There was an element that you left out of your assessment of The New Universe's failure: the distributors H-A-T-E-D it! I attended a meeting of Marvel distributors just before the line was released. The editors of each title gave a presentation about their stories and characters. One of the prominent distributors, Chuck Rozanski, basically said "If the Marvel name wasn't posted on the cover of these books, they wouldn't stand a chance of selling!" Jim Shooter, to his credit, basically responded," These books WILL sell if I have to stand on a street corner and sell them myself!" Basically, Shooter probably wasn't impressed with the clout of the Direct Sales Market at that time, so he sold the titles to newsstands as well, proving his determination to succeed. Unfortunately, it could be argued that Shooter "shot himself in the foot" by doing that and prompted the distributors to under-order the titles and contributed to their failures. I don't know if his successors felt differently after he "left," but I don't recall seeing comics on newsstands as prominently as when Shooter was still at Marvel...

I was a big fan of the New Universe back in the day. I was a pretty casual reader at the time, but I was definitely familiar with the different vibes both Marvel and DC characters had. New Universe had a lot of interesting ideas and a more grounded tone that, by todays standards, feels more like pitches for some 'urban fantasy' tv series. But I don't see that as a detriment! As a D&D kid, I'd gotten into other superhero TTRPG's like Heroes Unlimited and Champions at the time New Universes was happening. So being able to see a superhero continuity happen in real time was very fascinating, and still influences my writing and world continuity design to this day. In later years, of course, I learned about how divisive both the series and Jim Shooter was, and how the New Universe was basically shredded by behind the scenes shenanigans. But I don't think it's a coincidence that I also got in on the ground floor with Valiant, Ultraverse and Comics Greatest World back in the day, again to see how to start a superhero universe from the ground up. Behind the scenes, Jim Shooter may have been resented for running tight ship in the looney bin that was Comics Publishing and Marvel Comics, but with the consistently strong work that appeared during his tenures in the business, I can't help but think he gets unjustly vilified for having a strong vision about this work and having the tenacity to follow through with it. All we can do is speculate. I wasn't there to see it happen behind the scenes. But while many may complain about the execution of his works, I still feel like I "get" what he was going for creatively and something about that brain space has always appealed to me. So thank for trying to make the New Universe work, Jim Shooter. Despite the industries attempt to bury it, I think it was more influential that anyone wants to admit.

I'm met Jim Shooter at a con last year, really nice guy, and I asked him about being burned in effigy. He told me that the story was true, but it was not the reason he was fired by the higher-ups. I can't remember the reason he gave, but he explained the higher-ups did not care what the people beneath them thought of Shooter.

Jim Shooter, what a legend.

Strikeforce was amazing early on. I didn't realize it was originally envisioned as part of the New Universe.

I think we as comic fans can all agree we could use Jim Shooter right about now in modern Marvel comics.

Great video on the New Universe! I think part of the root problem with the line was a fundamental misunderstanding of what made Marvel a success in the 60s. Marvel did succeed with that 10% edge to DC in regards to realism but that was only in regards to its characters. The heavy use of science to justify the powers and technology was because that was the style of the time. The 50s and 60s were a renaissance period for science fiction and that carried over in so many major pieces of entertainment. Marvel was just riding that wave with the added draw of relatable characters. With the New Universe however, they just hyper focused on the “realism” angle without any sense of direction or purpose. If this was a universe without aliens or super science or magic then what does it have? You’re setting yourself up as a place with “have-nots” instead of “haves.” It’s negative marketing. Aside from the myriad of other problems the books had, maybe they could’ve done better if they promoted what they had to offer as opposed to what they didn’t offer.

On paper, the New Universe is a cool idea. A shared superhero universe that moves in real-time & have grounded realistic stakes. It's a pity it didn't work out.

Shooter being the best thing to happen to the company, and being a creative dictator, are not necessarily opposing or contradictory assessments. They just represent the viewpoint of owners/investors and of the creative teams, respectively.

I fail to see how the man who was responsible for putting Frank Miller on Daredevil and Walt Simonson on Thor pushed either of those creators to “compromise their talent”. Both were bold moves and gave us re-imagined versions of both characters from groundbreaking talents.

Little surprised that Psi-Force did not get much of a mention. Maybe because it was really strong from beginning to end in terms of writing and art. The characters made appearances in Ewing's Ultimates series.

