Reading pre-Moore Supreme - Supreme #11

 

My god. That cover can't be real, can it? Oh, it's real all right. Welcome to the shitshow that is Supreme issue 11.

Supreme issue 11 was published in March 1994. The story is by Rob Liefeld and Eric Stephenson. The script, letters and editing is by Kurt Hathaway. The art is by Pedi. (No, seriously.)

I'm not going to bother to talk about the plot of this issue because it's basically Quantum, the father of Cabbot (of Bloodstrike) and Battlestone (of Brigade) trying to end all of humanity, while Supreme and the other Extreme beings try to stop him. 

Extreme had multiple giant crossovers with all of the other Extreme comics and they're almost all worthless for trying to binge one series. Supreme will appear in it a bit, but it's mostly about way too many other characters and some villain who is always trying to destroy humanity or something in ways that aren't even the littlest bit interesting.

And that's the case here, too. Instead, I want to take a couple of minutes and talk about this art because it is insane.

 

Hair is going every which way. Eyes are making expressions that are independent of the characters or even the plot of this story. And these muscles must be a parody of Image anatomy, right?

 

The only thing I can imagine is that Pedi is a European artist who came over for some easy money and turned in an absolute mockery of Image Comics, and they ran it anyway. 

Because anything else makes absolutely no sense.

Wow. 

Reading pre-Moore Supreme - Supreme #10

  

Supreme issue 10 was published in February 1994. The story is by Rob Liefeld (no longer calling himself Ripley). The script, lettering and editing is done by Kurt Hathaway. Brian Murray does the pencils and the colors. And Joe Rubenstein does the inks. 

Max interviews Supreme on live TV. She recaps what we knew about him being in WWII, including that he dropped bombs on Berlin by himself. 

She then gets into the hard-hitting questions, such as, why did he leave after the war?

 

She accuses Supreme of being allied with Khrome, but he says, nope and that Khrome is dead. So she accuses him of being involved in the innocent deaths at Dulles airport. And he's like, "Innocent people die." Shrug.

She then asks him about his origin story. He says he was human, but now he's a god.

 

As a mortal, he was forced to volunteer for the secret government experiments of Dr. Wells (the same Dr. Wells that Moore brought back later).

 

He was shot full of drugs and exposed to radiation that made his body stronger and his mind smarter. 

 

He soon decided that he had been divinely picked to be a supreme being.

The interview is interrupted to cut to Arizona where a superpowered being named Quantum has escaped and is fighting with Brigade. Supreme then takes off to face Quantum, which is part of the Extreme Prejudice crossover that will take over Supreme issue 11. 

Reading pre-Moore Supreme - Supreme #9

  

Supreme issue 9 was published in January 1994. The story was by Ripley (rumored to be a pseudonym for Rob Liefeld). The story, script, lettering and editing was by Kurt Hathaway. Brian Murray is back doing the pencils. And Chris Ivy is on inks.

The fight between Supreme and Thor continues...

 

Supreme has figured out Thor's confusion... that he thinks it's still WWII and he wants revenge on Hitler... but for reasons that continue to not make any sense, chooses to say nothing. Why? Because we need the fight to rage for three issues. EXTREME!

After several more pages of fighting, Supreme finally fesses up that the war is over. But Thor refuses to believe it. Because if it's true, what kind of idiot would know that and have continued to fight for three issues? Oh, right.

And then, randomly, Supreme decides it's time to knock Thor out and it's nice and easy.

 

Why didn't he do that three issues ago? Ugh.

Supreme decides to keep Thor's hammer and drops Thor off at the top-secret, covert, corporate military group that he just quit. Why not?

 

Remember the serial killer Grizlock? He's working in his lab on a radioactive boulder that is Supreme's weakness. Hey, that sounds familiar! 

 

 

This synthetic radium, "happens to possess the very same properties that Supreme posseses." I guess we know where Supremium came from. Grizlock exhibits a lot of the hallmarks of Dax...

