Reading pre-Moore Supreme - Supreme #20

 

 

Supreme issue 20 came out in October 1994. Written, edited and lettered by Kurt Hathaway. Layouts by Marat Mychaels. Penciled by Cedric Nocon and inked by Norm Rapmund, Lary Stucker, Jonathan Sibal and Robert Lacko. Additional art by Vince Russell. Apparently Nocon was well regarded by the fans, who asked for him to stay on as the regular artist. 

We pick up the story with Kid Supreme, in his red and white costume that he got who knows where, flying to Twist's, the mafia boss, office which had been destroyed in the fight between Supreme and Overtkill. 

 

He overhears Twit mention the boat Lucky Lady, Hudson River and 7:30. Gosh, I wonder if those will become important later?

Kid Supreme wants to know about the death of Patch and Twist says that Supreme already asked him that. Which is when Kid Supreme notices the ongoing fight between Supreme and Overtkill on the streets below. 

So, this being the book it is, Kid Supreme jumps into the fight. At which point, Supreme basically yells at him to get lost. 

Ah, ever the gentleman, that Supreme. In the fray, Overtkill gets away. Supreme and Kid Supreme yell at each other a bit until Kid mentions what he overheard and Supreme flies off. 

Later that night, Twist and Overtkill turn up at Pug's boat and we learn that Pug is secretly going to blow it up to kill Twist. Meanwhile, Kid Supreme steals a tux and pretends to be working at the party on the boat. He overhears a deal going down where Twist is buying high tech weapons from Pug. Kid Supreme gets notices, chucks a guard in the water as Supreme flies up and it all quickly goes to hell. 

Supreme and Kid Supreme fight Overtkill. Pug says they're going to blow the boat, which Twist overhears and yells to everyone, causing a stampede to jump over the side. Twist and Overtkill get away while Supreme and Kid Supreme get caught in the boat explosion. But they're fine, except Kid Supreme's costume, which since he miraculously got it free between issues last time, I'm sure he can get another.

They capture Pug, who agrees to testify against Twist. If he ever gets caught. Which he won't. But the writer doesn't care, so neither should we. 

 

The issue ends with a weird two page epilogue of Glory bumping into Odin walking a dog, which turns out to be Loki. 

They're looking for Supreme because they want Thor's hammer back. Which makes sense. He's had the hammer for a lot longer than I thought he would and is he ever going to get his powers back? 

Guess we'll find out in the next 20 issues, because we are officially halfway through the pre-Moore Supremes! How we've made it through 20 pages and learned so little about Supreme and found so little that is worthwhile is a true accomplishment. That'll do, Image. That'll do. 

Reading pre-Moore Supreme - Supreme #19

 

Supreme issue 19 came out in September 1994. Written, edited and lettered by Kurt Hathaway. Layouts by Marat Mychaels. Penciled by Cedric Nocon and inked by Norm Rapmund. Additional art by Vince Russell, Robert Lacko and Robert Hedden.

The issue opens with Supreme sleeping on a meteor, recovering from the six-part Supreme Tantrum... I mean Supreme Madness storyline. With Grizlock dead, Supreme doesn't have any ongoing storylines, so he goes to visit the grave of Louise, his Lois Lane-like love interest from the 1940s. 

Meanwhile, we see a school bus filled with kids on a field trip to Washington, DC. It turns out that one of the boys, Danny Fuller, got separated from the group and was near the explosion that killed Grizlock in issue 14 and caused Supreme to get mad, and now he has super powers.

Seriously, this is terrible writing to write an explosion in issue 14 and then it took us several issues later in an editor's comment to realize the explosion killed Grizlock and then several issues after that, in a flashback, to realize there was a kid nearby who now has powers. The old advice is "Show, don't tell." But for these guys it should be "Show, don't tell several issues later in the least interesting way possible."  

Anyway, Supreme recalls how Louise was the last person he allowed himself to feel anything for because it makes him vulnerable. So Supreme flashes back to 1947 in Chicago. 