I'm glad you touched upon the Valiant Universe. I remember reading a letter in an issue of Comics Buyer's Guide where the writer compared and contrasted the characters of the VU to their predecessors in the NU. The similarities seem to make it appear that Shooter was really keen on the idea of a universe where the laws of physics more closely resembled those of our own reality.

I really liked a lot of the New Universe titles. In particular I loved DP7, Nightmask, and Spitfire and the Troubleshooters. I also liked Starbrand too. There were some really cool concepts in The New Universe.

I totally loved this line, and every issue (and the later Quasar issues) are a permanent fixture in my collection

Star Brand started out with an interesting concept: an ordinary everyday guy is suddenly gifted with the most powerful weapon in the Universe. He spends the first twelve issues of the series being wishy-washy, unsure of what to do and how to live his life; while events are happening all around him. But that wasn't what the readers wanted. Sales dropped to the point where Marvel decided to revamp the series, and the entire New Universe as a whole. That was when they brought in John Byrne to revamp the New Universe. He did what he always does in his comic books, namely massacre uncountable number of innocent people in an attempt to shake things up. This was known as THE PITT. 😁 Byrne's writing has had a streak of cruelty to it from the very beginning, though it seemed to get worse after he left Fantastic Four and revamped Superman. He had no problem with allowing people to be killed off in his stories in horrifying numbers, usually innocent bystanders. Even in his Superman stories, rarely did an issue of the series take place without the Byrne Body Count growing little by little. I'm long since convinced Byrne was playing some sort of a joke by having Star Brand become a "super hero," and end up being present at a comic book convention when his alien nemesis showed up and blew the entire place up. "Estimated casualties are over five thousand!" screamed the TV news...until two pages later in that issue, when the "second White Event" or "Black Event" occured and left a smoking crater where the city of Pittsburgh had been Hence the title THE PITT. It was at this point that I decided to stop reading John Byrne's stories in general. Update: Out of curiosity, I looked on Google for some commentary on the New Universe. CBR (Comic Book Review) had an article stating "11 Reasons Why The New Universe Failed." Halfway through this article was this little tidbit: "But Shooter's reputation didn't exactly help the [New Universe] project; he was hated by many people inside Marvel. After he was fired, Marvel artist and writer John Byrne held a party at his house where disgruntled employees literally burned Shooter in effigy, stuffing the dummy with unsold New Universe comic books. Byrne also used 'Star Brand' to destroy Shooter's beloved Pittsburgh."

I always thought the problem with the New Universe is they couldn't figure out how superheroes would change the world around them. once you have superheroes, you really can't have "the world outside your window" and attempts to both keep the realism, and the super heroics were doomed to fail.

Starbrand is an interesting book, at least under Shooter, as it's basically a man laying himself bare for us to see, right there on the page. It's almost overwhelming when you understand the self inserted nature of the main character; almost too revealing. Very peculiar, and some elements of the book clearly carry over to Shooters work on Solar. It is interesting, if nothing else. DP7 is actually a fairly solid book, too. You could easily see it just being a normal Marvel title (just have the paranormals be mutants or something), and Gruenwald said as much; it would not have been difficult to sheer of it's New Universe trappings. I had heard the rumor before of Speedball possibly being created for the line, but not Morituri. I suppose that makes some sense, as Morituri is so far removed from anything else Marvel was doing and seems to hardly fit into any part of their publishing ethos.

My only memory of these books is always seeing them in the quarter bin at my local LSC in the early 90’s, lol. Great channel btw!

What caught my eye... that Ditko's creation of Speedball was initially for this project. And, as far as I can see, it isn't being touted as 'from the creator of Spider-Man' or that Speedball was / could have been the Spider-Man of this project. Which seems like a missed opportunity!

Well, that's good timing. Here I was just three days after this video came out looking up what the Marvel New Universe was about. I remembered reading one of the the comics (Spitfire and the Troubleshootsers) as a back-up strip in the back of the UK print of Transformers but couldn't recall much about it.

This universe was like a proto valiant universe.

Always a pleasure to be notified with new content from this amazing channel

Great video. Missed one detail - Al Ewing also revived Psi Force and Psi Hawk idea relatively recently in his Ultimates run.

I've not forgotten them because I'm reminded every time I look in the 50 cent bins....there they are!

