Weekly Reading: Supreme #47

Supreme #47

Published by Maximum Press in March 1997

The cover:

Title: The Finest of all possible Worlds

(As always: Supreme is currently out of print. There are a number of ways to read it, which can be found on the How do I read Moore's Awesome works page.)

We've got another great issue this week, which launches off an important three-part tale. Not only do we get to meet the Batman analog for the Awesome Universe, we also get our first taste of Idea Space, the metaphysical underpinning for the entire universe.

Before we get too far, we need to sort out the latest tangle of the modern-story artists. We have J. Morrigan returning and J.J. Bennett (whoever he is) from issue 45 back, working together. That's a lot of Js! At least one of them must have stood for jumbled, right?

The issue starts with a wonderful little scene as some bank robbers find themselves confronted by the returned-to-action Suprema and Radar. When the bank robber threatens to kill "this bitch," Radar replies: "Then you are a bad pup. Did your dame and sire not train you in obedience? Also, that is a lady, not a bitch, and I should know. My mother was a bitch."

Why there was never a Radar miniseries, I'll never know. This pup is gold.

And then there's Suprema, who doesn't take lightly to swearing at all: "Language like that isn't big, it isn't clever, and it isn't funny! It's just immature!"

Do you think Moore was commenting on the state of writing for comics in the 1990s?

The Maid of Might makes short work of the bank robbers and we learn that Ethan has gone off to Star City to look for something. That being Kendal Manor and it's residents, Taylor and Linda Kendal along with their manservant Pratap. Only Pratap seems to be at home, until he takes Ethan through the Sinking Salon (a whole room that descends like an elevator) to the Halls of Night, where they find Taylor and Linda in a state of suspended animation. The Kendals are in their costumes as Professor Night and Twilight, the girl marvel.

We get to see another trophy room (always appreciated), but few signs big enough to read, so we see a cane and a giant shoe and several owls, which is a bit of a symbol for Professor Night. And several statues I can't place. Maybe the annotations will have more ideas.

Pratap tells Ethan that Professor Night and Twilight had been visiting the Fisherman and Skipper in early 1970 when they returned agitated and later collapsed. Pratap doesn't think it was Professor Night's rogues Jack-a-Dandy, Fakeface or Evening Primrose. Pratap can't think who would have done it, but he's glad Taylor's friend Ethan is here to help.

Then we get our Rick Veitch flashback: The Turnabout Trap of the Terrible Two! It's a story of Supreme with Professor Night and Twilight "Together in one story!" This is a play on the World's Finest series at DC, which featured stories of Superman and Batman (and Robin) teaming up, many drawn by Dick Sprang (keep all juvenile jokes about his name to yourself). Batman would often get superpowers so he wasn't overshadowed by Superman, and they often fought the team of Lex Luther and the Joker.

In our story Star City criminal Jack-a-Dandy, who seems to be a British dandy sort of gentleman villain maybe along the lines of the Penguin, meets up with Darius Dax, who has come up with a transferratron that can help rid both of them of their superhero problems. The device can swap the life energies of one person for another. Dax proposes using this on the heroes, which would leave Supreme powerless and Prof. Night unable to control his newfound powers. They agree to challenge the heroes.

When the heroes show up they find the villains. ">Gasp!< Our most deadly Foes!" says Professor Night in a way that only could work in a Rick Veitch flashback. The villains reverse the heroes life forces and as expected, Supreme bounces powerlessly off the villains' truck, while Professor Night goes bounding into the sky, uncontrollably.

Twilight quickly takes charge of the situation, driving the villains off and getting the heroes back to the Halls of Night in the Night-Wagon. Thanks to Rick Veitch, we actually get to see more of the Halls of Night, including the giant shoe, killer oysters used by the Walrus and the Carpenter, a hypnotic music box confiscated from Evening Primrose and false countenances sloughed off by Fake Face. You can see a nice pinup of the Halls of Night on Rick Veitch's blog. How did DC comics forget that fans actually enjoy this stuff?

Twilight consults the Night Files. Supreme is impressed by, "your ultra-modern computer that can deliver dozens of facts within minutes." Nothing like a good computer joke, eh Alan?

She deduces that Jack left a clue in a list of Star City businesses, namely the Knave & Toff Gentlemen's Magazine: "A knave is the same as a jack, while toff is another word for dandy." And she's got a plan for how to confront the villains, despite the heroes' weaknesses.

Soon the heroes are bursting into the gentlemen's magazine headquarters, with it's oversized whisky bottle and dice. But Supreme has his strength and invulnerability back. So Dax switches them again, but they reveal that it was just Supreme dressed up as Professor Night and Professor Night dyed his hair white to fool the villains.

What's great is that this is completely ridiculous. Only in comics would heroes look and sound alike so as not to fool the villains. And Professor Night just revealed his face. But instead, what we get is Dax saying, ">Gasp!< They tricked us!" It works because it's ridiculous, but it isn't played for laughs. It lets the readers laugh without it feeling forced. It's hard to write retro comedy like that because it's such a fine line, but Moore and Veitch nail it.

Meanwhile, Twilight gets on the transferratron and switches the lifeforces of Dax and Jack, leaving one's brain bursting with schemes and the other feeling bored and in the need of a manicure.

One thing I want to note before we get back to the modern story is how much I like the plucky character Moore developed in Twilight. I know she's basically just a girl Robin, but she comes up with the plan and she switches the villains. She's smart and capable, and that's something we'll see more of from her as we get into Youngblood. It's telling that two of the best characters in this universe are women who were originally created and treated as sidekicks.

Back to the modern story. Supreme goes to the Citadel to get his ideo-spatial imaging helmet - basically, a helmet that lets him enter the unreal realms of his imaginary zoo. While there, S-1 tells him that the prism world of Amalynth has reported that Billy Friday ticked off Szazs, the sprite supreme, and has been transported to the ninth dimension. The journey of Billy Friday will be a nice little running joke for a while.

Supreme returns to the Halls of Night and uses the helmet to enter imaginary space to try to enter Professor Night's mind space. First he leaves his own individual consciousness, littered with the images of ideas that make up his mind. He presses on into the communal space, with archetypes and cultural symbols before finding the dual mind of Professor Night/Taylor Kendal.

Inside he finds the landscape created by Taylor's psyche, including the doctors who told him he suffered Porphyria's Complaint - forcing him to avoid daylight. He moves on to Taylor's emotions, seeing those he loves and those he fears before getting to Taylor's soul, where all he finds is a symbol. But one he recognizes.

Just a note, this is our first look at Idea Space, a Moore concept that he actually believes in. But there's a lot to it, so I'll save that for another post this week.

Supreme sees the Night Files left open for the last 30 years and finds the file for Hulver Damik, the slaver of souls. (Gosh Supreme, why didn't you look there first?) Damik was a foe of the 1960s group The Allies, who would steal souls to sell.

Ethan, in his apartment, calls Diana to tell her that he might not be able to work with her on the Omniman comic script for a while, because he has some friends who dropped by. Those friends are The Allies (Glory, Mighty Man, Die Hard, Roman and Super Patriot), wondering what Supreme has in store for them now.

But we'll have to find out about The Allies next week.

In the continuing misadventures in Awesome promotions, in the back pages of this issue, we find our first advertisement for the upcoming Judgment Day three(ish)-issue series:

If you look, it lists two issues: Omega and Final Judgment. What it doesn't list is the first issue of the series, the one numbered Alpha. Why did Awesome's publicity people only advertise issues two and three?

Guys, I think this might be a bad omen.

Anyway, please check out the Supreme Annotations Page, for all of the details that I completely missed.