Back in the late 1980's, Marvel marked its 25th anniversary by launching an alternative to its main Marvel Universe line, appropriately known as 'the New Universe'. The concept? It was our universe ('the world outside your window'), until a single dramatic event, the White Event, introduced super-humans to the world. It also introduced Fabian Nicieza to our world. Fabian was working as an advertising manager at Marvel's promotions department when he managed to sell some scripts to PSI-FORCE editor Bob Budiansky. This in turn led to his landing the regular writing job on the title.

The New Universe held an odd kind of appeal; it allowed creators to play with the sort of big events they could never get away with in the mainstream universe. "We could never really blow up Pittsburgh in the Marvel Universe," explains Fabian, "but not only could we and did we do it in the New Universe, but it was the perfect place to do that kind of thing." Sadly, the New Universe did not last. "In my opinion, it went 'wrong' from a sales standpoint from its very inception," Fabian claims. "You don't celebrate the 25th Anniversary of a universe of comics by launching a new, different one. Conceptually, many of the original titles were weak and lacked strong enough, troubled enough identifiable characters."

However, the New Universe was not a flop. "By today's standards, the sales for the New U when the titles were cancelled would put us in the Top 25 on the charts," Fabian points out. "It's all a matter of perspective. By the standards of when they were being published, the titles were making money even at the point of cancellation, but it was determined that the art and editorial, printing costs, etc, would be better served expended on other, newer publishing programs." The New Universe disappeared, but Fabian Nicieza was here to stay. He had achieved his lifetime ambition, to become a comics writer, and nothing would shake him loose now.

Fabian Nicieza came to the states from Argentina when he was three-years-old. He learned to read and write by picking up BATMAN and SPIDER-MAN comics. These books also inspired his desire to become a comics writer. However, knowing how hard it would be to break into the industry, Fabian applied for unglamorous 9-to-5 jobs at Marvel and DC. He eventually got work at Marvel's manufacturing department, where he bided his time looking for the opportunity to make a pitch. PSI-FORCE and the New Universe came and went, but Fabian found his way into the mainstream Marvel Universe, where he worked on teen team books like THE NEW WARRIORS and THE NEW MUTANTS.

To date, Fabian claims he is proudest of his first 25 issues on NEW WARRIORS. However, in the minds of many fans, he is probably just as readily associated with his work on the post-Claremont X-books. Not only did he work on the flagship X-MEN books, he also helped create CABLE and X-FORCE, with artist Rob Liefeld. It was that work that helped propel Liefeld into the big leagues, making him one of the most famous names in comics. He is also one of the most loudly criticized, though Fabian is willing to come to his defense.

"With anyone who puts themselves out there in a very public way, you're going to have people slam you," Fabian says. "I think Rob is a good guy, a passionate creator and an absolute fountain of cool ideas, but I think that the pressures of trying to run a company have prevented him from improving on his artwork and also hindered his ability to release work on a regular basis. I do think he gets a real bum rap from a vocal minority of fans who always trash him for the very same transgressions they forgive plenty ofother former Image artists."

Fabian claims he has no desire to revisit CABLE - "I feel he has been much better handled by people after me, including Jeph Loeb and Joe Casey" - but X-FORCE could be a different matter. "I miss X-FORCE. I never wanted to leave that title, and never felt my firing was justified. ... I don't recall being given a reason [for being fired], and I also don't recall asking for one. ... Considering it was a Top 10 selling title at the time, I felt it was a wholly unjustified decision." The book was recently given a new direction by Warren Ellis, Ian Edginton and Whilce Portacio, which Fabian claims "is exactly what Greg Capullo and I were doing, just with a lot less captions and dialogue."

