Image Universe
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Publisher
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Image Comics
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Notable Characters
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Spawn, The Savage Dragon, Witchblade, Youngblood, Invincible, Shadowhawk, Dynamo 5, The Pitt, The Nobles, Omni-Man, Guardians of the Globe, Superpatriot, Firebreather, Wildstar, Wolf-Man, Wildguard
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First Appearance
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Youngblood (vol. 1) #1 (April, 1992)
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Aliases
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Invincible Universe
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The Image Universe is a continuity sometimes present in Image Comics superhero comic books. Before late 1996, it was the official continuity for all of Image Comics.
History[]
Though many of the super-humans of the Image Universe began long ago, the first notable appearance of super-humans to the public eye first occurred during the Second World War, where heroes like Supreme battled the Axis forces, as well as spies and fifth columnists within America. Soon after World War II, Supreme, the world's most famous hero, left the Earth, disappearing until the late 20th Century.
Heroes continued to fight evil well into the 20th century with several signifigant teams appearing in the last decade including the celebrity superheroes of Youngblood, the WildC.A.T.s (who battled a shadow war against alien forces) and the technologically enhanced Cyber Force. In Chicago, a city that contained a large number of mutant creatures called freaks, the Chicago PD gets a super-human recruit in an officer named Dragon. In New York City, a demon named Spawn began stalking the streets, murdering criminals.
Deathmate[]
TBA
Shattered Image[]
Published in late 1996, this miniseries was a ‘Crisis Crossover’ describing the Earth/Universe splitting into 6 parts (one for each of the studios of Image Comics). Characters from a particular studio would at times disappear and everyone would forget about them, until they re-appeared. This was a fictionalization of the existing tensions in Image. Partway through, the characters from Extreme Studios (from Rob Liefeld) disappear (thus forming the Awesome Universe), and none of the other heroes notice until the antagonist points it out. This happened because Rob Liefeld left Image at this time.
Despite the miniseries ending with a single Earth, the Image Universe did not long survive as a unified entity. In late 1998, Jim Lee sold Wildstorm to DC, forming an imprint and the Wildstorm Universe. No miniseries or explanation was published to ‘fix’ this. It seems that of the founders, only Eric Larsen cared about a shared universe anymore. The Image Universe became mainly a crossover reality. The events of Shattered Image are often provided as an in-universe explanation for this: the antagonist stated that she would never give up, and the strange state the Image Universe was in during the miniseries fits the ‘crossover only’ state of the current Image Universe.
Image United[]
TBA
Soft Continuity[]
- It is worth noting that the continuity of Image superhero books are a lot looser, particularly due to the fact that all of Image's comics are creator-owned. In fact, it is not uncommon for superheroes from other continuities are brought in and treated as a regular part of the universe (such as Dark Horse's Hellboy or Mike Allred's Madman), as opposed to Marvel or DC Comics, where it is usually either out of regular continuity and/or involves dimensional travel. It is also common for some characters to move in and out of continuity. For example, characters from the Wildstorm imprint was originally part of the Image Universe, before moving into its own continuity (called the Wildstorm Universe) and most recently joining the DC Universe. It has also been stated by Image Comics co-founder Erik Larsen that each book takes place in its own universe but in some crossover stories, it means the events therein take place simultaneously in both continuities.
- Though the nature of events within the books themselves remain consistent, events that happen in some books would not necessarily effect the others.