the Squadron Supreme was introduced who were comprised of counterparts of traditional Squadron Supreme members taken from different alternate Earths that had been destroyed in the crossover. Jeff Walters of D.P.7 – using his occasional codename the Blur – took the place of the Whizzer. Sadly, this meant the New Universe had been destroyed (or maybe not; another cast member in Squadron Supreme eventually discovers their reality is intact).

CONCLUSION

Many of the architects of the New Universe have passed on: Mark Gruenwald in 1996; Archie Goodwin in 1998; Gray Morrow in 2001; Herb Trimpe in 2015; Paul Ryan in 2016; Peter David and Jim Shooter in 2025; Gerry Conway in 2026.

It’s in the White Event itself that the New Universe proved to be somewhat ahead of its time. In the decades since 1986, many other writers have similarly indicated that, like Mark Gruenwald, they prefer a common point of origin for super-powers in their fiction. Starting in 1987, there was the Wild Cards series of prose novels where all super-powers originated from an alien virus. Nearly all of the superhumans in Milestone’s comics debuting in 1993 obtained their powers from “the Big Bang,” an explosion of mutagenic tear gas. In 1999, J. Michael Straczynski started writing Rising Stars, a comic book series where all the characters’ abilities appeared after a comet landed on Earth. Starting in 2003, Straczynski also wrote Supreme Power, a reboot of Squadron Supreme, but wherein nearly all the characters received their super-powers from manipulation of the hero Hyperion’s DNA; Straczynski even replaced the Squadron Supreme’s speedster the Whizzer with D.P.7’s the Blur. The 2006 television series Heroes opened with super-powers emerging following an eclipse (although the series would eventually decide their super-beings had been around long before the eclipse).

Even in Marvel’s own Ultimate Universe, it would be decided (in Brian Michael Bendis & Butch Guice’s 2008 Ultimate Origins) that all of the Earth’s superhumans (including mutants) were the result of long-ago genetic manipulation. From the Boys to Misfits, it seems more common in today’s fiction for all superhumans to share a common origin, rather than a variety of independent origins.

Although Avengers writer Jason Aaron killed Kevin Conner in 2017, he continued to use the Star Brand in his Avengers stories. For that matter, a version of Ken Connell turned up as recently as 2025’s Battleworld mini-series by Christos Gage and Marcus To. The New Universe’s influence continues to appear in present-day Marvel comics.

“Marvel did not get out of the New Universe what Shooter’s original goal and idea for it was,” Fabian Nicieza opined. Yet Fabian observed many positives that came from the New Universe: “In some ways, New Universe, the comics, was a great fertile testing ground for a lot of people, not the least of which was Jim Shooter, the guy who created it all because it proved his fertile testing ground that he was able to manifest in Valiant. For the rest of us, we got me and we got Ron Lim and we got Mark Bagley, and we had Lee Weeks, and we got a lot of new talent that got an opportunity to hone their skills on books that not that many people were paying attention to.”

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Underground: think "comics" not "comix"

Underground is a new five-issue limited series from Image written by Jeff Parker (Agents of Atlas, Interman) and Steve Lieber (Whiteout). Parker's previous creator-owned title, Mysterius the Unfathomable, did not do great business despite being simply wonderful; hopefully better things await Underground.

While at San Diego, I bought the black & white preview copy of issue #1 from Lieber. Consequently, I approached issue #1 with some trepidation. I had placed Underground on my file so I was obliged to buy it, but what did I need with two copies of issue #1? What could the full-sized color version add?

As it turns out, a fair bit. There were minor art alterations, but I was genuinely impressed with the colors from Ron Chan. Check out this panel from the preview:

Compare to the finished copy:

Also, note the brilliant colors in the scenes set above ground:

Then, note the sepia-like tones for scenes set underground:

And in some panels, full color mixes with the browns:

I would say that the book was incomplete without the colors; this was a fine black & white comic as it was run in the preview edition, but it was meant to be experienced in color. Colorists are locked in a constant battle with letterers as the least-appreciated people in comics; for my part, I give a nod of approval to Ron Chan for his work on Underground.

What else is there?

Oh yeah...the story. So, it seems that the small town of Marion has some spectacular caverns which one entrepreneur would like to see opened up as a tourist attraction. The local rangers, notably Wesley Fischer, are against the maneuver. Complicating matters are a pair of illegal dynamiters setting off charges in the caverns for their employer.

