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Marvel’s New Universe
D.P. 7 Classic, Vol. 1
The Gru tackled the New and it's here for you! Before his history-making work on Captain America and Quasar, Mark Gruenwald helped build the New Universe from the ground up with an outcast cast of Seven Displaced Paranormals on a quest leading them into urban legends, domestic disasters, and teen terror.
222 pages, Paperback
First published August 15, 2007
1 person is currently reading
45 people want to read
About the author
Mark Gruenwald
920 books44 followersGruenwald got his start in comics fandom, publishing his own fanzine, Omniverse, which explored the concept of continuity. Before being hired by Marvel, he wrote text articles for DC Comics official fanzine, The Amazing World of DC Comics. Articles by Gruenwald include "The Martian Chronicles" (a history of the Martian Manhunter) in issue #13 and several articles on the history of the Justice League in issue #14.
In 1978 he was hired by Marvel Comics, where he remained for the rest of his career. Hired initially as an assistant editor in January 1978, Gruenwald was promoted to full editorship by Marvel editor-in-chief Jim Shooter in 1982, putting Gruenwald in charge of The Avengers, Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, Spider Woman, and What If. During this period, he shared an office with writer/editor Denny O'Neil, whom Gruenwald considered a mentor.
In 1982, Gruenwald, Steven Grant, and Bill Mantlo co-wrote Marvel Super Hero Contest of Champions, the first limited seriespublished by Marvel Comics. As a writer, Gruenwald is best known for creating the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe and his ten-year stint as the writer of Captain America during which he contributed several notable characters such as Crossbones, Diamondback and U.S. Agent. He made a deliberate effort to create villains who would be specific to Captain America, as opposed to generic foes who could as easily have been introduced in another comic.
His 60-issue run on Quasar realized Gruenwald's ambition to write his own kind of superhero. However, he considered his magnum opus to be the mid-1980s 12-issue miniseries Squadron Supreme, which told the story of an alternate universe where a group of well-intended superheroes decide that they would be best suited to run the planet
In 1978 he was hired by Marvel Comics, where he remained for the rest of his career. Hired initially as an assistant editor in January 1978, Gruenwald was promoted to full editorship by Marvel editor-in-chief Jim Shooter in 1982, putting Gruenwald in charge of The Avengers, Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, Spider Woman, and What If. During this period, he shared an office with writer/editor Denny O'Neil, whom Gruenwald considered a mentor.
In 1982, Gruenwald, Steven Grant, and Bill Mantlo co-wrote Marvel Super Hero Contest of Champions, the first limited seriespublished by Marvel Comics. As a writer, Gruenwald is best known for creating the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe and his ten-year stint as the writer of Captain America during which he contributed several notable characters such as Crossbones, Diamondback and U.S. Agent. He made a deliberate effort to create villains who would be specific to Captain America, as opposed to generic foes who could as easily have been introduced in another comic.
His 60-issue run on Quasar realized Gruenwald's ambition to write his own kind of superhero. However, he considered his magnum opus to be the mid-1980s 12-issue miniseries Squadron Supreme, which told the story of an alternate universe where a group of well-intended superheroes decide that they would be best suited to run the planet
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
December 3, 2019
I'm 44, which probably means I shouldn't be reading as many comics as I do; more importantly, it means I spent my teen years in the 1980s. for me there are two 80s. there's the 80s that I usually think of when contemplating that decade: a dark, hair-gelled place full of the excesses of corporate greed, a generally cynical and jaded feeling to the times, cyberpunk, Blade Runner, American Psycho (which was actually published in 1991), and venal talking heads like Ronald Reagan.
but then there's the 80s that I actually lived in, and it's the delightful flip side to the above (not that I thought it was so delightful when I was living in it). that 80s is a lively, fun place full of bright often neon colors and parachute pants and breakdancing and new wave and jheri curls and shiny jackets and bright eye shadow and lots of hair spray. from Sixteen Candles to Heathers; Square Pegs and Star Trek: The Next Generation. and most endearing of all: colorful bands of outcasts coming together to form their own kind of cool while pushing back against The Man.