  

 

Apparently, Grizlock has had this program going for the 14 years he's been in prison, just waiting for the return of Supreme.

Supreme flies to the grave of Louise Masters, the Lois Lane type character Grizlock killed. Supreme remembers that he was the world's first superhero. He says that Louise and his friend Billy were killed days after Supreme left for outer space. We see on her gravestone that she died in 1946. So, according to this, Supreme left Earth soon after WWII.

 

Supreme then goes off to visit Charles, better known as Kid Supreme.

 

 

Apparently, Charles could "borrow" a portion of Supreme's powers. 

 

They talk a little and then Supreme hurries off. To go after Grizlock? Heck no! 

To go talk to Max the journalist!

This Supreme guy sure has his priorities straight.

Reading pre-Moore Supreme - Supreme #8

 

Supreme issue 8 was published in December 1993. Ripley provides the story. Kurt Hathaway does the story, scripting, lettering and editing. Shawn McManus does the pencils and the inks.

This is such an aggravating issue. Basically, Thor was fooled into working for Hitler during WWII. He learned of his error and after some kind of delay, is now back to do it. In fact, that's what he tells Supreme.

 

Not understanding what Thor tells him explicitly, Supreme decides to just fight Thor.

Ugh.

Meanwhile Max has convinced her editors to let her do a live interview with Supreme. The only problem, she doesn't know how to get ahold of Supreme to agree to it.

The long-forgotten subplot of the serial killer Grizlock continues with him returning to his secret lab. And he immediately starts shouting at the top of his lungs. Why? 

Because it's EXTREME!

The fight between Supreme and Thor continues. And despite Thor explaining exactly why he's there...

 

...Supreme is like, "Is it possible he doesn't realize--" that Hitler is dead. 

This is so stupid.

Also stupid, the fight is going to continue on for a third issue. yay

Interestingly enough, Shawn McManus, who handles the art here, illustrated two of Alan Moore's Swamp Thing issues and, later, with his daughter Leah Moore on Wildstorm's Wild Girl.  He also worked on Sandman and a number of other good series. He's definitely better than what he got to work with in Supreme.

Reading pre-Moore Supreme - Supreme #7

 

 

Supreme issue 7 came out in November 1993. The story is by Eric Stephenson and someone named, I kid you not, Ripley. Pencils and inks are by Shawn McManus. Kurt Hathaway has now taken over the writing, lettering and editing. That's efficient. Just have the letterer try to make it all make sense.

The superpowered beings from the future are known as Starguard and we get their roll call in one of those weird rotated double-page splashes Extreme used to love doing: 

 

They're here to offer a warning. What's the warning? "...be ready--ready to conquer the menace when it arises." That is really helpful. Before they can say more, their emergency alarm goes off and they have to hurry and deal with it... because Ripley and the other writers don't really understand how time travel works. Sigh.  

We then get back to the weird plot about the reporter, Max. Apparently now she's incredibly mad about Dulles airport blowing up... because her dad was inside! 

This is brand new information that isn't presented in any kind of believable way. It's like they realized that her motivation made no sense, so they decided to one up it... to the EXTREME!

Anyway, Max confronts Supreme, demanding he take responsibility, which SHOCKER, he does not.

There's a whole thing about Heavy Mettle being scrapped, which is just about as boring as when Heavy Mettle was active. 

We cut to Thor, who is in Germany, demanding to be taken to see Adolf Hitler. 

 

Thor has returned to kill Hitler, not realizing it is 1993. Supreme flies off to deal with Thor.

I can't wait to see how they resolve this. Maybe by sitting down and having a metaphysical debate about whether gods can exist if no one believes in their mythology anymore? 
 

Reading pre-Moore Supreme - Supreme #6

  

Supreme issue 6 came out in October 1993. Rob Liefeld did the story. Brian Murray did the lettering, story, script, and colors. Chris Ivy did the inks. Kurt Hathaway is the letterer and editor.