Star Brand is still one of my favorite characters. I also liked PSI Force, and Spitfire, and still have all of my New Universe comics.

Glad you're back up and running! The New Universe was a thing I was only peripherally aware of via that iconic ad featuring the white event bolt. This is the most informative thing I've encountered about it in the almost 40 years (!) since, and I'm grateful to finally have that bit of industry lore laid out and hole in my knowledge filled. I hope you have a deep dive on the professional history of Jim Shooter on the docket. In recent years a fuller and less creator-based propagandized picture of the man has slowly been revealed, so it'd be cool to get as much of the whole story as possible from as thorough and even handed historian as yourself.

Finally a new video! Thanks for constantly putting up new content that’s always great and always covering comics I haven’t read.

I was a kid when the New Universe came out and was very hyped for it. It was cool getting in in the ground floor of a new line of comics. Me, my brother, and a bunch of our friends couldn’t wait to get them when they came out. I liked Starbrand and Nightmask. My brother like Spitfire and the trouble shooters and Kickers inc. A friend of mine was into Merc and Justice and Psy Force. I even have the Starbrand tattooed on my left shoulder. That’s how much fun the NU concept was to me. But, alas, it did fall apart fairly quickly for all of us. Probably with that first year. Mainly when the creative talent that started the books left the books as you mentioned. Still, I loved the concept and wished the Warren Ellis reboot had been able to be fully fleshed out and explored. Sure, Hickman brought in the concept into his Avengers run but it wasn’t the same to honest. Anyway, I will always have a soft spot in my heart for the NU. What’s funny is the failure of the NU is partly why I avoided the Ultimate line when it started. I figured it would fall apart after a year. Boy was I wrong.

I enjoyed DP7! Would make a good TV series.

I was 13 years old when New Universe launched and I remember standing in line to buy a copy of every #1. Since I hadn't experienced many new comic launches, I was convinced that these #1 issues were going to be worth a fortune in short order. I knew nothing of the creators, politics, or mandates going on behind the scenes, I only knew the advertisements I'd seen in other Marvel books. After the 2nd issues came out, I whittled it down to only 2 or 3 that I wanted to keep following, but didn't go beyond #7 with anything. These days, I barely remember any of the content or characters at all except for a scene here and there. I sometimes wonder if this might be worth revisiting.

DP7 and Starbrand were the best of line, in my opinion. The first 6 issues of Spitfire were solid, and PSI Force would have been good but the inconsistency of constantly changing creative teams hurt it. Changing creative teams seemed to be standard for the New Universe and I think that hurt it as much anything. Justice, for example, reads like an entirely different title altogether after Peter David takes over, essentially ignoring all of the first year of the book. I always felt like they put all their effort into the initial concepts, but then seemed noncommittal about executing them in any consistent way. I tend to be dismissive of complaints about Jim Shooter, especially from entitled creators who are always saying they aren't given enough creative freedom. Jim was a working class guy who'd been in the business since he was 13. He turned Marvel Comics around by running it like a respectable business; expecting books to be published on time, continuity to be respected, and storytelling to be clear and concise. He also went to bat for his creators, getting them increases in pay, more benefits, and he established the Epic Imprint so they could own their own creations. There were too many seminal runs published under his tenure, and sales were too high, for me to believe he was some sort of tyrant doing something wrong.

It's still bizarre to me that Shooter thought to sell this and basically nothing else (with an exception of covers) as 25th anniversary. Imagine you have a birthday and somebody creates completely different human being as a gift and than doesn't even give it to you. Also, Kickers Inc. is something that should be in third wave of titles, not at the launch of new line. I tried to read these titles recently and while some titles were interesting (Archie Goodwin did good job on Psi Force), they felt like nobody wanted to write them.

Both of the Big Two have had multiple imprints fail because ultimately they end up leeching talent and sales from the main line. The only notable exceptions were Epic and Vertigo, which succeeded by targeting a mostly different audience from traditional comics readers and often a very different talent pool of creators, too.

I think were three major problems with the New Universe: 1. Inferior talent, compared to DC's having John Byrne on Superman, Frank Miller on DARK KNIGHT and BATMAN: YEAR ONE. Alan Moore on WATCHMEN, etc. 2. Recycled characters. Many of the New Universe's character felt like dollar store takeoffs of established characters: Star Brand for Green Lantern and Justice for Judge Dreed, for example. 3. And overcrowded market. The year 1986 was the year of the black-and-white boom (which quickly turned into a bust) and Marvel was putting a crapton of new titles at the same time. Something had to give.

