The Absolute Universe is, undeniably, DC’s biggest swing and most successful venture in recent years. Their darker, more intense new world has put its classic heroes on the back foot, forcing them to fight against villainous powers that be. All the while, their greatest enemy, Darkseid, gathers strength to conquer all of reality. These bold, brash new iterations of DC’s heroes have risen to unprecedented popularity. Absolute Batman continuously tops the sales charts, and there probably haven’t been this many eyes on Wonder Woman since the George Pérez run. Every Absolute title has been hitting numbers that previous books have seriously struggled to imagine, and DC is taking it in stride.
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Of course, Marvel was never going to just take the Absolute Universe’s dominance lying down. In fact, the House of Ideas decided to create their own darker, edgier world with bombastic new takes on their most iconic characters. The Midnight Universe, much like its Absolute counterpart, has reimagined the heroes in a much darker reality, taking its first swings at Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four, and the X-Men. These runs have all just released their first issues, and they definitely have the legs of awesome stories, but it’s clear that, if Marvel’s goal was to copy the Absolute formula, they’ve missed one key feature that will have serious impacts on their stories.
The thing that makes the Absolute Universe tick, and the thing that the Midnight Universe is lacking, is that the new versions of the classic characters are the same as the originals at their core. Each new hero was pitched with the idea that they lost something iconic and near-essential to their character. Batman lost his fortune, Superman lost the Kents, and Wonder Woman lost Themyscira, for example. These changes go even deeper, stripping the characters of everything but the raw essentials, boiling them down to their core and giving them a new coat of paint. However, these heroes are still fundamentally the same. This Batman might be more crude, but he’s still a young man turning his pain into motivation to save others. Superman grapples with darkness and rage, but he’s still an unbreakable bastion of hope.
This is what makes the Absolute Universe work. It functions by giving us the same characters we know and love in new but incredibly familiar ways. The Midnight Universe, meanwhile, doesn’t seem to follow that train of thought. In fact, there doesn’t seem to be a connecting thread like this present in the books at all. Every Midnight hero has been massively reimagined. Spider-Man is a young man struggling not to become a monster, the remnants of the X-Men are battling their vampiric brethren, and the Fantastic Four are attempting to gaze into the realm of eldritch horror. These are fun, darker takes on all of these heroes, exactly as the Midnight Universe pitched, but they don’t necessarily feel like the heroes we know and love.
Instead of being boiled down to their essentials, those essentials have been altered completely. The X-Men have lost their dream of coexistence, but in a way that’s more in line with a traditional X-Men storyline, frankly. Instead of balancing power and responsibility, Peter now must balance power and monstrosity. The Fantastic Four aren’t a family at all, and generally seem like selfish, unpleasant people. The X-Men are genuinely just the same in new circumstances, and the latter two feel less like new takes on the characters and more like new characters in their roles. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, as each story definitely has potential, but it does lack that crucial Absolute element.
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Marvel has definitely structured their universe differently from the Absolute version, which is clearly intentional. On the one hand, there are several potential problems that can emerge from totally seperating these characters from the ideas that spawned them. People love Spider-Man because he struggles with personal problems they can relate to just as much as he does supervillains, but it’s hard to imagine this Peter holding down a job when he has a giant living spider on his chest. There’s potential for a found family dynamic with the new Fantastic Four, but that is a far, far way off if it ever occurs. This could make the fans who love these characters less likely to stick with the series, as removing their core could remove what people like about them in the first place.
On the other hand, this is Marvel’s big gamble. They already had an edgy universe with new versions of characters that retained their original cores, and that was their new Ultimate Universe, which they likely moved out the door to make room for Midnight. A huge complaint about superheroes in general is that they are too stuck in their status quo, and by making such drastic changes to their characters, these heroes are very unlikely to tell any stories that fans are tired of. On top of that, Marvel has been very clear that these series are creator-driven, and decoupling these characters from their cores gives the writers unlimited freedom to focus on the vision they have. Given the heavy hitters behind these titles, that’s something everyone should be excited about.
Overall, the Midnight Universe is not shaping up to be anything like the Absolute Universe in anything but edgy aesthetics. This is Marvel’s own take on an idea that, frankly, probably spun out of DC making their own Ultimate Universe. The Midnight Universe has unlimited potential before it, and even if these characters aren’t going to be like the ones we know, we can definitely learn to love them.
Which Midnight book are you most excited to see develop? Let us know in the comments below!
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