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.  

Reading pre-Moore Supreme - Supreme Annual #1

 

Annual #1 came out in May 1995. The plot and pencils are by Keith Giffen. The script is by Giffen's Legion writing partners Tom & Mary Bierbuaum. The inks are by Charles Adlard. We're told on the credits page that this story takes place before Supreme #1.

They didn't really need to tell us that since the very first line of the story is that this occurred probably around 1960. Supreme finds a world that has been torn apart by an automated mining operation. 

Supreme finds a little sentient crystal life form calling for help, and--this being the Biblical quoting Supreme of Legend of Supreme--starts quoting scripture to himself to help. 

He destroys the mining machine and flies off. Unbeknownst to him, he was being recorded.

We cut to a world filled with strange and interesting plants. A servant approaches "Noble Chi" and tells him about Supreme destroying the mining operation. Chi then calls in someone who can deal with Supreme.

On an alien world, we a big armored guy kill the last warrior of a world, and mostly be bored. Afterward, he transforms back into a human, who we learn is Herr Vergessen, and goes to visit Chi, who hires him to kill Supreme. 

Vergessen knows Supreme and we flash back to WWII where Supreme captured him and seemingly killed him with his laser eyes. But apparently, Vergessen is much harder to kill.

Vergessen tracks Supreme to a planet of commerce and promises to kill Supreme and parade his head around on a pole. It's nice when old friends get to catch up.

Vergessen explodes and as the smoke clears, we see he has become a big rock guy. They fight some and then Vergessen becomes a crystal creature, like the lifeform Supreme found on the mining planet. They fight some more and Supreme quotes some scripture. 

Eventually they take the fight to space with Vergessen becoming electricity, driving Supreme into a star. Even that can't kill Supreme. So Vergessen decides to transform into the one thing in Supreme's mind that he thinks can kill him. But as Vergessen transforms, he realizes too late his error... 

Supreme thinks nothing can kill him. So Vergessen transforms into nothing and is gone.

Supreme decides that he will go after the man who hired Vergessen and on his planet, Chi receives the message: "Soon. -Supreme" And then we get the caption "Not quite the end!"

I wanted to like this story and I get for the clever twist they were trying to go for with Vergessen becoming nothing, but it needed another pass or two on the script to make the twist feel earned. 

Anyway, the story will continue in a future issue of Supreme. But this isn't it for the annual. We get a backup story by Len Wein, penciled by Shannon Denton, inked by Norm Rapmund and lettered by Kurt Hathaway.

Back in France in 1943, Supreme is tearing apart some German soldiers when Superpatriot, Glory and Die Hard show up to recruit him. They help Supreme out but of course, Supreme is never grateful. They still ask if he'll join The Allies. Supreme scoffs but when he finds out that they're on a mission to liberate a town and fight a bunch of Nazis, Supreme is in.

They go and start fighting the Nazis and helping the townspeople when Supreme goes up, rips some bombs off an overflying plane and drops them on the town, killing Nazis and civilians alike. 

When Glory tries to rebuke him, he grabs her and kisses her before flying off. And The Allies decide they don't need him.

The end.

Oof. That was pretty bad. It's so weird how the Supreme writers are all over the map on Supreme in WWII. Was he a hero? Was he a ruthless killer? Did Glory and he like each other? Was he an ass and Glory hated him? There is no consistency. Then again, Giffen is writing his own version of the character who is completely different from the way Hathaway wrote him. It's very weird and frustrating.

There was talk of Wein doing more Allies stories, but they never came to fruition, and if this is what they would be like, good riddance.

We then get a couple of pinups and we're done. 

 

 

Reading pre-Moore Supreme - Supreme #28

 

Supreme issue 28 came out in May 1995. Gary Carlson was the writer. Penciled by Joe Bennett. Inked by Norm Rapmund. Lettered and associate editored by Kurt Hathaway. There's also a variant cover by Joe Quesada and Jimmy Palmiotti.

Picking right up from the last issue, Amnesia Supreme rushes Original Kid Supreme to the hospital for his heart attack. The hospital staff is too busy to help Amnesia Supreme's friend, so he sets the nurse's desk on fire and uses his vision rays to cut out the cancer cells in another patient, to free up a doctor. 

 

The doctor tells him Original Kid Supreme is in rough shape, so Amnesia Supreme tells him to try to keep him alive long enough to get help from the one person who might be able to help... New Kid Supreme. He finds New Kid Supreme on the Washington Monument and guilts him into helping Original Kid Supreme.

Meanwhile, at Cor-Tek HQ, a scientist is overseeing the transfer of Dexter Cortex's personality from a computer into the brain of a lobotomized man. However, once he's in, he complains of pain and the body bleeds out. Dexter and the scientist agree that he needs a body that is either super strong or can regenerate.

Cut to the hospital, where Glory randomly shows up to see Original Kid Supreme. She's also shocked to see Amnesia Supreme, who she immediately recognizes as Supreme. He explains about the amnesia and she says that the man she loved has been gone for a long time.

 

Okay, hold up. I've read all of Supreme and Glory Days and while they've said that Supreme and Glory were a thing, we've never actually seen it. Supreme has pretty much always been a jerk. This is such a weird comic.

A doctor shows up to take over the case and we find out he's the Baptist. He turns Original Kid Supreme into Blackthornn (the extra N is for naughty) when New Kid Supreme shows up. Baptist has two Blackheart creatures fight him. As they fight, Glory and Amnesia Supreme join the brawl.

 

While Glory and Amnesia Supreme fight the Blackhearts, New Kid Supreme tries to get Original Kid Supreme to reject the Baptist. Original Kid Supreme, in a daze, thinks Kid Supreme is Real Supreme, takes a portion of New Kid Supreme's powers and fights back against the Baptist. 

The Baptist transports away and everyone just laughs about how Original Kid Supreme used to use his x-ray vision to check out Glory back in the WWII days. 

 

 

What better way to end a story than by laughing at inappropriate voyeurism! Ha ha!