Mindy Newell: Multiverse University

Mindy Newell

These days Mindy Newell knows that if she could do it all over again she’d have gone to college for screenwriting and film editing. Instead she became a nurse to please her parents and pleasing your parents was what it was all about for nice Jewish girls who graduated from high school in 1971. But the creative larva was in her soul, and when the cocoon broke and the butterfly emerged, it flew to DC’s New Talent Showcase program. Under the auspices of legendary editors Karen Berger, Len Wein, Julius Schwartz, Paul Levitz, and ComicMix’s own Robert Greenberger, Mindy learned the craft and art of writing comics, including Tales Of The Legion, V, Legionnaires 3, Amethyst, Lois Lane: When It Rains God Is Crying, and numerous other comics, including a Superman story based on a dream Mindy had as a child. She also worked on Howard Chaykin’s American Flagg! and other independent comics. All this time Mindy continued to work as a nurse while being a single mom to her daughter Alixandra, until the late and dear Mark Gruenwald hired her as an assistant editor at Marvel, while writing stories of the Black Widow and Daredevil. She edited NFL Pro Action, a licensed kid’s magazine about football with the NFL until Marvel imploded in 1996. Returning to full-time nursing, she she also co-wrote a story for 2000 A.D. with her then-husband, British artist John Higgins. A few years ago Mike Gold called and asked her to join the team of columnists here at ComicMix, where her topics freely range from comics to pop culture to politics; she even wrote a piece about the great American thoroughbred Secretariat, which caused editor Mike to tell her that she had won the prize for the most off-topic column ever written ComicMix.

You may also like...

4 Responses

  1. The last episode, indeed the last season of Leap was quite controversial, as it broke several rules the show had set up for itself. The Evil Leaper, the JFK episode, Leaping outside his own timeline, and of course, the strong suggestion that Daniel Simpson Day is God.

    We’ve already seen Al replaced at Project Quantum Leap, in the episode where Al leaped into hi, to protect him from a murder rap. Al watched the likelihood that he’d be found guilty rise, and when it hit 100%, he winked out of existence, replaced by Dr. Edward St.john V, played by Roddy McDowall. The project’s computer stopped being called Ziggy as well, as that was Al’s name for it.

    Point being, I never thought that Sam’s coming home was predicated on Al and Beth getting back together. Even if he didn’t work on the project, we know that St. John, or SOMEONE else would.

    I think it was just that God still had a use for him. he served a purpose, and he was needed for that purpose. And after that night in the bar, he might simply have been more okay with it.

    But that doesn’t mean we all didn’t get a little weepy at the news.

  2. mike weber says:

    Something to think about when you quote that Frost:

    i gave one road my belt and my sombrero
    and i gave the other road the shirt right offa my back
    then i ran through the briars and the brambles
    neither time nor pain was i countin’ –
    up rocky ridges through rubble i rambled
    forsaking two roads to climb one mountain.

    at the top of the world, the sky was clearing
    you could see forever, yeah, far and wide
    i saw two roads that split apart behind me …
    and they came together again on the other side

    (Butch Hancock, “Two Roads”)

    • Mindy Newell says:

      @ Vinnie: It never bothered me that DB was expanding the rules of Quantum Leap…in fact, I was entranced, especially with the JFK episode. and I really believe that he knew where he was taking the show. (Of course we both know that rug was pulled out from under DB and the Quantum Leap project by NBC, so we’ll never know, I suppose, what was in DB’s head.) Okay, the Evil Leaper was a little weird, but I think that was a story arc that was supposed to continue to build.

      One possibility of Sam’s fate that has crossed my mind is that Sam actually died when he jumped into the Accelerator and became a, for lack of a better term, “guardian angel,” one of God’s team, so to speak. Remember that episode with Della Reese (it was her, right?) where it was hinted that she, too, was a “leaper,” or an angel?

      The accelerator actually became a gateway for Al to communicate with “heaven,” so to speak.

      As for Al, the bartender, well, if he wasn’t God, he certainly was the ultimate guide on Sam’s Journey. One of the archangels, maybe?

      I also think that Sam didn’t return because he accepted his true mission.

  1. October 27, 2013

    […] All Gives Me A Headache: Part Three (otherwise known as “Multiverse University”) is pre-empted this week to present a column by a special […]