yahoo, D.P. 7 comes from the latter 1980s! I loved this book. it's a different sort of superhero book as well. Gruenwald and Marvel's brief New Universe line placed super-powered people within a real world context. so no fun names and spandex; no "heroes" who spend their time rescuing people and who don't appear to worry about how to pay for rent and food. the initials "DP" stands, not for double penetration you perv, but rather for "Displaced Paranormals". these 7 individuals come from the wide but shallow range of 80s stereotypes but because the always empathetic Gruenwald is writing them, they are also given surprising depth and nuance. they regularly make mistakes, they bitch and wisecrack at each other, they seem like actual people. and they have actual-people problems of the kind a person would have if they had a bizarre superpower, escaped with 6 of their new friends from a controlling clinic, and had to figure things out on their own while fleeing clinic enforcers. this story is literally about 7 people in a camper driving around aimlessly and fearfully, wondering how they are going to eat, missing their families terribly, making a ton of mistakes, and in general having no clue what to do.
it was all kinds of fun and often all kinds of sad as well. a teen rebel from an abusive home who annoys even his accepting new friends and who realizes his power means he will never kiss a girl. a conservative mom who sparkles and whose no-good husband is busy turning her kids against her while she's away. an elderly woman who has to cover up every inch of her body. an uptight doctor who tries to be a leader and often fails (and whose superpower is his unconscious made real - a dark man-shaped energy form with a mind of its own).
unfortunately, because this is the 80s, that also means we have horribly corny 80s-style humor. really, 80s humor is just the worst, so cringe-inducing. I had to force myself to ignore it.
still, appalling 80s jokes aside, this was a warm and wonderful experience. the art by Paul Ryan is great and his frequent focus on semi-naked characters comes across as naturalistic rather than exploitative. Gruenwald is, as always, a talented author with a lot of originality and an admirable focus on feelings - he always chooses straightforward emotion over ironic detachment. this collection ends with a fascinating and very 80s cliffhanger but the rest of the series (33 issues total including this paperback) are easily available in single-issue format.
but then there's the 80s that I actually lived in, and it's the delightful flip side to the above (not that I thought it was so delightful when I was living in it). that 80s is a lively, fun place full of bright often neon colors and parachute pants and breakdancing and new wave and jheri curls and shiny jackets and bright eye shadow and lots of hair spray. from Sixteen Candles to Heathers; Square Pegs and Star Trek: The Next Generation. and most endearing of all: colorful bands of outcasts coming together to form their own kind of cool while pushing back against The Man.
yahoo, D.P. 7 comes from the latter 1980s! I loved this book. it's a different sort of superhero book as well. Gruenwald and Marvel's brief New Universe line placed super-powered people within a real world context. so no fun names and spandex; no "heroes" who spend their time rescuing people and who don't appear to worry about how to pay for rent and food. the initials "DP" stands, not for double penetration you perv, but rather for "Displaced Paranormals". these 7 individuals come from the wide but shallow range of 80s stereotypes but because the always empathetic Gruenwald is writing them, they are also given surprising depth and nuance. they regularly make mistakes, they bitch and wisecrack at each other, they seem like actual people. and they have actual-people problems of the kind a person would have if they had a bizarre superpower, escaped with 6 of their new friends from a controlling clinic, and had to figure things out on their own while fleeing clinic enforcers. this story is literally about 7 people in a camper driving around aimlessly and fearfully, wondering how they are going to eat, missing their families terribly, making a ton of mistakes, and in general having no clue what to do.
it was all kinds of fun and often all kinds of sad as well. a teen rebel from an abusive home who annoys even his accepting new friends and who realizes his power means he will never kiss a girl. a conservative mom who sparkles and whose no-good husband is busy turning her kids against her while she's away. an elderly woman who has to cover up every inch of her body. an uptight doctor who tries to be a leader and often fails (and whose superpower is his unconscious made real - a dark man-shaped energy form with a mind of its own).
