Broken Frontier

Marvel Comics celebrate the 20th anniversary of the New Universe with all new tales starting with the most powerful hero in that line. But was Star Brand a hero? Find out here.

I was thrilled to death when I learned that Marvel was going to revive the New Universe. To me the line was groundbreaking and probably a bit ahead of its time, so it wasn’t a surprise the line petered out after only three years of being in existence. So now that twenty years have passed, the company has decided to go down memory lane and revisit some of the characters that defined the uniqueness of the line.

I think it also helps to have the stature of a writer like Warren Ellis interested in revamping that universe in a new series (New Universal) to make these all new tales fashionable once again to read. So it was indeed a blast from the past for me, since I grew up in the 80’s collecting the entire line when it was fresh on the stands.

The one book that really caught my attention was of course Star Brand, since it starred a character who gains vast powers from the use of a tattoo branded upon him via an alien. Now I know that may sound a little like Green Lantern, but Ken Connell was far from being heroic and courageous as Hal Jordan was. In fact Ken was an average, unimaginative guy living a rather mundane existence in Pittsburgh when his whole world suddenly gets turned upside down.

He’s quickly wielding the power of the Star Brand, but the real kicker here is that he couldn’t care less about it. Instead he’s more concerned about the myriad of women he’s sleeping around with, and when can you ever remember a hero worrying more about his libido than using his super-abilities for the betterment of mankind? You probably can’t ever recall that happening before in a mainstream comic, so that’s what made this universe unique at the time of publication.

This issue is more or less a ‘look back’ story to give readers an idea of who Ken Connell really was. The writer here was Jeff Parker and I found he treated the story as a self-referential chronicling of the character, and of the impact the line had in the comics community overall. It was a clever way to tell a story and I guess it allowed other old farts (like myself) to reminisce over a past era of Marvel’s history.

The other neat aspect of the story was how reader friendly it was, and in doing so it allowed younger comic fans to have an immediate sense of the character without having the benefit of understanding previous continuity. It’s a great read as one-shot story, but I think it would be great if new readers actually got inspired enough after reading this story to go out and find those old issues in the quarter bins. Believe me, it’s well worth the time and effort to hunt them down, since much of the stories told here were often taking a 360 turn from the type of stories Marvel published at the time.

That original series also featured the art of John Romita, Jr. and his work then was in a transitional stage, but it worked well for characterization and pacing. Unfortunately I can’t say the same for the art here on this one-shot story. Now I have nothing against Javier Pulido because I enjoyed his previous work on the Human Target for DC, but I felt his pencils made the story a bit on the dull side artistically. I don’t believe it will hurt your overall enjoyment of the story, but I think a much more dynamic approach to the art would have been more satisfying for my tastes.

So on the whole, I believe this is a must-have issue for comic fans. There were some good intentions with the original line, despite a lack of a stronger editorial ship, and I believe the line as a whole is well worth a second look back at. I guess we’ll have to wait to see with what Warren Ellis does with his revamp due out in the late spring. So until then enjoy this one-shot, I know I did!