I don't believe that I've ever visited an underground cavern, but Parker seems to write about it with familiarity. Likewise, Lieber's pencils bring the underground scenes into believable life.

It's a little refreshing that Underground doesn't seem to have a Big Hollywood-style premise attached to it, instead bringing the feel of an independent film, which is what one would hope from an independent publication (the two-page ad for Image United in the back is for the Big Hollywood fans). Also, having come off a recent Frank Capra binge (mentioned yesterday) I came to recognize his use of straw man antagonists, which makes me appreciate that while Wesley is something of an everyman (everywoman?), the conflict is not immediately one-sided; the townspeople of Marion have a legitimate desire to see the caverns renovated into a tourist site because they need the additional income it would bring.

Based on Underground#1, I don't know what exactly to expect from the story; however, based on Parker & Lieber's track record, I expect great things.

Fall of Hulks begins in December

FALL OF THE HULKS ALPHA

Written by JEFF PARKER Pencils by PAUL PELLETIER Cover by ED MCGUINNESS

M.O.D.O.K. The Leader. Mad Thinker. Egghead. Red Ghost and the Super-Apes. Doctor Doom. They make up the secret group who have analyzed every victory and every defeat in the Marvel Universe to create the perfect battle plan that results in FALL OF THE HULKS! The origins and shocking truths of some of Marvel's most dangerous villains are revealed as the biggest HULK EVENT yet begins! From fan-favorite creators JEFF PARKER (AGENTS OF ATLAS) and PAUL PELLETIER (WAR OF KINGS) comes this tale of the “Smartest There Is” and their quest to prove it, once and for all. 32 PGS./Rated T+ ...$3.99

Under normal circumstances I only promote comics in advance which I had a hand in producing. However, I have a few reasons for promoting this comic:

1. It's the beginning of the next big Hulk crossover and ever since Greg Pak took the reigns of the Hulk franchise it's been extremely well done.
2. Two words: Jeff Parker.
3. Well, maybe a few more words; Parker is one of my favorite writers in the business right now, from Agents of Atlas to Interman to Marvel Adventures Avengers to Exiles to X-Men: First Class, he's one of the best talents in editor Mark Paniccia's stable of creators (and I have high regard for Paniccia's acquisitions). From the hilarity of "Doom, Where's My Car?" to the espionage of the Interman, he brings a great game to the business.
4. Then there's Paul Pelletier, whose style is pleasantly similar to Alan Davis (in my opinion, one of the all-time top talents) and has brought excellent artwork to books like Exiles and War of Kings. Always a pleasure to see him.
5. Oh yeah...although I didn't produce this book, I helped proofread it. If you consider yourself a potential customer, let me assure you: it has more faces than Dr. Lao, more soul than Soul Train and more Wizard-ry than the Wizard of Oz. Plan to buy it.

That is all.

The Parker Bump

In his latest interview with Comic Book Resources, Jeff Parker was kind enough to randomly drop my name:

"My man – Number One Assistant Editor Supreme Jordan Delight White – is in charge of numbering the universes. Sometimes the Handbook guys like Michael Hoskin will run in and figure a good place to put a certain earth too. And he does save that info for just such a book."

He's a gentleman, that Jeff.

My Five Day Roadtrip: To Seattle and Back Again

DAY ONE

- In the morning I rose, dressed and packed my only travel bag. Realizing that I probably wouldn't have lunch and needing to eliminate food which would otherwise spoil, I took in a large breakfast. I left the house to catch a bus to Edmonton.

- On the way to the bus I made a brief excursion to look for shoes; all of my sneakers had been worn out and discarded and I realized that my boots would be too much for traveling around Seattle. However, the store I visited had nothing to interest me.

- I caught the Red Arrow bus to Edmonton. Red Arrow remains the superior bus between Calgary and Edmonton; I can't believe that Greyhound hasn't got an express.

- I was received in Edmonton by Olav, who was providing his car for the roadtrip. Olav brought his Calgary Flames jersey along, even though we planned to stop in Vancouver. After gathering Earl, the third member of our entourage, we departed from Edmonton.

- It was a long drive that evening. During the trip, the "check engine" light came on in the car, even though Olav had left the car with the mechanic before the trip. Unable to find any clue to the problem and not experiencing any unusual performance, we carried on. Had supper at A&W's.