I actually loved the New Universe, especially D.P.7, Nightmask, and Star Brand.

Just another reminder. Comic books forget NOTHING. All of these characters have, are and will come back the second any writer with a good idea gets half a chance. I know for instance that Starbrand and Nightmask came roaring back rather recently. Don't think of the New Universe as a failure. Think of it as a primordial soup that will always produce sparks of life. Marvel is mythology. And mythology always comes back around.

I read the New Universe comics until the bitter end. It was much better after they chopped the line in half and made the overarching storyline more concise.

I was a senior in HS and was slowly moving from Marvel to DC. I was also buying Eclipse and other indie comics, my comic dollar was stretched to the limit and nothing in the NU (except for the first few issues of Star-Brand) was interesting enough to make me want to drop current titles. When I saw the title Kickers Inc it made me believe the NU was not serious.

I was also a huge fan of New Universe, especially Star Brand - it felt like I was on the ground floor of so,etching cool and new. And then the Pitt happened, and the rest was a ***ing mess. Though to be fair, in hind sight, it’s probably what would happen if supers suddenly showed up in real life: whole world would probably crash and burn in a year 😂

The New Universe was obviously the forerunner to the original Valiant. I always wondered how that would've turned out if Shooter hadn't been ousted from Valiant. Shooter had some...interesting ideas in what turned out to be his closing months at Marvel. Replacing all the heroes with new people and such. As current day sales prove, that wouldn't have worked. Still, creating an all new universe from the ground up is a Herculean task at the best of times and when your budget is slashed overnight, it's darn near impossible! I wonder why they still tried to push ahead with this once that happened? Great video! Thanks for the info.

Too bad the new universe didn't last. I first discovered these comics at a candy store near my elementary school (after the New Universe had long been over)

I was a big fan of Justice. I recently completed my run of Psi-Force, which crossed over directly with Justice, and the "realism" felt like a detraction from that title.

I read these when they were new. Loved Starbrand, Justice, and DP7. I actually just bought and am rereading DP7 in TPB. But definitely was Proto-Valiant.

Good stuff as always dude. Really informative 👍

Whats funny is guys like Byrne who hated Shooter did the best work of his entire career under him. Some of the best runs in Marvel history came out under Shooter.

I’d be down to read these.

I loved star brand in the early issues. It was unsure of itself but the concept had so much potential. I think the DP7 the Pitt and star brand would make great TV shows.

Thanks for mentioning CrossGen too; that was a wild ride!

Glad to see you back. Great presentation as always, love this channel's aesthetic

Excellent work as always! You always seem to hit my personal sweet spot. Picked up Star Brand #14 last week in a quarter bin… one of the weirdest Byrne issues I’ve ever read…

Another fantastic video!

I'd say you have to judge the New Universe in the context of its times. I was heavily into comics back then. I've always thought of the mid 80s as the Alan Moore era. Swamp Thing and Miracleman were a breath of fresh air. Lots of Marvel stalwarts had moved over to DC over the first few years of the 80s and it livened some DC books up. The indie comics that existed then gave us more variety than we'd had in years. When the New Universe arrived, it was a flop. There was nothing fresh about it. In a comics world of many flavors, the New Universe gave us melted vanilla ice cream. So disappointing.

Thanks for this! Only discovered your channel recently and had no idea if you were still doing these retrospective or not. Glad to see you are.

Great great work ! I appreciate this so much.

Mark Gruenwald is one the greatest! Especially considering this situation from future perspective and his dedication to the craft

I just found this channel and subscribed! Can't wait to see what's on here!