The story starts with all five then-living presidents talking about the destruction from the ongoing Supreme/Khrome fight and it is amazing!

 

I can't decide whether they're trolling us or if they actually believe all the ex-presidents were just hanging out with Bill Clinton. Either way, I want more of this! Anyway, Clinton orders Bloodstrike to take down Supreme, which happened over in the Bloodstrike series. (I'll talk about this very slightly at the end.)

In the fight, Supreme discovers the secret to Khrome's power and takes off to disable it, to the chagrin of reporter Max, who hates Supreme (we'll get more into that later). 

We get a few cutaways to side plots (Thor is still around; the serial killer Grizlock has escaped; Heavy Mettle is still boring; etc.). 

Supreme disables Khrome's powers and kills Khrome:

 

Supreme proceeds to quit Heavy Mettle and plans to track down Grizlock when some superpowered beings from the future show up and call Supreme their father: 

 

 

Yeah, ok. What a weird comic. At least you never really know what's going to happen next. 

Let's now take a quick look at Bloodstrike issue 5.

Bloodstrike are assigned to take out Supreme. It doesn't go well for them:

The end. 

Don't worry, though. Bloodstrike works for a covert government project that resurrects them, so they can come back and do more deep ops. Phew!

Reading pre-Moore Supreme - Supreme #5

  

Supreme issue 5 came out in August 1993. Rob Liefeld provided the story. Brian Murray wrote the script, pencilled and did the colors. Chris Ivy did the inks. Kurt Hathaway did the lettering and has now taken over as editor. Interesting.

We start off with some backstory from Khrome about how Supreme used to be his ally. Together they fought with the Katellans against the Torgans. I really have no idea who any of these races are and they play no role in anything I've ever read before or after this, so I'm not going to bother trying to find out more.

 

Anyway, Khrome became a galactic warlord and has now decided to invade Earth... mainly because Supreme is from there! Lucky Earth!

We then get more fighting between Heavy Mettle and Khrome until Supreme joins in and there's even more fighting. There's a ridiculous scene where Khrome grabs a fully loaded jet and smashes it into Supreme, killing all on board.  

 We see a reporter covering the events, who will become important in the issues to come.

Meanwhile, we get some portents of things to come with some people from the future and a god.

 

 

 

 

And then it's back to more of the fight with Khrome, which inexplicably, goes on for another issue! See you next time for more Khrome. 

Reading pre-Moore Supreme - Supreme #4

 

 

Supreme 4 was published in Jul 1993 with a plot by Rob Liefeld; pencils, script and colors by Brian Murray; and lettering by Kurt Hathaway.

After dealing with the terrorists at Dulles Airport in Washington, DC, he flies off to go confront Khrome, the alien leader with a grievance against Supreme. 

We get some scenes of infighting with Heavy Mettle, but they're not going to be around much longer, so let's not worry about them. 

As Supreme fights a Khrome clone, the real Khrome transports to Dulles and blows it up, for reasons that are never explained. I think to punish Supreme? 

There's a long pointless fight between Khrome and Heavy Mettle, which goes about how you would expect.

Supreme figures out the clone situation and goes down to fight Khrome. 

We don't really learn anything new about Supreme or anything that will become important in his later, Moore incarnation.

This is kind of what I assumed these early Supremes were like and they're not letting me down!

Next time... more Khrome... yay. 

Reading pre-Moore Supreme - Supreme #3

Supreme 3 came out in June 1993 and was co-plotted by Rob Liefeld, written and pencilled by Brian Murray, inked by Chris Ivy and lettered by Kurt Hathaway.

This issue starts with Heavy Mettle (the corporate/government group Supreme has joined) looking at film of Supreme in WWII:

Here is one of the first references to the Allies as a super powered group active in WWII and how they helped the Allied powers win the war. But we only get images of Supreme, so we don't know the members of the Allies yet.

