New Universe (often styled new universe) was an imprint of Marvel Comics, launched in 1986 to coincide with Marvel's 25th anniversary.
Marvel's senior executives looked at a number of different options to mark the occasion, eventually deciding on something that wouldn't impact the existing Marvel Universe and could deliver a different style of stories to their existing comics.
With that in mind, the New Universe imprint was envisioned as the home of a more realistic superhero line, with all of the titles set in a single coherent world that would be constructed as a shared universe from the very start (unlike the Marvel Universe).
From a branding perspective, this meant that the New Universe had its own consistent cover style, plus its own in-house ads and editorial pages. Both in setting and in the comics' presentation, it was deliberately disconnected from the Marvel Universe.
Magic, other dimensions and alien worlds wouldn't be part of the setting. Powers would be less fantastic in New Universe stories, with more of an attempt to root them in science - and the use of costumes and codenames would be downplayed. Time would pass more-or-less as it did in the real world. Deaths would usually be final.
Additionally, up until the first story told in the New Universe issue published, the setting should be visibly identical to the real world - "The World Outside Your Window".
In practice, some of the titles immediately broke these rules, blurring the audience's understanding of what the New Universe was or wasn't supposed to be - and eventually leading to a range of retcons to try to keep the different comics aligned.
The line was launched with eight ongoing titles, four of which were cancelled after the first year. No replacement ongoing titles were ever launched.
Around this point, Marvel's editor-in-chief, Jim Shooter, who had led the launch of the New Universe imprint (and was also the writer on lead New Universe title Star Brand), left the company.
This prompted a rethink of the line - and also led to some Take That Us and Armed with Canon content aimed at Shooter's contributions in general and Star Brand in particular.
A one-off special printed in a prestige format, The Pitt was released to mark the change in direction. It centered around the complete annihilation of Pittsburgh after the hero of the Star Brand title makes a cowardly mistake. This accelerates the Cold War and starts to send the setting from "the world outside your window" towards a Crapsack World on the edge of World War III.
Shortly after The Pitt, the remaining four New Universe titles also switched to a higher quality ‘direct market only’ comic format, increasing the price and page count. The additional space was used to print data pages and back-up stories (including new character introductions and tales starring characters whose own books had been cancelled). The back-up stories also served to keep the different series tied together, with Call-Back and Continuity Nod elements.
(Unlike the other titles, Star Brand - now slightly retitled to The Star Brand - also reduced its frequency to bimonthly).
A second prestige format special, The Draft, acted as another milestone for the line, introducing changes to to the setting that directly affected most of the books.
However, by this point Marvel was also starting to wind-down the imprint - no new titles were being launched and, although the remaining books were still profitable, it was felt that the creative teams working on them could be more successfully reassigned elsewhere.
With that in mind, the four remaining comics were cancelled and the New Universe imprint ended with a four-part prestige series that wrapped up many of the remaining plotlines, The War.
As the setting was not part of the Marvel Universe, this was initially treated as the end of the setting and characters, not just the imprint. Marvel had never published any collected editions of the New Universe books, which added to the perception that it was now entirely gone.
However, some creators were keen to reuse New Universe characters, so within a few years versions reappeared in Marvel titles such as Spider-Man 2099 (under a different name, with differing powers - essentially an Easter Egg for those who knew the old comics) and Quasar (which explicitly linked the New Universe setting to the Marvel Universe, opening the door to further stories).
Although the imprint was never revived, it regained some prominence over the years - collected editions of the first few issues of the longer-running books were eventually released, and the New Universe's 20th anniversary was marked by a reboot series (newuniversal) and an Untold Tales of the New Universe event, as well as alternate versions of the original characters turning up in the universe-hopping Exiles series.
Eventually, the New Universe characters and concepts were fully absorbed into the main Marvel Universe as well, with two different versions of Star Brand even becoming members of The Avengers.
Titles:
- D.P. 7
- The Draft
- Justice (New Universe)
- Kickers, Inc.
- Mark Hazzard: Merc
- Nightmask
- The Pitt
- Psi-Force
- Spitfire and the Troubleshooters
- Star Brand
- The War (New Universe)
