Newuniversal #1

Released: December 6, 2006

Publisher: Marvel

Writer: Warren Ellis

Penciler: Salvador Larroca

Cover: Salvador Larroca

 

 

The official title of the series truly has no space between ‘new’ and ‘universal’, an odd choice but hey, it’s CrAzY and different right? Well, not so CrAzY and different as it might first appear.

 

The original New Universe was an experiment by Marvel similar to the CrossGen idea of a large shared universe revolving around a common symbol and theme that allowed a person to enjoy either one book or read them all for a broader story. What it also tried to do was make this shared universe as realistic as possible (very unlike CrossGen) which for the time, was fairly new to mainstream comics (of which it has become in vogue to make your superheroics ‘realistic’). The results faltered more from an editorial, budgetary standpoint than from a sales one (which lead to the creator problems), but in the end it folded all the same.

 

This is a recreation of that universe, similar to what Wildstorm is doing, with a replay of the White Event (the mysterious bright light that gives everyone their powers) and a recreation of a lot of the same character types. The idea was always to make the brand a very ‘mature’ brand with powers having realistic and sometimes unintended consequences. For example, when someone with heat powers melts a gun, he’s gonna end up melting the guy’s hand who’s holding it too, that kind of stuff.

 

Being like all those other series doesn’t keep this one from still being good though, Ellis keeps the cast relatively small, focusing on three people affected by the White Event. One is clearly ‘Justice’, the ex-cop with the power to read people’s aura and with some kind of electrical powers. The other is what I can only guess is Starbrand and I don’t have enough knowledge of the past series to know who the girl is, but she’s got some kind of astral projection type powers. And lastly is a hint that the Starbrand has been around for a long, long time when some archeologists discover a tomb with the ‘newuniversal’ symbol on it.

 

This doesn’t feel like Ellis’ work, although it is a typical introduction style comic. But unlike the high energy of the Authority or Planetary, this feels more like the first episode of ‘Lost’. Something Larroca’s amazing pencils are able to pull off, with a couple of splash pages designed to let him really show off. He has some problems during the archeologists’ scene but, to be fair, so does Ellis.

 

I haven’t mentioned it before, since it started during our hiatus, but the quantity of adverts in this title is so distracting and horrible that I had to mention it. Joe Quesada has basically told the readers to suck it up because even though he promised not to let this happen again, who can refuse more money, right? The story, and therefore the product, is hurt by 23 pages of adverts between 24 pages of story. There are more extreme examples of the excess of the holiday advertising in Marvel but this issue had me truly frustrated over it for the first time. Make Mine Commercials!

 

Rating - 7