Issue(s): Starblast #3
Cover Date: Mar 94
Title: "A whole new universe"
Credits:
Mark Gruenwald - Writer
Grant Miehm - Penciler
Many Hands - Inker
Mike Rockwitz - Editor

Review/plot:
Well, one positive is that Herb Trimpe is off as artist. But his exit must have been a scramble. We have "Many Hands" on inks this issue, and next issue has multiple pencilers and inkers.

This issue starts with Kayla Balantine having a kind of dream where she meets Nightmask.

Meanwhile, Quasar approaches the Stranger and demands the release of his girlfriend. Skeletron is there as well, and he attacks.

Quasar fights off Skeletron but when he tries to stop the Stranger, he retaliates and teleports Quasar to a different part of his homeworld/ship.

Meanwhile, the Ovoid named Insidio who has been holding the Watcher decides that he wants to pull out one of the Watcher's eyes. But that's a whole different crossover, so the Watcher decides it's time to leave (which he could have done at any time).

Also meanwhile, the rest of the heroes that accompanied Quasar are fighting the rest of the Starblasters. Vanguard is seemingly killed by Threkker.

His sister Darkstar goes berzerk and starts tossing everyone, friend and foe, around with the Darkforce. Nygorn, the seemingly most powerful of the villains, blasts everyone to stop the rampage. But then he's summoned away to Skeletron (note the mispelling of his name; it's Nyborn here).

The other Starblasters recover before the heroes. But Threkker is dead thanks to Darkstar.

Lockjaw stealthily teleports Black Bolt away. The remaining Starblasters decide to kill the other heroes, but Insidio shows up saying he wants them held captive (even though it's against Skeletron's orders).

Back in the "New Universe", Nightmask begins gathering a bunch of other characters.

Quasar and Skeletron are still fighting in another part of the Stranger's ship.

And the Watcher has gone to the Stranger. The Stranger has been having trouble extracting the Starbrand from Kayla, so he convinces her that he's God, here to relieve her of her burden.

This seems to be successful, and there is a white event in the New Universe.

Quality Rating: D+

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: This is technically part eight of Starblast. But i'm covering all the Quasar/Starblast issues sequentially. So i'll cover Quasar #56 next.

References:

• Kayla was kidnapped in Starblast #1.
  
• Quasar's ship dodged a bomb trap left by Skeletron in Quasar #55.

Crossover: Starblast

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

This place is good as any to point out that the Psi-Hawk was killed/destroyed and seemingly brought back with no explanation.

I think there's also no mention of how Voigt (it feels strange calling him "OvershadoW" since that was rarely used in the original comics) regained his powers, as he'd lost them in Starbrand #18 and had been powerless in his appearances since then.

There's no real reason a psychic construct like Psi-Hawk (which didn't even require the same paranormals to create him) couldn't have reformed, or Voigt couldn't have eventually regained his powers, though both returns to status quo feel more "Marvel" than the notionally more realistic New Universe.

But while I did like the Quasar's initial visit to the New Universe, everything since then, from the Antibodies to the Starbrand has been increasingly pointless. The Starbrand itself is not interesting, it was its wielders that New Universe fans read the comics for. Similarly, just having some New Universe characters characterlessly stand around during a cosmic crossover with some cheesy villains is a complete waste of time. I consider myself a fan of Gruenwald for what he did in the 1980s, but by the early 90s I have no idea what he is even aiming for. (Some of the art he was saddled with really doesn't help either.)

Oops, "Overshadow" not "OvershadoW".

When I heard that some New Universe characters reappeared in this crossover I was interested. When I found out they did almost nothing, and that almost nothing was revealed about what had happened to the characters that New Universe fans had grown to care about, I was completely disappointed. I would be surprised if any of the original readers of the New Universe weren't equally disappointed, so I never understood the reason for including these not hugely popular characters just to disappoint their fans.