Reading pre-Moore Supreme - Kid Supreme 1-3 and Asylum 9

 

I'm not going to bother with the individual issues for Kid Supreme because frankly, I just don't care that much. Kid Supreme was a mostly empty character in Supreme, having randomly gotten powers from Supreme while on a field trip to Washington, DC, and then the field trip just seemingly continued for the rest of his time in the series. For some reason, he was given his own series, plotted and penciled Dan Fraga and scripted by Eric Stephenson. The issues came out from March-July 1996.

The series follows Danny Fuller, now living with his grandparents, who know about his powers. He is trying to live a normal life, skateboarding and playing football, but falls for rich girl Tiffany, who happens to be the daughter of a crime boss. 

Unsurprisingly, Kid Supreme interferes with the crime boss's business and he decides to have Kid Supreme killed.

 

The series wanted to be a lot like Spider-Man, and since this was an Extreme comic, it lazily just ripped off Spider-Man. There's a scientist teacher take a formula and become a lizard guy called Reptyle. And there's an electricity guy called Kilowatt. 

 

There's a fun 1990s energy to it, even as it is really dumb. 

Fraga and Stephenson thought they were continuing the series and seemed to be caught by surprise when Moore took the character out of circulation by leaving him in the Supremacy in Supreme 41. There was no issue 4, despite the story and art having been completed.

Since December 1995, Maximum Press, one of Liefeld's other comics goup, had been printing an anthology called Asylum. It was just random stuff, often leftover parts from comics that were being stopped. So, in issue 9 in November 1996, Asylum published the story that would have been Kid Supreme 4.

 

The issue begins with the aftereffects of Kid Supreme's fight in issue 3, but then randomly he is abducted from his bed and dragged to the Supremacy. Unlike in issue 41, he doesn't want to stay and escapes through Supreme's Golden Gateway back to Earth. 

I guess Stephenson wasn't too happy with how Moore had written out his character and Stephenson didn't even bother to try to keep continuity.

He seems down about the whole situation until he remembers that he has a party to go to and everything is fine again. He soon runs into a Sandman-like bad guy, so yeah, thank goodness we didn't leave this character in the Supremacy.

Kid Supreme would later turn up Brigade 1 and occasionally in comics after Awesome ended, but he was pretty much pointless from the start.

Reading pre-Moore Supreme - Supreme #40

Supreme issue 40 came out in July 1996. Jim Valentino did the story and the pencils. Tom and Mary Bierbaum do the script. Sam De Larosa does the inks. Lettered by Kurt Hathaway. Eric Stephenson was the editor and didn't do the co-plotting again.  

Here it is! The last Supreme issue before Moore took over the series and turned it into something good. The story is a mess with Loki and too many different versions of Supreme running around on a couple of different planets. Jim Valentino was a big part of bringing Alan More onto Supreme so he does his best here to clear the deck and give Moore a clean slate to start his run.

So let's get into this. On Other Earth, Louis, the reporter, is covering the aftermath of the Supremes' fight with Loki. As the media pesters them, Probe and Supreme fly off.

 

We see a little of Balthazar being strapped into his wheelchair of death contraption. But this is the last we ever see of them, so this whole subplot was completely pointless. 

We then cut to Enigma in Asgard, talking to Odin about Loki's actions. Loki walks in and says that he has agreed to a trial, where Enigma can present testimony.  

Enigma starts his story in WWII and says that Loki fooled Thor into working for Hitler (something we saw earlier in the series). His ultimate goal was to bring about Ragnarok, the apocalypse. But Supreme rose up and defeated Thor and the Nazis. So Loki swore revenge against Supreme and his heirs.

After the war, Supreme left Earth and was eventually attacked by Loki. To save himself, Supreme went forward in time to get the help of Star Guard. They traveled back in time to fight Loki, but Loki decimated them.

Probe and Supreme talk, with Probe saying that she thinks Supreme is just a force of nature and all the Supreme variants don't matter. Supreme decides to head back to the real Earth but Probe is going to stay on this planet as its new hero.

Back to Enigma's testimony. Enigma saw Star Guard getting killed and told Supreme to go back to Earth and get Thor's hammer as a means to defeat Loki. But as he was heading back to Earth, Loki attacked again and Enigma opened up a time portal, which plopped Supreme down in orbit of Earth but ruined his memory.

"Supreme sensed he'd failed in some epic conflict, against an overwhelming force that still threatened the very survival of Earth." 

Look, I appreciate Valentino trying to retcon Supreme into a story that makes any sense, but this retcon only makes it worse because it doesn't match up to what we've read. In the early issues, Supreme showed no sense of failure or that he feared some threat to Earth. He just flew around and did whatever he wanted. But whatever. Let's just finish this off.

Anyway, Enigma then testifies that he hoped to jog Supreme's memory by setting Thor loose, which led to Supreme taking his hammer. Star Guard showed up to warn Supreme, but that didn't help, since they never bothered to say what they were warning Supreme of.