unfortunately, because this is the 80s, that also means we have horribly corny 80s-style humor. really, 80s humor is just the worst, so cringe-inducing. I had to force myself to ignore it.
still, appalling 80s jokes aside, this was a warm and wonderful experience. the art by Paul Ryan is great and his frequent focus on semi-naked characters comes across as naturalistic rather than exploitative. Gruenwald is, as always, a talented author with a lot of originality and an admirable focus on feelings - he always chooses straightforward emotion over ironic detachment. this collection ends with a fascinating and very 80s cliffhanger but the rest of the series (33 issues total including this paperback) are easily available in single-issue format.
December 26, 2012
A real bang to a start a great tale of rag-tag misadventures as a bunch of humans get super charged with strange powers, and break the forth comic wall while doing it. Can't wait to read the next volume!
October 6, 2020
A long time ago, in a universe not all that different from our own there was a bright white flash in the sky and a whole bunch of people were never quite the same again.
That’s basically how the whole thing started in Marvel’s (failed?) experiment at a second attempt at world building. The White Event. The New Universe. Unfortunately, it didn’t exactly capture the imaginations of comic book readers.
In the case of this title, D. P. 7, it might have been that they were trying to create a new superhero team, without making them a superhero team. The idea is sound: a group of people with nothing in common except they all have very unusual abilities that make them just a bit more than human. They seek help, but find that those they thought were helping them are actually using them. It certainly has potential. Clearly. Stephen King has even harvested from this garden more than once (Firestarter and The Institute as quick examples), so it is certainly a viable concept. The problem is that (1) the pace was a bit inconsistent and (2) the characters took too long to become interesting. The first issue moved too quickly, then the next few issues moved to slowly. When these were originally being published, this was why I dropped buying the title after a few issues. But the 9 issues in the collection illustrate that the potential was there, things picked up quite nicely with the last few issues, it just took too long to get there. And if it takes 6-7 issues to get interested int he characters, their lives and their problems, it’s moving too slowly for monthly installments. The last 3-4 issues worked much better, it felt like a story was actually taking shape, but then it just ended (but that’s a problem with how this volume was assembled, not necessarily the stories themselves). Another problem I had was I could not really tell how old any of the characters were. Not until issue 6 offered some individual descriptions of who these people where and details on their ages and backgrounds. This would have been nice to have had in the first issue. As an example, I knew Lenore was older than the others, but she’s actually 30 years older than the next oldest. And Scuzz is actually 15, although he looks like he’s 25. In fact they all look about the same age, but with issue six we find out they’re not. So the differences in their characters end up feeling more stereotypical than genuine differences. So the first 6-7 issues (over 6-7 months of original publication) probably lost a lot of readers. By the time things started getting interesting, most of the target audience may have already abandoned the title. The first 4 issues (almost half of this volume) I’d only give 2-stars, the last 4 issues (again, almost half of this volume) I’d be willing to give 4-stars. Unfortunately, in averaging it out, I just can’t see offering more than 3-stars.
When the titles comprising Marvel’s New Universe was being originally published, I stuck with Star Brand and Nightmask the longest. Had I been able to afford trying the titles over a longer period, I might have stuck with this one as well, but it just didn’t grab me quickly enough and this volume illustrates exactly why that was the case.
That’s basically how the whole thing started in Marvel’s (failed?) experiment at a second attempt at world building. The White Event. The New Universe. Unfortunately, it didn’t exactly capture the imaginations of comic book readers.
