In 1986, Marvel launched the New Universe. It was envisioned as a more realistic setting--"the world outside your window." There were to be more subdued and limited super-powers, no gods, magic, or aliens. Jim Shooter argued this was similar to how Lee had thought of the Marvel Universe at it's inception: "the original Marvel Universe -- Stan's conception of it -- instead of doing something Superman or Green Lantern, he was really trying to do science fiction. The Fantastic Four didn't have costumes in the first issue. He was trying to be down to Earth."
Before they created the characters and books of the New Universe they had pitched a reboot of the Marvel Universe, something like the Ultimate line to come along decades later. There is no indication this reboot had the same mission statement as the New Universe, but what if it did? A more realistic Marvel Universe starting in 1986 would be interesting as a supers rpg setting, I think.
What would that look like? I have some thoughts:
Fantastic Four: The crew of an experimental space shuttle are on their test flight when a strange white light fills the sky. They come back changed. Reed Richards has his genius intellect boosted to superhuman levels. Sue Storm develops the power to turn invisible and telekinesis. Johnny Storm develops pyrokinesis. Ben Grimm is transformed into a monster. The four stay together to fight alien threats and other strangeness as a team more Challengers of the Unknown than the original FF.
Iron Man: Iron Man probably works the best in this lower key format, you just make the armor bulkier to seem more realistic. He is never able to reproduce the armor for the military due to some change in his physiology due to the White Event, so lesser exoskeletons and armor suits show up, but nothing on Iron Man's level.
The Hulk: The experiment that created hm would be a genetic one rather than a strictly radiation one. Perhaps something akin to the tv show? Obviously, his strength would be toned down.
Thor: An amnesiac being who has memories of another world roams the world looking for his "brother," a being he calls Loki who is head of a criminal empire. He is able to summon or create his "hammer" a weapon of pure energy to wield against his brothers minions. Thor is one of the hardest for this format, but I think he can be toned down enough to work.
Spider-Man: The White Event occurs while Peter Parker is visiting a science lab and he gets bitten by an altered spider. This one could wind up with a very different, darker tone than the original. There might be a tinge of body horror to Peter's spidery condition.
4 comments:
So Thor is almost literally the New Universe Justice title and Iron Man is Warren Ellis's newuniversal Spitfire concept (she has the ability to make machines "work" I think)
There's no immediate FF, Hulk, or Spider-Man parallels, although the original Nightmask is Spider-Man-adjacent.
Hickman pilfered a bunch of newuniversal ideas for his Secret Wars storyline, so now there's an official Starbrand and Nightmask running around. Psi Force was my favorite at the end, but never got rebooted. Ce la vie. Some things are better left as they are.
It was Justice I was thinking of with Thor.
X-Men would presumably much more like DP7 (my favorite of the NU range, with Star Brand close behind), with the emphasis being on learning to live with whatever mutations you have and how to avoid harming others with them. Much lower profile, and more risk to being exposed to the public and particularly the government. Xavier himself might be much less altruistic, possible out and out exploiting his students and their powers and possibly concealing most or all of hi sown abilities from them.
Re-imagining Silver Surfer into something more like Star Brand might also work. The "Power Cosmic" might be forced on some random Terran against their will, forcing them into the role of Herald only for them to rebel and resist Galactus if/when they arrive.
I was a big fan of the New Universe, and have been a little disgruntled at how Marvel has handled the concept decades later. But the one thing I found most interesting was the idea of how a whole month of "story time" would lapse between each episode. It meant that the comics all progressed at roughly the same time but also tended to have fully encapsulated stories in each episode rather than drag something out for six months or whatever.
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