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.
