Star Brand (newuniversal)

Star Brand
Star Brand flying from newuniveral #3 "Trauma". Marvel Publishing, circa 2007.
Publication information
Publisher	Marvel Comics
First appearance	newuniversal #1 (Feb 2007)
Created by	Warren Ellis, Salvador Larroca
In-story information
Alter ego	Kenneth Connell
Abilities	The Star Brand grants its wielder near infinite powers and abilities ranging from flight, disintegrating matter, time travel, and many others.

Kenneth Connell is a character from the newuniversal imprint of Marvel Comics, and is one of the four initial superhumans created by the White Event in 2006 (the others being Justice, Cipher, and Nightmask). newuniversal, designated Earth-555 in the Marvel Comics multiverse, is a re-imagining of the New Universe (designated Earth-148611) imprint from the late 1980s. The name Star Brand actually refers to two things: a powerful extra-dimensional glyph (tattoo) that confers superhuman powers on a sentient being, and the name of the being that wields the glyph. Originally the Star Brand was the only extra-dimensional glyph, but Warren Ellis' re-imagining broadened the concept to allow others to exist, namely Justice, Cipher, and Nightmask. Ellis's re-imagining of the Star Brand should not be confused with the original New Universe Star Brand, as its origins and powers are significantly different.

The origins of the Star Brand lay with a supposedly long-dead alien race that created the Star Brand artificially as a tool. The purpose of the Star Brand is to help the transition of a world through the inevitable paradigm shift caused when it comes into contact with a web of strange matter, called "newuniversal structure", wherein normal physical laws operate differently. Whenever a world enters the web it can take thousands of years before the world finishes traveling along one of its many strands, thus contact implies the danger that any given world could be destroyed if its transition period is not guided. It is the purpose of the Star Brand to protect the world from being destroyed. It is not yet clear what effects (if any) the destruction of a single world within the newuniversal structure would cause, but presumably it could threaten the stability of the strand if not the entire web.

The newuniversal structure was created by the same alien race that created the Star Brand, but as of newuniversal: shockfront #2 no explanation has been given for why they created it. That said, while the origin of the newuniversal structure is unknown, its effects on a world are: in addition to changing the native physical laws of a world, it creates superhumans, or "paranormals". In the continuity of Earth-555, the first such effect was to trigger the activation of the superhuman gene in the human genome.