When I was growing up, I was interested in comic books. One series of comics which I read was the New Universe, a line of comic books produced by Marvel Comics to commemorate Marvel’s 25th anniversary — in 1986. I read and owned all the books — if for nothing but the potential of being a part of what Marvel billed as "the comics event of the century", even though the series died after just three years. I could blame the foolishness of youth on my poor investment of time, particularly when even the creators of the New Universe deemed the New Universe as underfunded, shoddily-and-hastily-produced garbage. Nevertheless, I still have a soft spot in my heart for this stuff. Today, July 22, 2006 marks exactly twenty years to the day of what can be considered the "birthday" of the New Universe — called the the White Event — which triggers nearly all the storylines in the New Universe. About a year and a half later, the New Universe is subjected to the Black Event, an epochal event which ended with the destruction of the city of Pittsburgh. A foreign government and later a foreign "paranormal" is accused of causing Pittsburgh’s demise, even though it was a Pittsburgh resident who actually destroyed the city. Nevertheless, America reacts by re-establishing the Draft, assembling an elite force of American paranormal soldiers, and sending them off to war. But that’s all in the world of decades-old comics and has absolutely no relation to reality in the here and now, right?
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