I have been living in the late '80s recently (actually I have been commuting back and forth), and it occured to me that I have read almost the entire First Comics series Crossroads over the course of various discussions. I read issues #1-2 as part of my Sable discussion, #4 as part of Grimjack, and #5 as part of Dreadstar. It struck me that #3 is the only one I have left to read and that I might as well go for it. Then I got to thinking about one of my boxes labled "Miscellaneous New Universes" and that I might as well dip into that as well. My thesis will be that, in the '90s, one of the problems with the comic book field is that publishers were no longer content merely to publish good comic books, they wanted to launch entire universes. I think I have pin-pointed where this trend began, and I will identify it when I get to it. First, though, on to Crossroads.
Crossroads was a series of "done-in-one" stories in which characters from various First series met for the first time. ("Across infinite space and time, parallel lives meet at the Crossroads.") The beauty of this series is that each issue was entirely self-contained; one need not buy any issue of the connecting series nor even the entire crossover series itself in order to get a complete story. Each issue was done by a different writer/artist team, and Steve Rude provided the covers for all five. One character from each issue would carry over into the next, then "hand off" the series to the next character, and so on. For example, Jon Sable was the common character in issues #1 and #2. In issue #1 he met Whisper, and in #2 he met Badger. Of the three, Sable was the character most based in reality. Whisper wore a costume, but was still "realistic"; the Badger could be.
The Badger carried over from #2 to #3, where he met the comic relief character from American Flagg!, Luther Ironheart. In #4, Judah Macabbee met Grimjack (the "Luther" connection is there, but its tenuous), and in #5 Grimjack met both Dreadstar and Nexus. As I have written elsewhere, #4 and #5 blend seemlessly with Grimjack and Nexus and Dreadstar, but it is not necessary to have read the regular series to follow Crossroads or vice versa.
NEXT: Total Eclipse
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The spirit of Roger Corman sort-of lives.
I'm going to wind this topic down with three "new universes" I hadn't planned to cover at all, starting with...
NEW UNIVERSE:
I recently said all I had to say about Marvel's "New Universe" over in the "Marvel: 80 for 80" thread. Basically, I tried one issue of one series: Starbrand #1. I thought it was... okay (although highly derivative of DC's Green Lantern). John Byrne took over the series with #11. I finally read Byrne's run in 2018 when it was reprinted in the Marvel Universe by John Byrne Vol. 2 omnibus. I thought it was... okay. Then, because I am a completeist, I bought a tpb reprinting the early issues for comparison's sake. Taken all together, the entire run was... okay. To this day I have never read any issue of any other "New Universe" series (and have no plans to do so).
MILESTONE:
When "Milestone" launched in 1993, I treated it exactly the same as I did Marvel's "New Universe": namely, I bought one issue of one series: Icon #1. When the DCU crossed over with the Milestone Universe in "World's Collide" I bought and read all of those, but I wasn't moved to add any of the Milestone titles to my p&h. Some time later, at a quarter sale, I picked up 22 issues of Icon between #1 and #42 (including duplicates of #1 and #15), but I haven't read them yet. that's been 30 years ago now, but I may still read them "someday."
!MPACT COMICS:
When DC launched the "!mpact comics" line in 1991 (reviving the old "MLJ" super-heroes), I bought one issue each of Legend of the Shield, The Fly, The Comet, The Jaguar, The Cusaders and The Web, as well as !mpact W!nter Spec!al #1, but there was nothing particularly "special" about any of them.
That's as far as I intent to take this discussion at this time, but there are obviously some "new universes" I have missed. If any of the ones I skipped are particular favorites of yours, I invite you add them on at this point ("imprints" and "lines"
GOLD KEY ALLIANCE:
I did not intend to return to this thread so soon, but my recent re-read of Solar and Magnus has led me to the Gold Key Alliance. In 2016, the Gold Key characters (Solar, Magnus, Turok, Samson and Doctor Spektor) landed at Dynamite. Gold Key Alliance is a series I bought on faith, which means I bought and read the first issues, liked it, and decided to wait until sometime after the series was complete to read the entire thing in one "satisfying chunk." That time has arrived. Surprisingly, the versions of the characters appearing in Gold Key Alliance are not those in the solo series concurrently published by Dynamite. Here's what we've got...
We also get a version of Doctor Spektor, but not the concurrent Dynamite version (a flamboyant celebrity ghostbuster who has made billion as the host of his own reality show); rather, the Dr. Spektor appearing in Gold Key Alliance is the original Gold Key version. I'll refer to these as the DH1 and DH2 versions. Actually, there are multiple versions of the explorer (Turok); the Defender (Magnus), the Warrior (Samson) and the Maker (Solar), but only one version of Dr. Spector. On the last page of #4 (of five), the VH1 versions of these characters (including Samson) appear!
Thematically, this series reminds me quite a bit of Watch, Dynamite's version of Peter Cannon, Thunderbolt and writer Kieron Gillen's version of Watchmen. To the best of my knowledge, only four people on this board read Watch. (Here is a LINK to the discussion.) The story untimately loops back to the "beginning" of the Gold Key Universe, with Dr. Solar about to step into the nuclear reactor, but this time he dons the proper radiation protective gear. "There's no telling what that kind of exposure might have done to us. The whiole thing could have been a disaster."
The "DH1" and "DH2" heroes facing off against one another:
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