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Robbie Parry
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Joined: 17 June 2007
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 12186
Posted: 10 December 2017 at 10:15am | IP Logged | 1 post reply

I've been browsing on eBay for back issues of D.P. 7 (to no avail, can't find a complete set). I've been thinking about the "New Universe" after discussing D.P. 7 with a Facebook "friend".

Back in 1986, and this may be down to nostalgia/youth, I was excited by it. I did enjoy the few issues of D.P. 7 that I could find. Was it a gimmick to commemorate Marvel Comics' 25th anniversary? I don't know. It certainly felt fresh and an attempt to do something different as opposed to arbitrarily giving us a gimmick simply to mark a date.

There were no comic stores in my area back then so I was dependent on buying whatever comics were available. The small shop and railway station shop stocked comics, I only saw a few New Universe titles for sale in that period (D.P. 7 mainly). 

Didn't it fizzle out within a few years? I intend to Google more later.

Any particular memories of the New Universe titles (I'd particularly appreciate any D.P. 7 thoughts)? It would be interesting for me to pick up some New Universe issues and see if they live up the nostalgia.

Oh well, back to eBay...
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Paul Kimball
Byrne Robotics Member


Joined: 21 September 2006
Location: United States
Posts: 2163
Posted: 10 December 2017 at 10:29am | IP Logged | 2 post reply

I liked Justice
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John Byrne

Grumpy Old Guy

Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 132129
Posted: 10 December 2017 at 10:57am | IP Logged | 3 post reply

The "New Universe" was bizarre on many levels. As Denny O'Neil expressed it, it was, for one thing, the first time a comicbook company had set out to compete with itself!

Then there were Shooter's completely arbitrary rules. The NU was "the world outside your window", so no stories could be done that would end up on the evening news, or in the papers.* This produced stories so bland Roy Thomas described them as "TV movies".

Everyone did the best they could, and when Shooter finally got the boot there was a moment when we saw what the New Universe might have been, but overall it was one big, dull thud.

-------------

* These rules did not apply to Shooter himself, of course! STAR BRAND gave us a story in which terrorists hijacked a cruise ship in New York harbor, using a nuclear weapon as a bargaining chip. A weapon which was subsequently exploded deep under the harbor floor -- somehow not burying the south end of Manhattan in radioactive mud. Or getting mentioned on the news.

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Matt Hawes
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Joined: 16 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 16406
Posted: 10 December 2017 at 11:16am | IP Logged | 4 post reply

Even at the time the New Universe was announced, I thought it sounded like Jim Shooter wanted to celebrate Marvel's 25th anniversary by trying to outdo the regular MU on being "realistic." After all, Marvel had built its name on having more realistic superheroes than DC and other publishers. Marvel's characters had human foibles, etc.

The problem is, with superhero fantasy, how far do you take realism without the stories being mundane or boring? Obviously, the NU didn't avoid that trap.

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Robbie Parry
Byrne Robotics Member


Joined: 17 June 2007
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 12186
Posted: 10 December 2017 at 11:22am | IP Logged | 5 post reply

This was the first "New Universe" issue I saw in the railway station shop:





I will say this: it was eye-catching. Comics are there to hook people. I knew about Marvel and had read news about the "New Universe" so gave it a go. 

It's subjective, but that cover above, I could see why that would hook someone who'd not previously read a comic.


Edited by Robbie Parry on 10 December 2017 at 11:22am
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Matthew Wilkie
Byrne Robotics Member


Joined: 09 March 2011
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 1139
Posted: 10 December 2017 at 12:00pm | IP Logged | 6 post reply

I remember buying the first issue of Star Brand and not being particularly enamoured it. It was only some months that my LCS was selling off old NU comics at a bargain price that I binge-bought on a number of titles and caught up - DP7 was definitely my favourite and seemed the title most aligned to the Marvel Universe in style. I continued to read NU titles including the two specials, The Pitt and The Draft, before drifting off (before JB took on Star Brand) before they all came to an end. 
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John Byrne

Grumpy Old Guy

Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 132129
Posted: 10 December 2017 at 12:02pm | IP Logged | 7 post reply

It's subjective, but that cover above, I could see why that would hook someone who'd not previously read a comic.

•••

Subjective indeed. It seems to me a real civilian would look at that cover and say "See? This is why comics are crap!"

(Not necessarily a condemnation of whoever worked on that cover, but a note that it is very much a case of preaching to the choir. One needs to be fully immersed in the language of Marvel for it to work.)

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Stephen Churay
Byrne Robotics Member


Joined: 25 March 2009
Location: United States
Posts: 8369
Posted: 10 December 2017 at 3:43pm | IP Logged | 8 post reply

I read Justice, Kickers Inc., Star Brand,
D.P.7, Nightmask and Spitfire. I tried. I
drank the Kool-Aid and really gave them a
try. Kickers was a very basic book but
amusing. Justice had a compelling story
and I actually enjoyed it. I couldn't read
the rest. Star Brand had potential but by
the time Marvel's top talent had been put
on it, it was already over for me.
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Rick Whiting
Byrne Robotics Member


Joined: 22 April 2004
Posts: 2181
Posted: 10 December 2017 at 4:41pm | IP Logged | 9 post reply

The problem is, with superhero fantasy, how far do you take realism without the stories being mundane or boring? Obviously, the NU didn't avoid that trap.

__________________________________________


Matt Hawes, the sad irony is that 15+ years later, the regular MU comics became mundane boring talking heads TV comics under the Quesada and Alonso EIC regimes.
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Adam Schulman
Byrne Robotics Member


Joined: 22 July 2017
Posts: 1717
Posted: 10 December 2017 at 5:39pm | IP Logged | 10 post reply

Warren Ellis was assigned to write a total "reboot" of the New Universe. Then all his computer files with the plots and such were somehow totally erased and the project was abandoned. 

Ah well. Ellis's ideas surely would've been better than Shooter's. Such is life.
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Bob Harvey
Byrne Robotics Member


Joined: 19 November 2014
Location: United States
Posts: 202
Posted: 10 December 2017 at 6:45pm | IP Logged | 11 post reply

The Ellis issues that actually came out were pretty bad, as I recall.

I loved DP7 and enjoyed most of the surviving titles after the format changed. I wrote a letter to DP7 complaining about a couple items and got a pretty nice postcard from Jim Salicrup.
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Steven Myers
Byrne Robotics Member


Joined: 10 June 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 5619
Posted: 10 December 2017 at 8:45pm | IP Logged | 12 post reply

When I first read about the concept in Marvel Age I was interested. When I saw the comics on the rack they looked very dull and decided to spend my money on other books. I did read DP7, Psi Force, and Star Brand for w few issues after the format change because I was in the Navy then and starving for entertainment. DP7 was the best, and though JB did Star Brand I wasn't interested.  
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