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.
Hell yeah, I love your reviews. I can't wait to see you're takes on the original stuff. Most of it isn't great, but certainly entertaining in that over the top Extreme way. I think the definitive take on the character was done by Keith Giffen. You could easily do a whole post about his contributions to mean Supreme.
ReplyDeleteI really like Keith Giffen, so I'm interested to see what he did with the series.
DeleteI also strongly recommend Bloodstrike 4-6 if you haven't already checked them out. They are easily the best written early extreme comics. Issue 5 also contains Giffen's first Supreme story.
DeleteCan't wait to see the update on the annotations page to appreciate all the nuance and detail hidding in this gem...!
ReplyDeleteJust joking, but loving to see you keep up with this. I just discovered your blog and it granted a full re-read of the Awesome universe, extras an everything and I'm enjoying it so much. Maybe this is the push I need to try dip my toes into """classic""" Supreme. Is it in your plans to also check the spin-offs (Lady and Kid) or you're trying to keep sane?
Hah! I can't imagine having to try to annotate this stuff and where they ripped it off from!
DeleteI do intend to look at the Kid Supreme and Lady Supreme spinoffs (they're pretty short) and Glory Days, which I've heard good things about.
Thanks! I've been feeling bad about neglecting the blog and thought this might be fun... or weirdly masochistic. lol
ReplyDeleteThis issue does make more sense if you read the little preview in Youngblood #2. Or 3, maybe?
ReplyDeleteWhichever.
I don't mean to sound too sarcastic, since it's all pretty badly written and nonsensical. But the little preview in Youngblood did at least make some of the stuff in Supreme 1 seems a smidge less arbitrary.
As you go along, I'll probably have other "helpful" footnotes regarding what happens in other Liefeld books that tie in to Supreme. If you're just reading Supreme 1-40 with nothing in between, you'll be reading a lot of parts of crossovers that don't make a lot of sense taken on their own.
That'd be great. It's funny that they did expect that everyone was collecting everything and knew how it all fit together.
DeleteThat said, I read the little preview in Youngblood #3 and it's really, "Here's Heavy Mettle. It's a shame there's no one on Earth who can lead it.
Cool! I never thought you'd cover these issues, since I know you're not interested in the pre-Moore version of Supreme.
ReplyDeleteSpoiler Alert: there's tons of potential here, but it's largely wasted. So expect to be confused and frustrated a lot.
Yeah, I'm not terribly interested in them, but I've had them sitting in a closet for years, so I'm using this as an excuse to finally get rid of them.
DeleteYeah, I'm about 1/4 of the way through the run and it's mostly wasted potential. But it is fun to reverse engineer and see where Moore stole some of his ideas for his run from.
And I've heard good things about Glory Days. So I'm looking forward to that.
Glory Days is one of the better-written stories of that era, but that's not saying much.
DeleteGlory Days was good. I liked Legends of Supreme better, though.
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