In the case of this title, D. P. 7, it might have been that they were trying to create a new superhero team, without making them a superhero team. The idea is sound: a group of people with nothing in common except they all have very unusual abilities that make them just a bit more than human. They seek help, but find that those they thought were helping them are actually using them. It certainly has potential. Clearly. Stephen King has even harvested from this garden more than once (Firestarter and The Institute as quick examples), so it is certainly a viable concept. The problem is that (1) the pace was a bit inconsistent and (2) the characters took too long to become interesting. The first issue moved too quickly, then the next few issues moved to slowly. When these were originally being published, this was why I dropped buying the title after a few issues. But the 9 issues in the collection illustrate that the potential was there, things picked up quite nicely with the last few issues, it just took too long to get there. And if it takes 6-7 issues to get interested int he characters, their lives and their problems, it’s moving too slowly for monthly installments. The last 3-4 issues worked much better, it felt like a story was actually taking shape, but then it just ended (but that’s a problem with how this volume was assembled, not necessarily the stories themselves). Another problem I had was I could not really tell how old any of the characters were. Not until issue 6 offered some individual descriptions of who these people where and details on their ages and backgrounds. This would have been nice to have had in the first issue. As an example, I knew Lenore was older than the others, but she’s actually 30 years older than the next oldest. And Scuzz is actually 15, although he looks like he’s 25. In fact they all look about the same age, but with issue six we find out they’re not. So the differences in their characters end up feeling more stereotypical than genuine differences. So the first 6-7 issues (over 6-7 months of original publication) probably lost a lot of readers. By the time things started getting interesting, most of the target audience may have already abandoned the title. The first 4 issues (almost half of this volume) I’d only give 2-stars, the last 4 issues (again, almost half of this volume) I’d be willing to give 4-stars. Unfortunately, in averaging it out, I just can’t see offering more than 3-stars.
When the titles comprising Marvel’s New Universe was being originally published, I stuck with Star Brand and Nightmask the longest. Had I been able to afford trying the titles over a longer period, I might have stuck with this one as well, but it just didn’t grab me quickly enough and this volume illustrates exactly why that was the case.
May 17, 2013
D.P. 7 was one of the New Universe series that Marvel released in the 80s. Like all of the titles, it proposed the question "What would you do if you woke up and found you had super powers?"
In D.P. 7, the most common answer seemed to be crap yourself, and then try to get rid of them. This group of diverse individuals, from all backgrounds, find themselves in a clinic that proposes to help them learn to cope with their new-found abilities. Relationships formed and broken, secrets are learned, and world views are shattered.
D.P. 7 started out pretty strong and stayed that way for a while, but about half, or two-thirds of the way through, it seemed like the writers lost their vision of the way things should go.
Still worth the read if you get the chance.
In D.P. 7, the most common answer seemed to be crap yourself, and then try to get rid of them. This group of diverse individuals, from all backgrounds, find themselves in a clinic that proposes to help them learn to cope with their new-found abilities. Relationships formed and broken, secrets are learned, and world views are shattered.
D.P. 7 started out pretty strong and stayed that way for a while, but about half, or two-thirds of the way through, it seemed like the writers lost their vision of the way things should go.
Still worth the read if you get the chance.
June 5, 2022
Great blast from the past, with DP7 of the New Universe!!
This graphic novel was excellent and fantastic. It brought back memories of the 1980s when I first read this comic books at the age of 13 approx. It is a terrific story of the displaced paranormals who had suddenly acquired their new powers and the pursuit from the sinister staff members of The Clinic. It was a great multiracial story and is so appealing. Shame that there is no DP7 Volume 2 graphic novel either!!!
This graphic novel was excellent and fantastic. It brought back memories of the 1980s when I first read this comic books at the age of 13 approx. It is a terrific story of the displaced paranormals who had suddenly acquired their new powers and the pursuit from the sinister staff members of The Clinic. It was a great multiracial story and is so appealing. Shame that there is no DP7 Volume 2 graphic novel either!!!
February 4, 2019
This is kind of a headscratcher. It's superheroes but they're not really doing superheroes things. They're on the run from doctors that want to control them like in a YA series. (I'm trying to think which one in particular this reminds me of, but my YA knowledge is weak.)
