Weekly Reading: Supreme: The Return #4

Supreme: The Return #4

Published by Awesome Entertainment in March 2000

The cover:

Title: And Every Dog its Day

(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 then another four months later, now in the year 2000, we get this issue of Supreme. Well, at least I finally got my Radar-centric issue at last.

Matt Smith is handling the front story again while Veitch handles the backup League of Infinity (yay!) story. Interestingly, there was a report in The Ivory Informer fanzine that Brent Anderson was going to do the art this issue.

We start in the offices of Dazzle Comics, where Diana is talking to Ethan about how Supreme dropped her off after their kiss and has seemed distant.

Ethan: "Uh, well, maybe he's hesitating because of unresolved complications..." Ha.

Carl enters with his dog, Oprah (really, Alan?), who is clearly pregnant and going into labor, even though she wasn't pregnant yesterday. The pups start flying out of her, literally, and punching holes through the building into the night sky.

Ethan sneaks off to become Supreme and investigate the mess as superpuppies burst through buildings. I love this bit of caption: "How can the pearl paragon possibly prevent this plague of paranormal pooches?"

Supreme rescues a car from one puppy who was taking it to bury in the backyard. A cop is trying to stop puppies from stealing dinosaur bones, but his bullets bounce off the pups. Supreme thinks he knows the problem.

Back in the Citadel, Radar tells Suprema that he's decided to take a long walk to Betelguese because he knows he's been a bad dog. Supreme comes back and tells Suprema that after 70 years, Radar has discovered sex and left Omegapolis overpopulated with flying puppies.

Supreme: "Sally, think about it: there are hundreds of them, they can fly, and they're not house-trained. How adorable is that?" Ha.

Supreme quickly brings Radar back and demands an explanation. Radar explains that he decided he would like to mate and had a relationship with a sweet borzoi for a fortieth of a second. He then moved on and had relations with 378 dogs!

When asked what made him act that way, Radar replies, "it was overhearing you and Miss Dane mating that gave me the idea." Ha!

Supreme tries to downplay this with Suprema, "I just gave Diana a kiss before I flew her back to her apartment and..."

Suprema: "I can imagine the rest, thank you! You men are all alike!"

While I was reading this bit, I was chuckling away so much my wife asked me what I was reading.

Me: "Um, it's a superman-like story about a superdog that has supersex with tons of dogs and floods the city with superpowered puppies." It's funny even trying to describe it!

Supreme and Radar head into the city to take responsibility for Radar's conquests. The puppies have grown at superspeed to one-year-olds. Soon they could be old enough to breed themselves!

Radar asks Supreme to turn his speakers to the ultrasonic level, so only the pooches can hear him. He barks some untranslatable barks and soon all the dogs are chasing him.

Supreme: "What did you say to them!"

Radar: "Uh, well, I promised them all free capes and radio collars if they'd follow me." Ha!

He decides to lead them to space to get the aid of Talos and Judy: "I'll need someone with thumbs to make all the capes."

He decides to colonize Fidor, a world of superdogs: "I'm sure that with encouragment they'll make as good a job of it as bipeds have."

Man, this issue is so great!

Supreme tells him good luck and when he gets back, Radar is going to see a vet from Vega about some surgery supreme!

We're back at Dazzle comics and Ethan is telling Diana about the new civilization. She's complaining that she still hasn't heard from Supreme. She tells him about her ideas for Omniman, namely writing about a Supremacy-style limbo of Omnimans. "Maybe even Omnibunny!"

She's excited about the idea but angry at Supreme. Ethan tries to talk her out of it, but she declares: "Right when I think I'm getting somewhere with him, he acts all strange and runs away, just like... you?"

And she gets it.

But more on that next week when Billy Friday returns!

In the backup story, "First presented in Advantage Comics #306, March 1963," we get the League of Infinity trying out some potential new members. The applicants get a tour of the Time Tower headquarters before they each present their qualifications.

First up is Chu-Ko Liang, who built a walking wooden ox and magnetic men of metal, as well as devised an array of eight stones that an opposing army got lost in. Next is Siegfried, who is invulnerable and can understand birds from slaying a dragon and trolls. Then comes Mata Hari, the queen of spies. Next is Wilhelm Reich, the Orgone Lad, who uses the power of blue orgone energy that permeates all things. Finally is Pilot X-U, who aided a dying alien and was bestowed with the power of light to make lasers and holograms.

The League shows the applicants to a waiting area in a garden while they make their choices. Pilot X-U is confident he'll get picked and wanders off by himself, while the others have their doubts. But, as we see when Pilot X-U is alone, he gloats that he'll use the League to get his vengeance on Kid Supreme.

Called back in to see the League, Pilot X-U is told to stand apart from the others. While he thinks this means he is the only new member, in fact, he is the only one not accepted. It turns out the others were suspicious of him, so Chu-Ko had Siegfried talk to the birds in the garden, who overheard Pilot X-U. Mata Hari snuck into the eague's files to find out Kid Supreme's villains. She and Chu-Ko reasoned the villain's identity by rearranging his name to Optilux!

After he attacks the others, Siegfried stabs him through with his sword, but that just releases him as light. Orogone Lad uses his gun to cancel out Optilux's orgone radiation, making him disperse. And so, all the new members of the League celebrate.

In the back of the book, there's an ad for a big epic battle called "Extreme Forces," which was to feature Supreme, Youngblood, Glory and other Awesome heroes:

 

Jeph Loeb, Ian Churchill and Rob Liefeld were to have created it, but then again, it never came to anything (as these things so often don't). Supposedly, it was to have all the characters come together to fight an ancient evil being named Skornn.

As always, please check out the Supreme Annotations Page, for more details and references and please help me by letting me know anything I missed that can be added. Thanks!