Weekly Reading: Supreme #50

Supreme #50

Published by Awesome Entertainment in July 1997

The covers:

 

Title: A Love Supreme

(As always: Supreme is currently out of print. There are a number of ways to read it, which can be found on the How do I read Moore's Awesome works page.)

You know when you're watching a show or movie and you're entranced, knowing that you're seeing something amazing, and it will never get better than this? Welcome to Supreme #50.

There are a number of reasons this issue is so great: a crackling script, some wonderful flashback sequences, but none so important as the artwork of Chris Sprouse. This script demanded an artist who could handle real human emotions and attention to nuance and Sprouse brought that to the table. As we'll see later, he's also a helluva good superhero artist.

I'll be doing a post later this week about how Sprouse got the gig, which is well worth reading, as it illuminates some of the behind the scenes intrigue happening at Awesome.

Even though this is only the second Awesome issue and only the 10th Alan Moore issue, it was identified as issue #50 and claimed to be double sized! But it's still just Moore's normal 24-page story with a bunch of pin-ups in the back. Ah, comics... never change.

Anyway, let's jump in. We see Diana in her apartment calling for Ethan to make sure he's coming over to work on the Omniman comic. In the background, the televisions tells us about all the '60s heroes who have returned to action after the events last issue. Out the window, we see a streak of red and then Ethan is at the door.

We get a little chit chat about Billy Friday now hanging out in the year 2496 before they settle down on the couch to talk about the issue and Diana's idea to deal with Omniman's girlfriend: Linda Lake. There's a cute little joke about Supreme's love life before Ethan explains that Supreme set out to find out if he could ever marry someone back in 1962.

Just a note before we get into the flashback. I found this on comicartfans.com.

 

Sprouse had completed this page but either he or Stephenson felt that the interaction in that last panel wasn't right and Sprouse redid it.

 

Considering how rushed the art seemed last issue, to go this extra mile... I will never ever stop being grateful for the effort Sprouse brought to this comic.


And our first flashback takes us to an "impossible story" where Supreme designed a possibilitron to show what would happen if Supreme married Judy Jordan. It's classic early-'60s male paranoia as Judy forces him to get a suburban home and perform "honey do" chores for the neighbors (like making a replacement diamond and bioengineering a strain of grass that doesn't need cutting). Between the wife and the kids, Supreme doesn't even have time to fight Fakeface with Professor Night and Twilight! "Thanks, Prof., but I'm babysitting during Judy's Tuperware party," he explains.


Back to the modern story. Diana suggests that maybe Omniman can't romance Linda Lake, but his alter ego Spencer Samson could. As Diana says, "He has human needs, right?" The look on Ethan's face as he says, "Uh, yes. Yes, he does..." is perfect.

Sorry, I might just spend this entire write-up gushing over Chris Sprouse's art. But I have to talk about this script, because it's perfect. Moore has Diana say, "Well, I'm trying to think about it visually. I mean, a civilian relationship doesn't make for good comics. All you'd have is pages of people in ordinary clothing sitting around talking." The way Moore is writing Diana's brainstorming with Ethan's feelings of a romantic subtext, while commenting on comics and how a story like this shouldn't work in a superhero comic is truly amazing. He's walking a tightrope, and yet it plays perfectly.

Diana suggests that maybe Omniman could have a relationship with something more exotic, like a mermaid. than says that Supreme considered that, too.


And our second flashback reveals what happened when the possibilitron showed Supreme marrying Luriel the angel from his imaginary menagerie. They are married by the Egyptian deity, Thoth. Thoth was associated with science, philosophy, and religion, and credited with the invention of written language. Seems appropriate.

But things go bad for Luriel, as she is overwhelmed by the spiritual needs of the people of Earth. She decides to stay in the Citadel and watch TV instead. But all she sees are miserable humans and soon dies from despair.

Diana admits that she'd rather stick with a human love interest, anyway, and then goes on to describe how she'd do it, which happens to describe this issue: "...we show Omniman in action during flashback scenes or something, and then end with a scary cliffhanger on the last couple of pages." There's a nice detail of Ethan moving to sit on the floor as Diana settles down next to him. Diana wonders if maybe they should pair Omniman with Warrior Woman, just as Supreme had done with Glory in the third flashback.

In this, Glory and Suprme are wed, but Glory quickly makes some changes to the Citadel (like throwing out the prism-world of Amalynth and moving the hell of mirrors to her dressing room). There's a hilarious scene of Supreme and Glory bringing their personal squabbles to an Allies' meeting. As Supreme sneaks out of "The Light and Void Cafe" (a reference to Dave Sim's problems with the fairer sex), Glory catches him and they proceed to tear the city apart fighting. Ultimately, Supreme decides that Lady Liberty will be the only woman for him.

Diana decides that it must be Linda and describes a scene where Omniman gives in to his passion and goes for it. She refers to a censored sexy page in Steranko's Nick Fury, which you can read about here. Just as Ethan is about to do the same, Diana says, "...except it would be dishonest." If Linda doesn't know he's Omniman, it would be hiding too big a secret. And a superhero couldn't do that. "No, No, I don't suppose he could," Ethan admits before getting ready to leave. Diana is surprised, thinking that the evening offered more, but Ethan says he has too much to do.

And then we get our sinister epilogue as the elderly Judy Jordan tells Hilda to draw a picture of Supreme's Citadel. We see that it's a blueprint for the structure. The issue ends with Judy telling Hilda to get her coat. "You and grandma are going visiting."

After the letters page and a note from publisher Jeph Loeb, we get "A Gallery Supreme" of pin-ups, which I'll put up in a post later this week.

Much later, Awesome would publish Alan Moore's Awesome Universe Handbook. In there was this image from Sprouse, which I'm convinced must have been intended as the cover for this story before they decided to go the special 50th issue variant covers route. It's a beauty and better captured the tone of this issue. Couldn't they have published this one, too?

I'll have a lot more to share about Sprouse, as well as artwork to show, in a post later this week. Look for that one, because I have a lot of good stuff to share.

Anyway, what a great issue. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did, as sadly, we're going to have to wait a while before we see Sprouse return to work on Supreme. But as Eric Stephenson announced in the letters page, Sprouse would be the regular artist on the series for Moore's second year, as we saw in this in-house ad at the end of the issue:

 

So much good stuff still to come!

As always, please check out the Supreme Annotations Page, for all of the details and references that I completely missed.