Reading pre-Moore Supreme - Supreme #31

 

Supreme issue 31 came out in August 1995. Gary Carlson was the writer. Layouts by Zebra MacPherson. Penciled by Todd Nauck and Brian Denham. Inked by Norm Rapmund. Lettered by Kurt Hathaway. And Jim Valentino has come on as the editor.

We start the issue with a few stray disciples left over from Darkthornn's invasion party. Much like the N's in his name, he's got too many disciples to keep track of. Anyway, Amnesia Supreme shows up and some random person shouts "We're saved! It's Supreme!" Clearly they haven't been reading the same issues I have, because when people see Supreme, they usually wind up dead or mostly dead.

Amnesia Supreme makes short work of the disciples, but ends up with a bleeding eye. Dexter Cortex signals him and offers to help with his wound. 

After surgery, Amnesia Supreme ends up sporting a pretty fashionable patch and Cortex suggests he take a vacation. As Amnesia Supreme flies off Cortex makes a remark about how Amnesia Supreme is not the real Supreme. Apparently he read the epilogue to the last issue, too. 

Amnesia Supreme goes on vacation to a cabin in the woods with Original Flavor Kid Supreme. Over a campfire, Original Kid Supreme tells Amnesia Supreme about the old days and how Glory used to love Supreme in the 40s. He then dreams about Glory.

Meanwhile, Original Kid Supreme pulls up Maxine's report about Supreme's origin from Legend of Supreme. When he goes to tell Amnesia Supreme, he sees a furry girl on the sleeping Amnesia Supreme, manipulating his dreams. Original Kid Supreme shoots the girl.

 

That upsets some nature guy names Equinox, the last forestal, the furry girl's father. 

He uses nature to fight Amnesia Supreme and that goes on for a bit before furry girl pops up and says she's all better. She asks Amnesia Supreme to stay with her, but he declines. The end.

 

And that's the last issue of the Gary Carlson run. I can't say that the Amnesia Supreme run has really been all that interesting and Kid Supreme has been pretty damn annoying, but I kind of liked this issue and it wasn't all bad. Anyway, we'll deal with the last arc before Moore coming up next.

Reading pre-Moore Supreme - Supreme #30

Supreme issue 30 came out in July 1995. Gary Carlson was the writer. Penciled by Joe Bennett. Inked by Norm Rapmund. Lettered by Kurt Hathaway.

And now the shocking, appalling, amazing conclusion to Supreme: Apocalypse!!! 

yawn

We start off on Darkthornn's world, with Darkthornn telling D'Arcangel that he intends to send his army to Earth to destroy it. 

 

Meanwhile, on Earth, Kid Supreme, Amnesia Supreme, and some Tick-like guy named Vangaurd beat up on Darkthornn's disciples in the skies over Washington, DC. 

On the ground, Roman, Troll and some others fight as well, while Glory holds onto Darkthornn's baby, which he wants to kill to unleash some intense power or whatever. 

There's a lot of talk about energy and transferring it from one planet to another and one person to another, but it never makes a ton of sense.

Anyway, Prophet shows up and does Prophet stuff to the disciples.

Back to the fascinating conversation about energy. Apparently Dr. Wells, on Darkthornn's planet, is siphoning off energy and sending it to Prophet, but it soon overwhelms him. So he shoots it off at Amnesia Supreme, who absorbs it and starts glowing. 

The stolen energy closes the transportation device that is bringing disciples to Earth. But another transport opens and Amnesia Supreme comes through and starts fighting Darkthornn. 

Darkthornn claims to be Supreme's evolutionary superior which makes Amnesia Supreme wonder what Darkthornn knows about the mystery of Amnesia Supreme's true origin, which distracts Amnesia Supreme long enough for metal tentacles to shoot into his eyes. 

Darkthornn starts sucking the energy out of Amnesia Supreme but Dr. Wells shows up and "reverses the polarity" of the energy, which technobabble technobabble technobabble causes Darkthornn to blow up.

Only Amnesia Supreme survives the explosion and returns to Earth. He tells everyone that he thinks Darkthornn and Dr. Wells are dead. And he kisses Glory because that's what you do at the end of a company-wide crossover.

We then get an epilogue to a faraway world (but not Darkthornn's faraway world) where a guy who looks very much like Supreme is in a prison cell.

Things are about to get really confusing. 

Reading pre-Moore Supreme - Supreme #29

Supreme issue 29 came out in June 1995. Gary Carlson was the writer. Penciled by Cedric Nocon and Joe Bennett. Inked by Norm Rapmund. Lettered but not associate editored by Kurt Hathaway. 

Oh boy. Another company wide crossover. My favorite.

Welcome to Supreme Apocalypse part 1 of 5. As usual, I am not reviewing the issues of the other series because I value what little of my sanity I have left, so we'll see if this makes any sense.

We start the issue with Amnesia Supreme and Kid Supreme bursting into some underground lair where the Baptist and his cult are about to stab another sacrifice. 

Before they can stop him, he stabs her in the name of Darkthornn (the extra N is for who cares). While Amnesia Supreme is beating up on the Baptist, the sacrifice gets up, pulls the blade out of her chest and stabs Amnesia Supreme in the back.

We cut to some planet where Darkthornn is being tortured by D'Arcangel. 

It turns out that this little torture play fills up their power supplies. As Darkthornn prepares his army to teleport to Earth and do Darkthornn stuff, D'Arcangel comes and says the power generators are going nuts.

Back on Earth, Kid Supreme tries to get the blade out of Amnesia Supreme's back but instead, it breaks and continues to drain the victim. 

Then three random people called Berzerkers show up and start helping Supreme. So Kid Supreme does what comes natural and starts fighting them. 

Turns out they're freedom fighters from Darkthornn's planet. And they were created by Dr. Wells--the same Dr. Wells who created Supreme and Prophet! They decide that maybe Wells can help Supreme. They teleport away and even though Kid Supreme was told to stay, he follows them. 

While in transport, something goes awry and Kid Supreme ends up in Darkthornn's throne room, where he learns that Baptist gives the blade handle to Darkthornn. Dun dun!

Just as the Berzerkers are about to try to remove the blade from Supreme, some of Darkthornn's disciples show up and we get some more fighting. As that goes on, Amnesia Supreme starts to fall under Darkthornn's control.

Somewhere and somewhen else Prophet goes crazy in "battle lust." Yeah, ok. And he starts beating up his compatriots... whoever they are. They use something called a black box to help Prophet link up to some satellite that provides Prophet with information and power. 

When Prophet calms down, they find out about Darkthornn and that Dr. Wells is on Darkthornn's planet, so they teleport there to help.

To find out more, you'd have to read Prophet and Glory... but that's not happening. So we'll see where the story stands next issue, instead.