Well, I think you are catching on to what I’m doing, I’m going to be alternating between MC2, 2099 and New Universe, the three most popular alternative universes that Marvel Comics ever made. It’s gonna be to review the first issue of each comic (and who knows maybe come back and give you a full review of the entire series of each one if I did like issue 1). (Don’t worry I will also be putting in reviews of Darkhawk and Vigilante because I want to review every issue of them before the year 2050 happens). That is gonna be a good amount of comics reviewed. Don’t worry #100 will be something really bad.
The New Universe was an idea to capitalize on Marvel’s upcoming 25th Anniversary (even though the company had been around since 1939 but let’s let them have it because the Anniversary covers were really cool!) in 1986. Jim Shooter went to the president of Marvel and was like HEY LET’S RESTART EVERY CHARACTER FROM THE BEGINNING! Jim Galton the President was like “No way bro” so they didn’t. What’s funny is that they did something similar to this with the Ultimate Marvel Universe except kept the original titles still ongoing. I don’t know if I will ever review the Ultimate Marvel Universe because I honestly don’t find it as interesting as the three I picked out but who knows? I’ll probably be doing this silly blog long enough to get to them.
Anyway Jim got Jim (lol) to agree to the idea of the New Universe which would be a more realistic look at life with super powers. The powers would be smaller, no hidden races, no gods, no super-technology (which Archie Goodwin was like EH SCREW THAT with his comic Justice) and it would be seen as “the world outside your window”. It was a good honest concept and had several pretty good creators on it. I have read some of it and thought it was pretty enjoyable honestly. The biggest problem wasn’t the comics it was internal politics.
You see Cadence Industries, the people who owned Marvel Comics at the time were planning to sell (and they would to the New World Pictures which was formerly owned by Roger Corman. See my brain can connect anything to anything else. It practically does it all the time for NO FUCKING REASON.) and that meant they had to spend less and make more money which caused Shooter to not be able to get the hot talent that he wanted for his comics. Not o say that the people he got were bad (Archie Goodwin and Tom DeFalco are very good at what they did). He wanted the people that were the hardest to get to do these books. He was also not able to give the entire line the overreach that he wanted due to these internal politics. These and many other reasons would have him leave Marvel a few years later. You can find out the full story in Marvel Comics: The Untold Story which is a great book by Sean Howe. Read it buckaroos! You know I’m serious when I bring out the harsh language like buckaroos!
Now let’s go over the titles and who created these ideas because you’ll be seeing them over the next little while. Spitfire and the Troubleshooters, Mark Hazzard: Merc, Nightmask, Psi-Force, Kickers Inc, DP7, Justice, and Star Brand. These concepts were created by Mark Gruenwald, Paul Ryan, Tom DeFalco, Ron Frenz, Archie Goodwin, Eliot R Brown, John Moreli, Walter Simonson, and Jim Shooter. They were written and drawn by just about everyone at Marvel. Very few of these had a concurrent team of people working on each issue. That’s pretty wild. Star Brand was not like that but let’s discuss the creative team of this series!
The writer of the first eleven issues of this series was Jim Shooter. He started in comics when he was 13 or so writing stories for the Legion of Superheroes, some really fun and enjoyable stories too. He worked at DC, Marvel, he pretty much ran Valiant! Remember Valiant comics? People want the comics they made involving Nintendo characters really badly. Like so many of them go for like $300 now. It’s wild. Jim Shooter is a pretty talented guy and overall a pretty good boss for Marvel Comics. He did some things that were mentioned in the Marvel Comics the Untold Story I certainly don’t agree with but he still helped Marvel produce some amazing comics during the 1980s. The artist of this story was John Romita Jr, son of John Romita Sr (RIP) who’s work I always admired. If you go on Facebook you’ll see crabby old men yell about how he ruined the X-Men but you’ll see crabby old men say that such and such ruined Marvel Comics going back to 1968, the real truth of it is being Marvel Comics has put out both excellent and poopy comics from it’s debut to right now. Same with DC. The final person in the group I will be talking about today is Al Williamson who worked in comics from 1948 at just 17 years old to 2003 when he was 72. That’s one hell of a career. Worked at EC Comics (you know Tales from the Crypt) and Marvel and won like every award someone can win for comic books it seems. He is the guy that made John Romita work way more awesome as it hasn’t been the same since. Also Jim Shooter was amazed either of them wanted to work on the comic as he didn’t have a crazy salary to give them.
Anyway it’s finally time to talk about Star Brand #1 and I have to say this is a pretty good origin story. Ken Connell finds an old man in the woods who ends up giving him the power of the Star Brand (and is found out to be an alien!). He does the usual OH SHIT I GOT SUPERPOWERS stuff like breaking things and flying and just testing out the powers. All excitedly too like everyone would be if they got super powers! He goes to his friends Myron’s (whos a therapist and Ken is like SAVE THAT THERAPY CRAP FOR YOUR PATIENTS kinda lame thoughts there Ken!!!!) then another Alien comes by and says that the old man alien is not dead and that he gave him the power in hopes it would help the old man alien take over the universe. This alien wants the power to stop that alien. Ken Connell however doesn’t believe this or want to give it up. He blows the shit out of a slag dump and the Weird Robot Alien is no where to be seen.
Ken then goes to his friend Debbie “The Duck” who he just calls Duck. I already like Debbie she looks like a 1980s punk rocker which is tres erotic. We end up meeting Ken’s girlfriend Barb and her two kids, one of the kids ends up with the crazy Alien Robot ray gun! We also meet our last member of the supporting cast (for now) a fat black guy who runs a garage with Ken as one of his workers. His name is John Eberhardt. After meeting Duck and before going to Karen. Ken goes back to where he met the original maybe bad guy old alien man and just finds clothes for him to wear. Suspiciously looking like a costume!!!
Ken then puts on the costume and goes and finds the Weird Alien Robot and he tells him he found out his secret of getting away, you know from not being EXPLODED which is able to sink into the ground. So Ken BREAKS the gun The Weird Alien Robot gave Barb’s kid and then gets up real close and lets him know he ain’t taking any more of his shit BY THROWING HIM BACK INTO HIS FUCKING SPACE CRAFT. Don’t fuck with Kenny here! He then says whether or not he meant too the old alien man picked the right man and he’s going to stay the Star Brand if he has to kick every butt in the universe.
FINAL THOUGHTS: This was a pretty good first issue. I’m definetly interested in seeing where the next issues go. I like Ken, and the rest of his supporting cast enough to see them in more issues. The art’s cool. The Alien Robot was awesome looking. It’s a fun comic and I hope the rest of these New Universe titles are as good.
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