- We arrived in Kamloops and stopped at a hotel for the night.

DAY TWO

- Departed Kamloops in the morning and headed for Vancouver. We didn't stop for breakfast so I made do with a muffin from a gas station

- Delayed while entering the city when an accident tied up traffic. When we passed the scene of the accident, I was stunned to see that one of the cars was a blackened, smoldering wreck.

- Went to meet Olav's friend Nathan for lunch. Nathan was attending a Stargate convention in Vancouver and Olav thought it might be funny to attend the convention. When we learned it was $200 at the door, we thought better of it.

- By now, Olav's Flames jersey was winning him some colorful remarks (and occasional warnings) from the locals. We met Nathan at a Red Robin's for lunch. When Calgary had a Red Robin's I frequented it often with Craig; I was amazed to find that the franchise still existed on the west coast. It was a good thing I had a harty meal because we didn't have supper that night.

- Earl & I dropped Olav off to visit some relatives, leaving the two of us with the car. We tried our best to navigate the city and finally found a mall where I bought two pairs of sneakers. With plenty of time to kill, Earl offered to treat me to the film Fast & Furious. Since he was paying, I accepted.

- We met up with Olav again in the evening. I was ashamed to admit I had gone to see Fast & Furious and was evasive about what we had been up to. When Olav noticed that the "check engine" light had gone off, he assumed that Earl and I had done something to the car, possibly taken it to a garage. Earl and I played along with this idea, neither confirming nor denying Olav's assumptions. This would later prove to be a BAD IDEA.

- We decided to continue on to Seattle that night, but getting out of Vancouver and on to the correct highway was a lengthy and difficult task. We experienced no problems crossing the border, but Olav tired out before we could reach Seattle; we stopped at a hotel 30 minutes from the city and remained there for the rest of our stay.

DAY THREE

- We all slept in, missing the complimentary breakfast I had hoped to catch. We traveled on to Seattle, located the convention center where the Emerald City Comic Con was being held, then took a quasi-breakfast/lunch at the Cheesecake Factory. Concerned about the number of meals I was missing, I took in another big lunch.

- At last, we went on to the convention. We traveled the floor both together and separate. Olav was most interested in acquiring new Robocop on a Unicorn sketches, while I had a lengthy list of autographs to seek out.

- Passing Gail Simone's table, I was surprised when Earl expressed ignorance of her work. I cajoled him into buying a Birds of Prey trade from her.

- Olav and I stood in Paul Smith's line for a lengthy period; I only wanted some autographs, but Olav was hoping for a sketch. I conversed with another person in line for most of the wait and he showed me a sketchbook full of great images which had been gathered over years, including the likes of Gulacy, Eisner & Kaluta. Smith was funny and gracious, but declined to sketch Robocop on a Unicorn.

- I visited the Proof table to see the book's complete creative team. Although I've known Riley Rossmo & Kelly Tindall for some time, I had never met writer Alex Grecian before. I collected autographs and admired a Dr. Who sketch Kelly was working on.

- I visited Stan Sakai's table to collect an autographed poster and receive his autograph on Usagi Yojimbo#99. I introduced myself as a friend of Texcap and related how Tex had convinced me to purchase the single issue. I mentioned that I was waiting for the collected Usagi trade so that I could follow the title from its beginning. "Oh, you're one of those." Sakai replied.

- I introduced myself to Christos N. Gage, collected some autographs and chatted about his work. I also apologized for not following his Wildstorm work, telling him that I couldn't follow Wildstorm's continuity. I also told him how I had used my blog to help promote the recent Avengers: The Initiative Featuring Reptil#1.

- I spent a ridiculous amount of time (1.5 hours?) at Jeff Parker's table, chatting him about Interman, Mysterius and others. Jeff kindly introduced me to one of his fans as "the guy who keeps me from making mistakes." I spent a great deal of time admiring the sketches Jeff drew for fans. I asked Jeff for a Robocop on a Unicorn on Olav's behalf and he supplied one.

- I met Jay Faerber and purchased a new copy of Dynamo 5 Vol.1 (Olav lost my copy) and the not-even-in-stores-yet Noble Causes Archives Vol.2 from him. I also apologized to him for insulting him at comicboards.com about 10 years ago.

- I also collected autographs from Khoi Pham, Ben Templesmith and Greg Horn.