One of the major questions arising from Fabian's run on X-FORCE was whether or not one of the characters, Shatterstar, was gay. If so, he would have been only Marvel's second gay superhero, after ALPHA FLIGHT's Northstar. "Most of that speculation wasn't based on what I actually wrote, but maybe on what other writers inferred," says Fabian. "In my final issue, I pretty clearly stated that Shatterstar had no real understanding of sexuality - homo or hetero - and needed to learn about general human nature before he could define his own sexual identity."

The question was an important one for some fans, who believed homosexuality was under-represented, both in superhero fiction in general, and in the X-books in particular, especially given their supposed message of tolerance and diversity. Fabian is reluctant to talk about what might have been, claiming "the only thing that 'counts' is what is printed in the comics. Everything else is reader and creator masturbation". However, he is willing to shed some light on his original plans. "I would have liked to have written [Shatterstar] as a character trying to explore the nature of sexuality and sexual identity as it pertained to his learning to become more human," he says. "I had planned to make Shatterstar think he was in love with Rictor, but only because he simply didn't know any better about what love was.

He would have figured, this is my best friend, I care about him, he cares about me, we spend time together, fight together, laugh together - I guess I must be in love with him. And Rictor would have said, 'Whoa Nellie! No, no, no - there's love and there's love... I mean, dude, I love ya like a brother, but I don't love you like that!' And therein would have been the whole subtext of the character conflict - Shatterstar learning to differentiate between these emotions and understanding them.

As well as writing for Marvel, Fabian spent over three years as a line editor for the company's licensed books, including BARBIE, REN & STIMPY and WILLIAM SHATNER'S TEKWORLD. He also edited a few Marvel Universe books, such as HELLSTORM and WONDERMAN. It was a job he felt strongly qualified to do, because his advertising experience gave him a unique understanding of how the industry works. Fabian believes this experience equipped him for a more senior role, and while Marvel weren't willing to make that move, Acclaim Entertainment was.

"I was hired [by Acclaim] to be editor-in-chief and remake the titles, to try to salvage the publishing program," Fabian explains. The job was always going to be a challenge, but one which he relished. "Being an editor-in-chief was easy and fun for me. Managing people and playing God comes naturally to me," He jokes. He tried to expand the audience and the market, by pushing products like the Young Reader and Classic Illustrated books through conventional bookstores and mail-order. The job gave Fabian a chance to explore a lot of new ideas and work with some of the best people in the industry, but at the end of the day, it seemed like the right idea at the wrong time.

"What was hard was getting people to sample our product in a declining marketplace, with severely diminished retailer interest in what we were attempting to do. What was hard was trying to break new ground with new product in a new marketplace when we had neither the funding, the staff, the experience or the proper business partnerships to undertake such an endeavor. In hindsight, knowing what I know now, I would have done a lot of things differently, but I don't regret the experience one bit. I learned a lot, made a lot of contacts, and worked with some truly wonderful people."

Fabian claims he could never go back to being a line editor. "I'm just not wired for it," he says. "But I certainly enjoyed being an editor-in-chief. Not too many job openings available for that title, huh?" What about Marvel? Would he consider going for Bob's job? Fabian laughs. "No... I have no ambitions for Bob's job, though if he were ever to wise-up and walk away from that horrendously stressful job, Marvel could certainly make far worse choices than calling me."

After returning to Marvel, Fabian threw himself straight in to the middle of the mainstream Marvel Universe, with the resurrection of Captain Marvel - or rather, his son, Genis. The series did not last, but the character was recently given a second chance by writer Peter David. Fabian admits he was angry about the book's cancellation, but he is enjoying the new series, not least because Peter approaches the character so differently. "I think my take on Genis a few years ago would have been much better - and much better received - had I the wonderful conceit of linking him with Rick Jones"

In coming back to Marvel, Fabian also found his way back to the X-Office, a path few writers are eager to take. The X-Office has earned a reputation for interfering with its creators' visions. An undeserved reputation? "I wouldn't say that...," replies Fabian with a smile. "I would say that most of the people throwing stones have absolutely no clue whatsoever about the responsibilities of editing, coordinating and creating monthly books within the context of a shared family of titles. Do I think the editors of the X-books over the years could have handled their responsibilities better? Yes, I do. Do I think they're malevolent, evil people who don't know how to do their jobs? Absolutely not. They are all good people trying their best, and sometimes mistakes happen."

