The New Universe and Jim Shooter

Someone was telling me the other day that they were going to be getting Warren Ellis' New Universal from Amazon. I naturally asked if I could borrow it when they had finished reading it. After all, Ellis has written some great comics and I am interested in anything he'd have written. (See earlier entry detailing my writer-driven philosophy).

I had heard about NU a while back and read a few articles about it. Too many articles went on and on about how bad Marvel's original New Universe was. It wasn't all that bad.

After all, how bad could it have been? It featured Star Brand by Jim Shooter and John Romita Jr. Few will argue that notion that JR Jr. is one of the top artists in comics. But people seem to routinely slam Mr. Shooter. This is not only unfair, it's revisionist history.

Let's see, I'll recount some of the terrible comics that Shooter wrote. The Avengers in the 160's and 170's - anyone remember the Korvac saga?.

Daredevil in the 130's, 140's and 150's. Anyone remember the great DD/Bullseye battle in 146 with the fantastic Gil Kane art? And the great issues with the Paladin that led to the issues where Maxwell Glenn committed suicide because of wrongdoings he committed while under the control of the Purple Man?

Yes, the Purple Man - the same character that Bendis used in Alias.

And Star Brand. Lest anyone miss the point here, these issues are excellent and should be part of any DD or Avenger fan's collection.

Shooter also oversaw an era of Marvel Comics as EIC that generated some of the best comics ever. Think Chris Claremont & John Byrne X-Men, Roger Stern & John Romita Jr. Amazing Spider-Man, Frank Miller Daredevil...the list goes on.

So maybe it's time to give the man some credit.

After all, he was the guy behind New Universe....which seems to be the thing that the many critics hit him with.

So, let's see...in addition to Shooter & Romita Jr. on Star Brand, we had Peter David writing Justice. That's right, Peter David writing Justice. And it was great. He also wrote a couple of issues of something called Merc or something like that. While I can't remember the exact title, I remember it was good.

A lot of New Universe wasn't all that spectacular. But it wasn't a total loss. And if you find some issues of Star Brand or Justice in the 50 cent boxes, grab a few. They're really good.

And so was Mr. Shooter.