Weekly Reading: Supreme #52b - part 1

Published by Awesome Entertainment in September 1997

The cover:

Title: The Return of Darius Dax!

(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.)

And now for the second part of our conclusion to The Story of the Year! Don't be fooled by this Chris Sprouse cover, either. He won't be contributing any art to the inside. (Although, seeing that weird costume on Suprema, maybe it's a good thing he didn't.)

It's J. Morrigan's show, and I must admit that after Veitch and Sprouse, it's J. Morrigan that I think of fondly when I think of Supreme's art. Watch what he does with Suprema's hands. He often draws her using them daintily, which invokes her out-of-date morality and character. His work in this issue is beautiful and allows us to end this story on a great note. It's a shame, but after a few more issues of Supreme, he never worked in comics again. (If anyone knows what happened to him, please leave a comment below or shoot me an email, as I'd love to track him down.)

Let's dig in. We pick up mid-transition from last issue, as we finally get the Televillain's television reference in the reporter trying to question Suprema and Radar where they crash landed from their confrontation with Hilda. Radar can only bark, but Suprema talks to the camera. Realizing the footage will be archived, she tells Zayla 500 years in the future about the fight and asking for help from the time traveller.

This is a great technique for using the League of Infinity, but like the time travelling device in Harry Potter, sort of opens a Pandora's box of why don't they just call for Zayla's help in every emergency?

Suprema and Radar are spotted by Professor Night and Twilight in the Night Flyer, who join them to take the fight back to the Citadel. Prof. Night hides them in a blackout bomb while Suprema and Radar use their eye blasts against Hilda.

Inside, Dax in the Magno body decides that Omegapolis needs to be taught a lesson. Gunshots, though ineffective, stop him for a moment. Having received Suprema's message, Wild Bill and the League of Infinity emerge through the door from the Time Tower to confront Dax.

Dax thinks and then remembers: "Ahh.. The League of Infinity. I remember; an improbable and nostalgic teenage superteam with members from past, present and future. Sadly your past is historically absurd, your present standing is uncertain, and as for your future... you don't have one!"

What a great speech!

While the fight rages, Future Woman pauses time and goes into the Hell of Mirrors to rescue Supreme. She helps him out of the prison and suggests he wait a few minutes to heal now that his powers have returned. But he can't wait and rushes back to fight Dax.

Supreme is enraged because of Dax killing his former girlfriend Judy Jordan and as they fight, we hear Dax's side, too. "All those years suffering indignity in Littlehaven, always being second best, despite my genius, to some dumb hick who'd stumbled over a meteorite!"

Hilda, what's left of her, comes staggering in, with Suprema, Radar, Prof. Night, Twilight, Diehard and Glory after her. Dax doesn't like his chances, facing so many heroes and heads toward Supreme's science lab to get the supremium isotope, which is entering its violet stage. At that stage, anything is possible.

Then, in the conclusion to the longest running gag in Awesome history, who should turn up but Billy Friday, stepping out of the Time Tower doorway. Into the fray, he says: "Look, I told the convention organizers last time, I'm not judging any more fancy-dress events..." The supremium in Dax's hands causes Billy's limbs to multiply like we saw back in issue #45.

They manage to shove him into the mirror dimension again and then Supreme goes to stop Dax, but he's too late. Dax decides to merge with the Supremium and Supreme says that he feels deja vu coming on. The supremium radiates within Dax and falls through the floor. But as Supreme notes, he's not just falling through the floor, he's falling through space-time. Zayla opens a time window so they can watch where Dax goes.

Dax falls onto a farm in the late fifties where there's a girl and her dog... it's little Sally from issue #45, when the supremium man fell from the sky. "We're seeing the events that gave me my powers!" she says in the future.

They watch as the supremium man/Dax steals the supremium from that time and merges with it. His mass grows and he becomes a comet, falling through time and crashing in Littlehaven in 1925, where we see its radiation affecting a little boy and his dog. So Dax created his most hated foe in Supreme.

Nobody likes to do time-twisting stories like Alan Moore, so it's not surprising that this Story of the Year would wrap up in one. Of course the whole timeline doesn't make rational sense, what with the supremium isotope being created in the nineties, falling to the fifties and then falling back again to the twenties. But that's the idea. This story could only work with imagination. And isn't that what spremium really is?

Later on we see the heroes cleaning up. Supreme asks S-1 to create a ward for the comatose but mindless shell of the elderly Judy Jordan. The League heads back into their Time Tower. As Zayla says, "I met myself in the tower on our way down here, and apparently I'll return soon for the Youngblood Murder Trial... oh, but then you don't know anything about that yet, do you?"

Except the miniseries had already come out. So the readers and Moore are all ahead of Supreme. For us, we'll be taking up Judgment Day in the weekly readings next.

As Supreme waves goodbye in the Time Tower he sees the teenage version of himself from way back in issue #42, who saw the beefier version up the time stairs. The older version waves down, closing the loop.

Back in the Citadel, Suprema reports that Billy Friday is still expanding in the mirror prison, but the walls are holding. She asks if they should say something to the citizens of Omegapolis? Supreme agrees.

"Citizens of Omegapolis, this is Supreme! I have regained control of my citadel, and the menace is averted. I want to thank you all for staying calm in such frightening circumstances. I'm very proud of all of you. ... You are the heroes, the ordinary men and women of this planet. Without special powers or abilities, you struggle on. You are the reason we do this... You are Supreme!"

It's such a nice, uplifting ending. And if you like clearly-defined endings, this might be a good place for you to exit. After this, the proceedings get messy, storylines are never finished, and the promise of Awesome Entertainment goes down the financial tubes.

But for now, the heroes have returned. And for Moore, the idea of superheroes has returned with it. The wonder and bravery and above all, the imagination.

That is what is Supreme.

Look for a post later this week on the ton of extras that were packed into this issue.

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