Fabian was assigned as writer on the new ongoing GAMBIT series. "Not having read a single X-issue after I left the titles, I was a little surprised to see how the character had been kicked around so much over the last few years," he claims. "In many ways, I have viewed working on GAMBIT as a bit of a reclamation project, not necessarily from continuity aspects, but rather, just in terms of his actual character."

Until this point, the writer most closely associated with the character had been Howard Mackie, who wrote the two GAMBIT limited series, as well as the ROGUE series, known among detractors as 'GAMBIT 2'. Mackie had once been Fabian's editor, back at the New Universe. "I think Howard created the template under which [Gambit] operates best, the core conflict of his standing in the Thieves Guild versus his standing in the X-Men versus his need to determine the course of his own life. The character wouldn't be who he is today, in a good way, without Howard's contribution."

Artist Steve Skroce originally pitched to write the book himself, but his proposals were rejected, leading to a little creative tension when Fabian was appointed. "We bumped heads a lot, but I think it was a healthy kind of friction that led to a better title as a result," explains Fabian. "I would play off of [Steve's] ideas on how to make the stories suit his skills as an artist." Skroce recently left the book in order to pursue his writer-artist ambitions. "I would rather he not have left, since I liked the monthly energy we generated, usually through a compromise of our different opinions on what to do, but I understand why he wanted to go". Skroce is currently writing and drawing four issues of WOLVERINE, and will next work on the storyboards for the MATRIX sequels.

Fabian's other ongoing series at the moment is THUNDERBOLTS. Created by Kurt Busiek and Mark Bagley, THUNDERBOLTS is the tale of a team of villains who masqueraded as heroes to win the public's trust, then found they enjoyed being heroes much more than they ever enjoyed being villains. The book was originally very much Busiek's baby. Taking over after his two-year run must have been a daunting task.

"Not at all," argues Fabian. "I took over for Claremont after he wrote the [X-Men] titles for 17 years, taking over from Kurt after that experience was a piece of cake! It helped, of course, that Tom [Brevoort] is such a good editor to work with, and the relationship I have with Mark Bagley goes together like fingers in a glove."

Most T-BOLT fans were nervous about Busiek's departure, but have been more than satisfied with Fabian's treatment of the characters. The biggest change is that the book now has more of a 'pulp' feel to it. "If you mean more mystery, more danger, more of a sense of the unexpected, then yes, that was my plan, because as a reader, I'd felt the characters got a little too 'comfortable' after issue #25," Fabian explains. "It is a medium built on continued stories of an adventure and soap operatic nature, so by that very definition, it requires broad strokes and big events."

A recent THUNDERBOLTS annual featured Hawkeye heading into Hell to rescue his late wife's soul. The rest of the team had to make their own way down, so Pluto, Lord of the Underworld, guided them through a doorway to the nether-realms. According to Pluto, such doorways are created in places of grief and anguish. This doorway in particular, located in the basement of 387 Park Avenue South, Manhattan, is permanently open, as a testament to the greed of an unnamed billionaire. The Park Avenue South address is, of course, Marvel's editorial offices. The unnamed 'billionaire' is Ron Perlman, Marvel's former owner, who played an instrumental role in driving the company toward bankruptcy. Fabian is not one of Perlman's biggest fans.

"We all know what he did," Fabian rails. "He did what he always does. He raped a company dry of its profits and ran away into the night, leaving the patient on life-support. In this case, the sheer greed of his cadre of sharks also raped an industry as well. Big deal? So what? He gets Ellen Barkin and we get to whine. As if someone like that could care less about the effect he has on thousands of lives? Talking about it is a waste of time."

