New Universal

"The evening of March 2, 2006 started like any other. But at 06.59 UTC, the sky ignited, illuminated by the most startling celestial phenomenon ever witnessed by the human race: the White Event. And from the wake of the White Event, a handful of humans emerged as something more..."

This is the main plot for the new Marvel series written by Warren Ellis, with art from Salvador Larroca, which is nothing more than the re-imagining of the New Universe the then Marvel Editor-In-Chief, Jim Shooter, introduced 20 years ago, in 1986. The idea was to introduce new characters in a universe separated from the Marvel mainstream continuity, although I seem to recall some of them crossing over to the regular Marvel Universe.



So what's new here? Well, for starters, whereas the eighties New Universe story was told in 8 different books, Ellis New Universal is just one book. Warren Ellis said, "I don't think the original creators and editors realized until it was too late -- it was all a single story. It shouldn't have been eight books (or whatever) that were eventually consolidated into ensemble miniseries. It was a single story that should've spun new series and serials off of it". Having this in mind, Ellis wanted the first storyline in the new book to revolve around the four lead books in NewUniverse: Justice, Nightmask, Starbrand and Spitfire and the Troubleshooters.

Something else makes it different: the little things. I don't know if this will play a major role ahead in the series, but the universe Ellis introduces in this comic book is already different than the one we know, even before the White Event. For instance, John Lennon is alive and Paul McCartney was the Beatle who was shot, not in New York but in Liverpool.



And then there's Salvador Larroca's art. He's doing both pencils and inking here, with Jason Keith handling the colors. One can recognize Larroca's style in this series, but it's notorious that he tried to give it a more realistic feel. And maybe that's why he chose real people as models to the characters. I'm not sure if it wasn't Ellis idea. It's quite fun to try and recognize many known actors appearing in New Universal's pages. Every one knows that ultimate Nick Fury is based on Samuel L Jackson. But in New Universal, they went over the top with it.

Some people will think this is distracting, but to me it makes the series feel a lot more like a movie. The cast for this movie would be something like :

Bruce Willis as officer John Tensen (Justice)
Josh Holloway (Sawyer, from tv series Lost) as Kenneth Connell (Starbrand)
Gene Hackman as Jim Braddock
Angelina Jolie as Dr. Jennifer Swann
Zinedine Zidane as nurse Thomas Alexander Reid
Nicole Kidman as Dr. Hannah Ballad
James Cromwell (Six Feet Under) as Philip L. Voight
James Gandolfini (Tony Soprano) as Sheriff Felix
...and Sopranos' wiseguys (Pussy, Paulie, Christopher and Silvio) as deputies.

There are some others that I couldn't recognize, although their faces look familiar. If you have names to add, feel free to do it in your comments. I'll add them to the casting.

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