As a pre-teen(at the time)comics lover Marvel kid, I know I personally hated all the New Universe titles. Not a single one of them held my interest or inspired ideas of my own. I loved to draw the X-Men and Daredevil and had aspirations to be a comic penciler(which I actually did for a few years) so comics that captured my imagination were like gold to me. Ironically, I met both Jim Shooter and John Byrne on separate occasions as a youth. Jim was gracious and like a mentor the second he saw my work. Provided me with advice and cards of people to send work to once I upped my chops. Conversely, I met my hero John Byrne at a con in the 80s. I was about thirteen and waiting in line for his autograph or sketch. When my turn came up, he decided to ignore me and glad hand some guy who walked up to make some original art deal. I get it, but Byrne looked over at me as I was not getting the hint and told me to “F@ck Off.” This grown man told this kid who worshipped the ground he walked on to Eff off. Great. What an icon. I walked away pretty confused until a hand gently touched my shoulder and this bear of a guy asked me to come sit with him. He and I drew all day long as people came up to him for autographs and sketches. He was the sweetest guy to me and to everyone. He drew the most awesome drawing for me at the end of the day. He taught me so much that afternoon. About comic illustration and ego and how to be kind to people. His name? George Perez. I guess it’s true what they say…never meet your heroes. I guess the point is the New Universe and John Byrne both equally sucked…lol.

I don't understand how this channel still only has 24k subscribers.

I remember seeing those comics and not being remotely interested purely because I had no idea what it was. Perhaps if they at least advertised it in the regular Marvel comics it could have been better..? That and more stable team working on them - with a decent budget of course. That being said it's ironical that it was John Byrne's work that drawn me to the comics. And I really really liked it then. Oh and about Jim Shooter: controversial as he was to me he was the best thing to ever have happened to Marvel as a whole. Not great for artists - writers included - but very very good for the stories and to us readers by extent. I usually say that he was to Marvel what Steve Jobs was to early days Apple: helped the company to be the best out there as well as making himself the most hated person in the business.

I loved DP7 back in the day

I completely forgot about this. I remember seeing the ads and not finding the look and design of the characters very appealing.

Thanks for another great video! I have a friend who still has a soft spot for this line. I’m glad you mentioned Malibu at the end, that was my personal comics obsession. Lol I can’t believe the New Universe has found its way into Marvel continuity but the Ultraverse still hasn’t! I would love to see you tackle that often-overlooked comics line. :) Thanks again for everything!

Yes, I bought the New Universe being a loyal Marvel reader and MMMS member. I kept waiting for something interesting to happen and found the stories and art tedious. I never cared for Shooter's mandate that all the stories needed to be self-contained into a single issue; I felt this removed the nuances and characterization that made Marvel books so endearing and relatable. I recall one FF panel by Jack Kirby of Reed and Sue sitting at a table with a cup of coffee, discussing the upcoming battle with Dr. Doom. It was so relatable as watching my parents sit down and discuss making a house payment. What Shooters Universe lacked was an organic feel to it. The above FF scene was written and drawn by people that experienced such a moment with their spouses. PS. Am I the only one thinking Jim Shooter looks like Bizzaro Superman going for a job interview in the photograph?

Blows my mind... So many covers of comics I own flashed on the screen... And sadly no where near as many as I wish!

Great episode as always. Still hoping you will talk about elfquest one day

Good stuff!

I just love the intros to your videos!

Been waiting for somebody to make a video about this for like 3 years. It's like a black hole of comics history in terms of what people actually talk about or gets called backs. Which is weird because anybody who has collected comics probably has a ton of new universe titles just because they're in every quarter bin. The amount of information on some of these titles is next to nothing. It's like lost media but the media is ubiquitous because they printed so many and they're worth next to nothing

This was a great video on new universe I heard about it but I've never got the full depth of it you did a good job I almost want to go and read it and I love the fact that you did the until next time this episode

I read a few of the New Universe titles, but "Psi Force" was the one I liked best and still revisit every few years. As for what did it in, I noticed one annoying thread throughout all of the titles I read -- from Psi Force, to Star Brand, to DP7 -- all of the characters HATED their powers and wanted to get rid of them! But the books are being marketed to an audience of readers whose ultimate dream is to have superpowers! It was tough to relate to characters who were constantly whining about the thing all of us comic fans DREAMED about :D

You are the comic book scholar! It is nourishment for my soul. 🙂

Wow... I started reading comics regularly around the time when SM 2099 began to be published, I always wondered who the hell that Nick Prophet character was, he seemed so damn random and both important and unimportant at the same time....and now I finally have an answer, amazing! haha Very interesting story about the New Universe, great content

A bunch of the new universe characters were used in the 2015 secret wars tie-in mini series "squadron sinister" . Very fun comic, i highly recommend it

My god!! I love the New Universe and EPIC Marvel series. Thanks for sharing and making this episode.