So is the current industry slump Perlman's fault? "It would be nice and easy to blame one specific thing, like let's say Ron Perlman, but that would be a cowardly way out. It's a combination of a whole bunch of things, some of which, like publisher's greed, was our own fault, and other things, like the expansion and proliferation of other, more visually exciting entertainment options for young people - weren't."

Many have argued that one other possible target for blame could be the superhero genre itself. Fabian agrees that the genre is limited, but his own work has rarely moved outside it. Fabian says this is not so much from choice as from the demonstrated lack of interest from editors at creator-owned companies. "I just don't know if the kinds of work I am interested in doing would necessarily translate to financially successful comics," he protests. "Then again, very few [creator-owned] books do, so what the heck, maybe one day..."

The other option, of course, is the sort of extremist, world-shattering superheroics that are very much en vogue at present. Such books provide a deliberate antidote to Marvel's soap opera style. While Fabian reads and enjoys some of these books, he claims he couldn't write one himself. "I don't think the way [those writers] do; my mind can't wrap itself around all the cool concepts and details guys like Warren [Ellis] tend to spout out with casual ease." He also thinks these stories will eventually wear themselves out. "I think when you write those kinds of stories, you could easily fall into a trap of 'can you top this?', and sometimes, Armageddon, War in Heaven or Fighting God is kind of a tough thing to top, y'know?"

It would appear Fabian is all set to stick around in Stan Lee's sandbox for the time-being, though he insists he is not a firmly establishment part of the Marvel firmament. "I'm a freelance writer without a contract, working in a depressed industry. There is no such thing as 'firmly established'." Even so, Fabian's editorial impulses mean that he's made quite a job of planting his thumbprint on the Marvel U. His work on GAMBIT, THUNDERBOLTS, and the current Genosha limited series, MAGNETO: DARK SEDUCTION, have all shared a common tendency toward fixing Marvel's worst continuity black-spots.

Fabian likes his stories to emerge out of existing Marvel continuity, and as often as not, that means doing some repair work. "If a story I want to tell is benefited by former continuity or contradicted by it, then I have to find a way to make it fit in order to tell that story properly." In Genosha, for example, the past continuity was so muddled and self-contradictory that it would have induced nightmares for most writers. "I didn't perceive Genosha as any kind of a problem when I was offered the Magneto limited series," argues Fabian. "You could use old continuity wherever needed, but the stories you want to tell, with Magneto as King of Genosha, are not dependent on them."

Even so, Fabian's next big X-Men project will almost certainly prove his most continuity-heavy to date. "The untitled X-Project is a 6 issue limited series I'm doing with Kevin Maguire that is about five characters, both good guys and bad guys, being led on a merry path through their pasts that have very personal and universal implications," he explains. The project has been described as a sort of 'continuity patch' for what may be the most overcomplicated family of books in all of comics history, though it is not a description Fabian appreciates. "That is a real misrepresentation of series. Although it is heavily wrapped in continuity, it is not continuity spackle, it will address a few continuity glitches, but that is certainly not the overriding focus of the series. It is a character driven story amidst the turmoil of universal implications." Besides, Fabian jokes, "I think that anyone who has read the monthly X-Titles over the last 20 years is enough of a masochist that they deserve any confusion they get!"

So, what else does the future hold for Marvel's most fundamental freelancer? "Thanks to Rob Liefeld and Bob Harras, I'm financially comfortable enough that I don't have to worry about long-term plans. My long-term plans are to enjoy my family, my work, my friends and hopefully write and sell a book so I can keep writing and selling books into my old age." Any more surprises we can expect to emerge from the mists of Marvel's continuity dungeons? An old character he would like to bring back, perhaps?

"Squirrel Girl," he replies.

Perhaps some parts of the old universe are best left buried...

On behalf of PopImage I would like to thank Fabian for participating in this interview and recommend you pick up GAMBIT and THUNDERBOLTS, currently on the stands.