Jesus Christ! There is very little backstory to Supreme, but the big one was he was in WWII and flew off into space before 1946 because Grizlock then killed Supreme's girlfriend and friends.

Sigh...

Anyway, a Chicago gang has Louise held hostage and tells Supreme to stay out of their business. Randomly, some waiter named Pug is serving the crime boss a drink. Supreme goes to leave but then smashes back into the office, cutting off Pug's arm while rescuing Louise. 

 

The caption then says he saved her many more times after that. How did he do that from outer space!?! Aargh! 

Retconning, Supreme then remembers his other girlfriend Glory, as a way to hype us for the upcoming Supreme: Glory Days miniseries. He then flies off, leaving the graveyard. But we see Maxine Winslow, the reporter who still wants revenge for her father dying in the Dulles Airport explosion way back in Supreme issue 3. Will we ever get the end of that storyline? Probably not.

In one of the worst scenes in this series, Supreme flies to D.C. and meets Patch, a mafia guy who surprisingly doesn't wear a patch. Patch tells him the mafia boss is Twistelli and is in New York. But it's like there's panel or dialog missing. Who knows? It wouldn't have helped anyway.

But as Supreme flies off, he says, "Hey, I think I was followed." 

The next day, the teen from the field trip happens upon Patch bleeding to death in an alley. Patch tells the kid... something, and the kid decides to solve the murder so he can prove to Youngblood that he should be allowed to join.

We cut to New York where Twitch finds out that his goon killed Patch but that Supreme is on the case. Meanwhile, another crime boss, the one-armed Pug, also finds out about Supreme. Pug is worried that it might interfere with his plan to take over Twist's operation.

But then the teen bursts in. They try to shoot him, but the bullets bounce off. He gets Pug to tell him that Twist's men killed Patch.  

 Meanwhile Twist has hired a Sicilian superpowered enforcer named Overtkill to protect him from Supreme. If you don't know Overtkill, it's a character Liefeld and Todd McFarlane designed together while Stan Lee basically made fun of them. And there's video: https://www.reddit.com/r/comicbooks/comments/11awow/overkill_stan_lee_mcfarlane_liefeld_design_a/

 

Anyway, Supreme shows up and fights with Overtkill for a bit until the issue ends in the middle of their fight.

What a truly stupid issue. 

Reading pre-Moore Supreme - Supreme #18

 

Supreme issue 18 came out in August 1994. Story by Rob Liefeld. Written, edited and lettered by Kurt Hathaway. Layouts by Marat Mychaels. Penciled by Cedric Nocon and inked by Norm Rapmund. 

Supreme Madness concludes! We stick with Pitt, who when we saw him last, had ripped Thor's hammer out of Supreme's hands. Despite fighting with Supreme for 20+ pages last issue, only now does Pitt recognize Supreme from his outer space days, when he rescued Pitt's planet from certain doom. I guess it didn't make such a big impression.

So Pitt drops Thor's hammer. Supreme picks it up and sit down to hash out Supreme's feelings of loss and questioning his self worth... oh wait, no. They start fighting again. 

But Pitt won't destroy Supreme, he just wants to render him ineffective... like when he didn't have the hammer that you just gave back to him? This is dumb.

Pitt rescues some innocent bystanders before Supreme collapses into sleep, remembering the events of Supreme Madness. 

A while later, Supreme is woken up by the cops. Pitt is gone, but Simple Simon shows up on his Green Goblin-like glider and proceeds to start fighting. 

Supreme keeps trying to talk Simon out of doing something stupid, but Simon is too simple-minded. Eventually Pitt shows back up and they capture Simon. 

Supreme and Pitt hash out their differences. In typical fashion, Supreme can't even take a compliment, as Pitt thanks him for saving his homeworld and Supreme was like, "Oh, I took care of that threat just for sport." 

 

They depart agreeing to stay out of each other's way.

I guess that means Supreme's over his poorly defined madness just in time for this six-part story arc to end. All he needed was a little sleep and a bit of reflection on the friends he met along the way. In other words, he threw a toddler-style temper tantrum because he was just sweepy.

And no need for messy psychotherapy! We're all winners.