This is really cool and interesting. Thanks for talking about it. I was wondering where star brand came from. 👍👍👍😁

Great video

I liked the New Universe at its start; now I know that it was under Shooter that it was to my liking and under Byrne that I disliked it. Interesting, since Byrne's DC post-Crisis work I disliked so much that after a decade and a half of always getting at least 1 Superman title per release (sometimes all the ones on the stand, including any slight cameos) I stopped buying or even reading about the character. Even more than the actual works themselves, I liked the potential the New Universe had. The same potential Valient got closer to in many ways, before also changing for the worse to my tastes. Shooter again did well and even closer with The Good Guys' and much of that universe before that also met an untily demish two issues into Schism. What a shame; the New Universe didn't get the proper backing it deserved; it might very well have been exactly the groundbreaking milestone that Shooter envisioned. And who knows, we might be over a decade into an MCU where Justice, DP7 and Starbrand are the household names?

Also: Marvel UK, Ultimate Marvel, Marvel 2099, Marvel Mangaverse, and Shadowline/Epic Comics. Marvel made a number of efforts to create new IP. Strikeforce Morituri also comes to mind.

DP-7 was awesome! Unfortunately, today the title sounds like the precursor to Backdoor babies 9. 🤣🤣🤣

Night mask looks interesting Can you maybe do a follow up video on the individual titles

I think I gave PSI Force or Star Brand a try, can't quite remember. Those covers looked absolutely dismal on the spinner racks!!

One of the things I appreciate about the New Universe is the small number of titles compared to the normal Marvel Universe. In order to follow something like Secret Wars you would have had to buy all these different comic titles. It didn't matter if you liked those characters or comics. Want to follow the story? Buy ALL the comics! ugh. But, with NU you could follow everything that was going on without having to buy 20 different titles, especially after everything got paired down to just four books. I think if the budget hadn't gotten blown up, and they'd been able to put some veteran talent on it, the project could have succeeded. Or, at least lasted somewhat longer. There were some solid characters and titles. Starbrand, DP7, and Justice were the best of the bunch imo. Some of the character's stories ended up going some interesting directions, but some of the others felt rushed and half assed, like nobody really knew what to do with them.

I love this review of The New Universe! well done! I hope you get the chance to review Impact Comics.

This is an awesome video for a line that few people probably still care about or even remember. And if anyone actually read it and liked it, I am glad you did -- at least someone like it. :) But compared to all the other things going on the actual Marvel Universe in the 80s: from Cloak & Dagger and other min-Series, Spidey being like a dozen of his own comics, Clairmont and Byrne's X-Men being the best that comic has ever been, to Alpha Flight, and Wolverine starting to become popular, Miller's Daredevil, Walt Simonson's Thor, and then eventually Peter Davidson's Hulk, etc. -- this New Universe stuff was like a really lame shared universe from an unheard of company just starting with some pretty bland new heroes. Now some actual independent companies launched some pretty cool stuff -- from American Flagg, Nexus, and Mage to TMNT to the Tick! But this "New Universe" seems like it was from an *alternate* universe than our own -- it's hard for my mind to equate it to MARVEL Comics -- and I was there when they were getting published. :)

It's frustrating that personal beefs with Jim Shooter seemed to color the creative talent's perception of the New Universe project as a whole. Because in the end, though Shooter would certainly have gotten the glory had the New Universe flourished, comics aren't made for executives - they're made for readers. And we, the readers, largely wanted this experiment to succeed. I was particularly invested in STAR BRAND. Despite a few hiccups (the Debbie Duck speech quirk got tiresome rather quickly), the early issues were quite good, and I legitimately believed a universe could be built around that title. NIGHTMASK and MERC also had potential. But hey, Jim Shooter's a jerk, so let's just half-ass the whole thing and (literally) burn it down the first chance we get, right? I'm a fan of John Byrne. I'm not a fan of what he did to STAR BRAND and the New Universe.

Nice video. After thirty five years of not collecting comics I got Back into them and remembered the new universe and how much I was enjoying it when Twelve, right before I stopped collecting comics. I have spent the last year Collecting the entire new universe And I am now one issue away period I have to find merc.#10.😮 Then I plan on reading the entire thing as it would have been released. Total time capsule for me.

This was fascinating. This is the kinda historical context that escapes me as a comic reader that came along in the mid 2010s. I definitely tried to go back and read New Universal bc one of the characters popped up in sometime relevant and 100% didn't understand.