There isn't really that much growth and most of the characters are just kind of hanging around waiting for their issue to come up, I guess.
There isn't really that much growth and most of the characters are just kind of hanging around waiting for their issue to come up, I guess.
December 17, 2016
It's always interesting to see how closely the ideas tracked from Jim Shooter's New Universe to Jim Shooter's Valiant Universe. Here we have a group of paranormals taken in by an evil corporation who wants to use their powers for their own good. Pair that with the teen psions of the New Universe's Psi-Force, and you pretty much have the elevator speech for Valiant's Harbinger.
Of course DP7 wasn't written by Shooter himself, but instead the excellent Mark Gruenwald, who would ensure that DP7 had the most consistent writing for the whole New Universe. And, rather than it being a teenage fantasy (like Psi-Force or Harbinger), DP7 instead tells the tale of more mature adults suddenly yanked out of their lives by their new powers.
Those mature adults are really what make the book. It's a deeply characterized story, with all seven of the protagonists quickly become real people — and people that are pretty far outside of the norm of typical superhero comics.
And these comics, they're dense and slow to read. Compare it to the decompressed stories of the modern day and it's a sea change. The comics actually take time to read. You can't just plow through them. But unlike some of the other comics of the time, they remain interesting to read. The text is actually about something, not just Pow! Ka-Bang!
The plotting of DP7 is the weakest element. The seven flee from the clinic, they're hunted by the clinic, they meander around, and they're hunted again. By the end it pretty much feels like we're where we started. If not for the great characterization, this would be a major problem.
Despite that complaint, DP7 was one of the strongest New Universe comics. It may well have been the strongest in its first year, before some of the other comics found their footing. It'd be really nice if Marvel put out two or three more volumes to complete the series.
Of course DP7 wasn't written by Shooter himself, but instead the excellent Mark Gruenwald, who would ensure that DP7 had the most consistent writing for the whole New Universe. And, rather than it being a teenage fantasy (like Psi-Force or Harbinger), DP7 instead tells the tale of more mature adults suddenly yanked out of their lives by their new powers.
Those mature adults are really what make the book. It's a deeply characterized story, with all seven of the protagonists quickly become real people — and people that are pretty far outside of the norm of typical superhero comics.
And these comics, they're dense and slow to read. Compare it to the decompressed stories of the modern day and it's a sea change. The comics actually take time to read. You can't just plow through them. But unlike some of the other comics of the time, they remain interesting to read. The text is actually about something, not just Pow! Ka-Bang!
The plotting of DP7 is the weakest element. The seven flee from the clinic, they're hunted by the clinic, they meander around, and they're hunted again. By the end it pretty much feels like we're where we started. If not for the great characterization, this would be a major problem.
Despite that complaint, DP7 was one of the strongest New Universe comics. It may well have been the strongest in its first year, before some of the other comics found their footing. It'd be really nice if Marvel put out two or three more volumes to complete the series.
January 22, 2017
Ho davvero amato questa serie di Gruenwald e Paul Ryan, senza dubbio la migliore, perché più intrigante come storie e rispettosa delle premesse iniziali del New Universe.
Gran personaggi e molta interazione tra loro alla base delle storie. Stile di disegno classico di Ryan, ma sempre gradevole e preciso. Molta azione e introspezione, niente super eroismo nonostante i superpoteri. Mi piacque parecchio soprattutto per questo.
Gran personaggi e molta interazione tra loro alla base delle storie. Stile di disegno classico di Ryan, ma sempre gradevole e preciso. Molta azione e introspezione, niente super eroismo nonostante i superpoteri. Mi piacque parecchio soprattutto per questo.
July 16, 2021
Solid pulp fugitive adventure with a diverse magnetic cast helmed by story loyalist team of Gruenwald, Ryan and Becton. It's the New U year 1 at its best.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews