The Birth of the Defiant Universe

In 1993, former Marvel Editor-in-Chief Jim Shooter launched Defiant Comics, and The Birth of the Defiant Universe served as the publisher’s inaugural one-shot, setting the stage for a new shared superhero cosmos. Illustrated by a team including Alan Weiss, David Lapham, and Joseph A. James, this single issue introduced the core concepts and characters of the fledgling line. Though Defiant’s run was brief, this issue remains a key artifact of the early ’90s indie boom, showcasing Shooter’s ambition to build a cohesive universe from a single starting point.