We learn a little more about Heavy Mettle before they're dispatched to protect some Pacifica Coexistence Summit. Terrorists show up, as does Bloodstrike, another government op force. They kill the terrorists, including one who Supreme basically microwaves his skull. But then Supreme realizes Khrome, a Katellan alien, is summoning him to fight in space or something.

      

After the first couple of pages, I lost interest for the terrorist subplot, so I decided to look up Brian Murray. Turns out he went on to do a lot of work for DC and Marvel before becoming a Hollywood concept artist, working on stuff like Star Trek: Picard, Mortal Kombat 12, Spider-Man: Far from Home, Ready Player One, and Solo – A Star Wars Story.

Reading pre-Moore Supreme - Supreme #2

Undaunted from having read issue 1, I'm back for more! So let's dig into Supreme #2:

 

 

Supreme #2 came out in February 1993 and was co-plotted by Rob Liefeld, but written and pencilled by Brian Murray. Liefeld, Murray and Danny Miki handled inks and Kurt Hathaway did the lettering.

 

In issue 1, Supreme returned from outer space but we really didn't learn much about his backstory. More of that gets hinted at here:

He mentions that Sentinel, Glory and Superpatriot were his old allies and are now all gone... which doesn't make a whole lot of sense since Sentinel is in Youngblood and Superpatriot is still around. But it does establish a little that Supreme used to operate with other heroes.

 

And then we get this kind of cool double page spread showing us the current Image heroes, who I guess Supreme is acknowledging he just doesn't know:

 

Supreme then sort of randomly decides to go kill a serial killer influenced very heavily by Hannibal Lector named Grizlock. We get a peak at what Grizlock has been up to in Supreme's absence:

 

Here the Superman similarities already start to get very specific. Supreme's version of Jimmy Olson is Billy Nelson, who Grizlock ran over with a newspaper truck. Supreme had a Lois Lane style girlfriend in Louise, who Grizlock abused and killed pretty graphically. There was a Junior Supreme Squad of former sidekicks who were beheaded.

 

I'm sure they thought this was funny and pushing the envelope in 1993, but we're about a year away from the Green Lantern's girlfriend ending up in the refrigerator which is a turning point for this grim and gritty stuff.

 

Anyway, Supreme is about to kill Grizlock when Heavy Mettle (a not very interesting corporate/government team) show up and tell Supreme that Grizlock is being protected. There's a long fight and then they take Supreme in to meet with Mr. Temple, the mysterious shadowy figure in charge (because there's always a mysterious shadowy figure in charge). 

 

For reasons we don't learn, Supreme forgets about killing Grizlock and agrees to join and lead Heavy Mettle.

 

And we get a little tease that aliens are going to come looking for Supreme soon.

 

Anyway, it's interesting to see that the Superman concepts were there, even if Moore didn't keep the names.   

Reading pre-Moore Supreme - Supreme #1

For years now, I've been meaning to read the 40+ issues of Supreme before Alan Moore took the series over. As I just found them while cleaning out my closet, I've decided to read them all to see what Moore took and adapted for his run.

So I'll be doing short little snapshots of each issue as I read them. You're welcome to read along and add your thoughts or you're welcome to ignore this endeavor entirely as a way to maintain your good taste and sanity.

Let's start with Supreme 1, which came out in November 1992:

This issue was written by Rob Liefeld and Brian Murray. Murray penciled it and Liefeld inked it. In this issue, Supreme returns from space, is confronted by Youngblood, and is brought to someone within the U.S. government, who tries to recruit him to join a covert super powered team. We learn that Supreme is one of the most powerful beings they've encountered.  

Like most early Image comics, there's a lot of fighting, a lot of characters standing around with odd inhuman-like expressions, but not a lot of story. They spend page after page of Supreme flying. And some of the reaction comments are unintentionally hilariously written...

 

At least it was a quick read.