With his tongue planted so firmly in his cheek that choking appeared a real possibility, Warren Ellis chortled his way through a Marvel Comics press conference covering his work on the forthcoming Ultimate Extinction and Next Wave series as well as a newly announced late summer 2006 revival of Jim Shooter's failed New Universe initiative.  Ellis plans to remold the New Universe and his on-going series, entitled Newuniversal, won't be beholding to the continuity of the original New Universe books.

One month prior to the launching of Ellis' Newuniversal series, Marvel will present 'Untold Tales of the New Universe,' a series of individual New Universe titles that will follow the original continuity.  Mark Pannicia is editing the 'event' which will include five one-shots: DP7, NightMask, StarBrand, Justice and Psi-Force, while 3 other original New Universe properties, Merc, Kickers Inc. and Spitfire will appear in 8-page back-up stories.

Ellis is not planning on creating individual books for his favorite New Universe characters, rather he will remold his favorite NU protagonists in his on-going Newuniversal series, which will be structured in a long-form narrative rather than in self-contained issues.  When asked why he wanted to rework one of the notable failures in the history of Marvel Comics publishing, Ellis cited the original BattleStar Galactica TV series, which he characterized as 'bloody awful,' but which he noted has recently been remade into a series that 'is quite good.'  Ellis is hoping he can manage a similar sort of alchemy with the New Universe.