After Supreme's contest with Thor, Enigma, brought "a superfluous Supreme from an alternate timestrand into this one." I think this might be bearded Supreme from issue 25, but that doesn't make a whole lot of sense either. Anyway, Enigma sent this Spare Supreme off into space for safekeeping.

 

Loki then found Enigma and almost killed him, but he turned into energy and merged with the Spare Supreme. Back on Earth, Supreme was almost dead after Crypt's attack. But Loki wanted to finish off Supreme himself, so he teleported Supreme to Other Earth to die slowly, tormented by his failure. I guess this was Old Bearded Supreme.

Loki discovered Spare Supreme and had him defeated by Torgans, who jettisoned him in a rocket tube to Other Earth. Enigma jumped from Spare Supreme to a scientist before remaking his body. Except that's not how it happened in issue 34. There was an orb that had landed on the planet that affected the scientist. Ugh. This retcon needs a retcon.

Anyway, Enigma finishes off by telling about getting Probe and the fight with Loki. 

Odin has to make a judgment and reveals that he believed Enigma all along and wanted to see if Loki had learned anything about being honest. Odin punishes him to be bug-sized to the land of his people. I'm not sure why this is such a terrible punishment, but again, I'm glad to be done with Loki.

We then see Probe... Lady Supreme, I guess, flying through the city on Other Earth and are encouraged to read her own series, which I'll talk about in a bit.

And we get a splash page of Supreme in orbit around Earth vowing to "find the answers that have eluded me." What questions? This series has never asked any questions nor looked for answers. What a weird way to end. Oh well, we also get a little "In memoriam" to Curt Swan, which is a classy touch. 

So, the main series is all caught up! There are a few stray stories to look at in the coming weeks, but I'm curious to know what you thought. Did you like early Supreme? Did any of it make any sense? Was this all a complete waste of time? 

Reading pre-Moore Supreme - Supreme #39

Supreme issue 39 came out in May 1996. Jim Valentino did the story. Tom and Mary Bierbaum are back for the script. Pencils by Joe Bennett. Inked by Norm Rapmund. Lettered by Kurt Hathaway. Eric Stephenson was the editor and did the co-plotting again. Dan Fraga did the Kirby-inspired cover, which will also serve as the inspiration for Supreme: The Return 6. 

We start the issue with the three Supremes (Old Bearded Supreme in Supreme's Body, Supreme in Old Bearded Supreme's Body, and Lady Supreme/Probe/Probe in Val-En's Body But Turned Into A Woman During Babewatch... it's a little confusing) facing off against Loki. Old Bearded Supreme in Supreme's Body tries to confront Loki physically, but Loki just makes himself intangible.

 

Probe asks Enigma for help. Enigma contacts himself in the future at Star Guard's headquarters. 

Meanwhile Probe tries to attack psychically.  She gets into his memories and fills us in on some stuff we didn't know. We knew Star Guard initially came back to warn Supreme (but then didn't). Apparently they came back to warn him about Loki. In his future, he went into the future to escape Loki, and Star Guard then went back in time with Supreme to fight Loki. Loki is the one that blew up Star Guard's ship, which is when Probe took over Val-En's lifeless body and became Amnesia Supreme. And apparently Future Supreme found some weapon that can harm Loki.

It's nice that they're filling in these gaps in the plot since early in the series and trying to make it seem like there was a big story going on from the beginning. But it doesn't really pass the smell test. Loki was never treated as a major villain until last issue. This flashback doesn't make us feel like all the clues are falling into place. It makes us feel like, hey, this explanation will work if we don't have people think about it too much.

Anyway, Loki shows up in his own mind's flashback and starts fighting Probe. 

We then cut to a hospital where Balthazar is writhing in pain from having been severely injured by Probe last issue. A Doctor D'Prave shows up and offers Balthazar the chance to avenge himself.

Back in the future, the Enigmas decide to erase the memories of Star Guard so they don't know about Probe and Val-En. Ok. I'm not sure anyone was worried about that plot point, but I guess it's fixed now.

Back in Loki's mind, he is imagining Probe all naked and tied up for some S&M action, because this is an Extreme comic with the subtlety of an anvil. 

With Loki occupied in his mind, Old Bearded Supreme in Supreme's Body hits Loki, while Supreme in Old Bearded Supreme's Body shoots him and Enigma does... whatever Enigma does. And that forces Loki to let Probe go. 

Loki then kills Supreme in Old Bearded Supreme's Body. But Old Bearded Supreme in Supreme's Body and Probe keep fighting.

Meanwhile, the doctor gives Balthazar a chair with a whole bunch of weapons on it. Don't worry, this plot goes nowhere. 

The Supremes and Enigma keep attacking Loki until he's all bloody. He teleports away and talks about tormenting Supreme's prodigy. I think this is a clumsy attempt to suggest he's going to teleport into the past or future or whatever and attack Supreme and Star Guard, setting a time loop in motion. If so, it's not done well.

Old Bearded Supreme in Supreme's Body goes to bury Old Bearded Supreme's body when it vanishes. He accuses Enigma, but he says it wasn't him and takes off for more pressing matters.

And there's one issue left to wrap this up!