Star Brand, drawn to resemble Luke Skywalker. DC , with their 1986 mini series Legends, made a Star Brand parody named Sun Spot, who met an embarrassing defeat from Green Lantern Guy Gardner! It was drawn by John Byrne!

Was Shooter an authoritative, no nonsense leader who was a hard ass? Yes. But Marvel was in a rough spot and sailing adrift because it had no real leadership. It had some major issues. Marvel needed that kind of leader to get it on track and help it live to its full potential. It didn't make him the most popular, but popularity doesn't lead to a good business.

I read exactly one issue of New Universe: an issue of _Spitfire._ I skimmed the wiki page, and I note that the title changed mid-series, so I’m just going to use the part that remained the same. And I think, years later, it was some sort of transitional issue. Someone had murdered the tech team who had mechanically augmented specialties, and the young woman nicknamed Spitfire was imprisoned in a dark room being harassed by a huge lumbering monster of a man named Brick as a test by some disembodied voice. I thought the issue was at least interesting, and had a kind of adult feel-not like those dubious bookstores, but there was a feeling of reality, that I didn’t see in a lot of comics I had read up to that time. In all honesty, I don’t think I’d seen a New Universe comic on a spinner rack before or since (at least during those years, and honestly I’ve waaaay moved on)-I don’t think they were getting to the spinner racks at the local drug stores! Somehow this issue made it. I’ve used the term “Interesting Failure” for a work that has good hooks, but the execution didn’t work. Based on what I read in that issue long ago, I’d call it an Interesting Failure. Postscript: Ever consider a video covering the history of !-mpact comics? (Spelled this way because of spell check and auto-formatting-sorry!)

I do wish for Marvel to have another go and allow a new universe in concept similar to Vertigo or a creator owned imprint. Kickass was the only success in recent years I remember from a similar attempt with Icon but that was pre-Disney. I feel that having a separate universe and imprint would allow more creatives to expand on their ideas, not because of continuity but with the freedom to do more. I'm somewhat tired of seeing variants of the same established concept like it was a cheap toy of Artic proof Batman or Underwater mission Spider-Man. Ultimate universe was a good attempt but it came at a time were the general absurdity baked into superhero comics was not favored, hence all the grim that came from Ultimatum.

After watching this video and the ultimate autopsy, it seems like every so often marvel creates a grounded and realistic superhero universe like the new universe, ultimate universe and supreme power universe.

Awesome vid. I’ve never really read a lot of western comics, but I found out about the New Universe after reading Spider-Man 2099 (because of spiderverse lol) and getting curious on who the Net Prophet guy was. Really interesting hearing about all the stuff happening behind the scenes. Burning an effigy is actually crazy lol

I've been waiting for years for someone to do a video about the failure of the New Universe. Any chance of doing a video about the failure of the Inhumans during their huge push in Marvel Comics

I liked the New Universe, there was a lot of great stuff in it and some meh stuff. Overall its was pretty creative and was building something interesting until they got to the "Pitt" stuff where it lost its way.

The Universe that failed twice.

I feel you haven't got tactile with the content outside of the headline grabbers. Still, quality visual sourcing and strong background research. I really gotta pull you up on Howard Mackie. He was not the line editor in the first few months. Mackie took the role at the top of Year 2 when the quality of the line accelerated. Under the new line editor you get the hiring of Byrne, Nicieza, Lim, Ramos, Weeks and the return of Peter David. You get the headlines, fresh paper stock, an exclusive interior design and creators, other than Gruenwald & Ryan, who felt able to treat the books as not quick hack jobs, by plugging in long-term planning. I could go on.

Still... I love what Marvel was recently doing with Starbrand and Nightmask in the AVENGERS in 2015ish. Atleast until they gave up... again. Now in 2022, the baby Starbrand has been reborn, and I love that the Avengers are now taking turns rasing rasing a super-UBER-powered baby-little girl. Especially the motherly role Carol Danvers is trying so hard to get a grasp of with Brandy, a toddler so powerful that Captian Marvel is next to nothing by comparison. But still, like a truly wonderful foster parent, you can't help troubled children by being afraid of them. Also, my wife and I both had Starbrand tattoos for our 21st wedding anniversary; she being my Star & I her Moon.

I recently found a couple of issues of JUSTICE drawing by Keith Giffen, those are really cool.

New Universe was ahead of its time.