- I finally went through the vendors and found myself searching for 1950s Atlas comics. One vendor had an amazing stock of Atlas books at reasonable prices; I walked away with a $50 stack of books.

- Near the end of the day, Olav mentioned that he had seen Lars Brown at the Oni booth and mentioned I was here. I sped to Oni, only to find Lars had left. Right then, I knew I would have to return the next day.

- After the show we wandered around looking for a place to have dinner. We finally chose a Mexican grill.

- We returned to the hotel reasonably early that night and spent some time reading the comics we purchased before bed.

DAY FOUR

- Earl and I rose early enough to take in the free breakfast.

- We went back to Seattle and rode the monorail to the Science Fiction Museum/Hall of Fame (rock n' roll) facility. Olav had free passes.

- The sci-fi museum was interesting - it displayed costumes, props and models from the likes of Star Wars, Star Trek, Terminator, Outer Limits, Battlestar Galactica, Planet of the Apes and so forth. There was also a lot of emphasis on sci-fi novels, with many of them displayed in cases throughout the exhibits.

- Unfortunately, the museum gift shop was a major letdown. It's a rather small shop with only a few shelves of books and most of them the sort of sci-fi books you can find at any Chapters. Given all the acclaimed and hard-to-find books on display at the exhibit, you would think the curators would use the gift shop to seize an opportunity for people to read the books for themselves while the titles are fresh in their minds. I just may write a complaint letter.

- The Hall of Fame wasn't that interesting to me; the exhibits included a history of guitars, a history of Seattle-area music and a display of local concert posters. Borrrring. But free.

- We took in lunch at the Cheesecake Factory again. While Olav and Earl went off to explore more of Seattle, I went back to the con to see Lars and other guests I had missed.

- Lars was the first person I sought out on arrival; we caught up briefly (we had been side-by-side at the 2007 Calgary Expo) and I bought an autographed copy of North World Vol.2 (not available at any of my local shops).

- I sought out a few autographs from Kurt Busiek and apologized for insulting him at comicboards.com about 10 years ago. This was a good weekend for my karma.

- I also obtained autographs from Mike Mignola, Stuart Immonen and Matt Fraction; that made everyone on my list.

- I visited the Proof table again while Riley was doing a Dr. Who sketch. I asked Riley for some paper and a pen: I had a special mission to undertake; when Riley learned what it was, he threw in a crayon. This would prove vital.

- I stood in line for Star Trek's Wil Wheaton, although he was absent from his booth when I arrived. Ahead of me was an attractive woman named Madison who was an exuberant Wheaton fan; when he finally arrived she began shrieking and jumping about. Without any paper for him to sign, instead she had him autograph her left breast; sayeth Wil: "I feel like a rock star." She loaned me her camera to take their picture.

- And now it was my turn and I presented Wil with the paper, pen and crayon along with my request for a sketch. Without flinching, Wil went to work with the crayon, commenting on the picture as he drew, much to the delight of his onlooking fans. Wil completed his masterpiece and I gratefully returned the pen and crayon to Riley, allowing the Proof team a chance to soak in Wil Wheaton's Robocop on a Unicorn.

- I went back to the vendors and picked up a Usagi Yojimbo poster, Fell trade and Losers trade, all for Earl. For myself, I found a $0.50 bin full of my own Marvel Universe handbooks; I took them all.

- I met up again with Olav and Earl at the end of the con. We had originally intended to visit a Travis concert in the evening, but Olav suggested that we start back toward Alberta instead. We agreed.

- We crossed the border back without incident and took in supper at a White Spot.

- It was on the drive back that the "check engine" light came on again. Earl and I confessed that we hadn't been to a garage as Olav had assumed, earning us his ire.

- We stopped again in Kamloops, albeit at a different (cheaper) hotel.

DAY FIVE

- Again we started out without taking breakfast. Lunch was spent at a Denny's.

- I should mention that aside from some snow & fog on the first night, this trip was full of clear, sunny weather. Certainly not what Seattle's reputation led me to expect.

- Olav & Earl dropped me off in Calgary after 6 PM. And so, the trip is finally over.

TALLY

Number of Autographs Collected: 15 different creators Number of Meals Missed: 5 Number of Vehicles Used: 5 (2 buses, 1 LRT, 1 car, 1 monorail) Number of Bad Vin Diesel Movies Seen: 1