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.
Interestingly Rob talked about his contributions to early Supreme. Apparently he inked all the faces. Because to him they are the most important part of the characters. It's a shame moore didn't use the original names of Supreme’s supporting cast. It would have been a cool bit of continuity.
ReplyDeleteThat's interesting. The faces definitely feel Liefled-like. I think this might be the last issue he inked of the three or four I've read so far. Do you know how it worked with him co-plotting with Brian?
DeleteI don't think Rob has ever gone into detail about how he co-wrote his early extreme stuff. However based on the stuff I have heard him say, I believe he worked out the story with the co-writer and then let them script it. Rob doesn't really like scripting and that's normally for the best.
DeleteFirst, I was there at the beginning, bought this comic when it was first published, and all these years I can't believe that I never made the Hannibal Lector connection until now.
ReplyDeleteBut yeah it was weird that we never got an explanation as to how Temple managed to convince Supreme come let Grizlock live. He was already planning to kill him before he found out that Grizlock killed his old friends, you'd think nothing would stop him from following through on that now.
On a lot of these early issues, it's best not to think about things like "logic" or "sense." It was all a question of how he'd fit in with Heavy Mettle.
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