Supreme #46
Published by Maximum Press in February 1997
The cover:
Title: The Girl of our Dreams!
(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.)I've got to tell you guys, I'm pretty excited this week. This is one of my favorite issues of Supreme because it's our first appearance of Suprema, the best character Moore created for his Awesome Universe. I'm also excited because this is the first issue where I have a copy of Moore's script, so we can compare what he wrote to what we got.
First though, we should welcome our new artists. The modern story is being done by J. Morrigan, who had worked on Liefeld's Glory book for a while before coming over here. Morrigan has rarely been described as anyone's favorite, but for my money he always drew the quintessential Suprema, so he holds a special place for me. It doesn't look like Morrigan worked in comics after Supreme, so if anyone has a line on him, please let me know.
(Note: In the script, Moore is writing to Joe, so presumably, he thought Joe Bennett was going to be the regular artist for longer than he was. The script is also dated as having been faxed in August 1996, so Moore was working several months in advance, which is normal for a comic book.)
In the flashback story, Rick Veitch is being inked by Jim Mooney, a silver-age artist best known for drawing Supergirl. One of the awesome things is Moore references Mooney in the script and then he came to work on it. I think it says something that a lot of big name artists came and worked on the flashbacks with Veitch while they were having problems finding an artist for the modern stories.
One final note from the credits. Melinda Gebbie is credited with coming up with the Suprema design. Gebbie is Alan Moore's wife and the artist on Lost Girls. She has a very distinctive look, which we'll see a little later in Supreme and Glory.
And let's get into the story. So we start off with Supreme at the library, looking up information about Suprema, who he only remembered as existing last issue. Moore cuts these with Supreme flying at nearly lightspeed through space. We find out from old newspapers that Supreme left the Earth to explore outer space in the 1960s and Suprema volunteered to take over as Earth's protector. Moore has a fun note about how outer space changed Supreme's appearance:
It's sad, but funny, that Moore has to come up with an explanation for why the modern artists, who were encouraged to draw in the Extreme Studios style, couldn't draw anatomically-correct human forms.
We find out that Gorrl the Living Galaxy threatened the Milky Way and Suprema sacrificed herself to save Earth. Supreme, now flying faster than lightspeed sees three figures heading back to Earth, but he continues on his quest for Suprema. (For a fun diversion, check out what the script has to say about what faster-than-light travel should look like when I post the whole script later this week.)
And we get our Rick Veitch flashback in "Satana's Slave Supreme!" A high-school aged Suprema was flying over Glenvale (the largest town near Littlehaven with a high school) when she saw a dangerous chasm, with the voice of a little girl calling for help. The voice says she needs someone to take her place because she's being bullied, which Suprema volunteers to do. It turns out to be a trap by Satana and now Suprema is trapped on a burning wheel by little devils.
Moore was strict about what he was expecting, in terms of how the girls should be drawn:
Satana takes on Suprema's form and terrorizes Glenvale, first by launching a cat stuck up a tree and then by grabbing Sally Crane's boyfriend, Troy, and giving him a smooch. All Suprema can do is watch until Lord Sin shows up. Sin is another wonderful creation: a seven-headed devil, with each head representing one of the seven deadly sins, all to comical effect. Suprema reveals to Sin that she was tricked into taking Satana's spot on the wheel and so Sin has to let her go.
They track Satana down and then Suprema gets into a fight with the fake Suprema, which is a wonderful device that only comics can get away with. Since Sin can't tell them apart, he can't take Satana back to the wheel. That is, until the real Suprema catches the still falling cat. Since "only a polyanna like the real Suprema would bother saving that wretched little thing," Sin knows who Satana is and takes her back to the chasm, which now seals up.
Suprema puts everything right just in time for Supreme and Radar to return from the prism world and asks her if she's okay. "Oh, don't worry, big brother. I had a heck of a time... and I mean that literally!"
As a final note before we move back to the modern story, the design of Suprema's costume here and in the modern story are different. The one in the retro story reflects Melinda Gebbie's style much more and is likely her design.
In the modern story Supreme has reached several light-years away from Gorrl, the living galaxy, and can now see him all together. "Any closer and he breaks up into his component stars like a grainy newsprint photograph and surrounds you."
One of the things about heroes like Superman is that they're so powerful that it's hard to come up with villains that would be capable of hurting them. But what a great idea. And it allows Moore to play with his theory of relativity concepts about space and time. Of course, a living galaxy would be near eternal, so if he took Suprema as a companion, "I don't think this is a passing infatuation."
And then we see planets and meteors all sculpted with Suprema's face.
The supremium isotopes in Sally's body call to those in Ethan's, allowing him to track her. Then there's an interesting description of how some of Supreme's powers work. "'Senses supreme': It's probably a halfway-accurate description of how my perceptions work. In actuality, I have no literal telescopic sight, no micro-sight or hyper-hearing. Instead, I expand my consciousness and senses far beyond myself. I see. I hear. I know."
So, basically, he expands his thinking and just knows. On one had, that sounds like someone who has done LSD and has an understanding of the universe that normal people don't. But it also sounds like a god, that by expanding his awareness, he just knows exactly what is happening. That sounds a little like being a god, doesn't it? We'll get into gods more when we get into Judgment Day and Glory, but the idea of the superman as a god is one Moore explored with Marvelman/Miracleman and Doctor Manhattan in Watchmen, both to unsettling effect. Here, Supreme is treated as a merciful, protector god and the effect is much more positive.
Supreme tracks the supremium isotope, but it isn't coming from Sally, but from Radar, frozen in a floating ice asteroid. (Again, Radar is now a spotted dog, even though in Moore's script it said he was all white, suggesting someone changed their mind after August 1996.) Supreme lands and helps Radar recover. Radar tells him that he tried to stop Gorrl from taking Suprema: "I tried to save her. From the start, I had a feeling in my <untranslatable> that things smelled bad." Moore had so much fun writing dialog for Radar, didn't he?
Radar tells Supreme that Gorrl has taken Sally into a black hole, though he doesn't know it as that, as people didn't know much about black holes in 1969, when they left Earth. "Thirty years. All the dogs I knew must be dead," Radar says.
They head off for the black hole, though Radar asks if it is safe for Supreme, but Supreme says he must do it to save Sally, no matter the lack of safety for himself. "Well said, master," Radar replies. "Spoken like a dog."
Sorry, I may just quote all of Radar's lines for the rest of this weekly reading.
They fall into the black hole, but find a world hovering on the edge of the event horizon where they find a world Gorrl created from images in Suprema's mind. Mountains of cartoon characters, rotary telephones, perfume bottles and a Mount Rushmore of The Beatles. Though in the script, it wasn't necessarily going to be this fab four:
And then they find Suprema, lying in a large canopy bed.
Here's how Moore described Suprema:
It's not surprising that Moore wrote to such great lengths to make sure Suprema looked the way he wanted her to. Remember that this is what women were typically drawn like by the Extreme Studio artists:
Supreme and Radar wake her up and explain that in a blink she's lost 30 years. To which she replies, "Drat." Gorrl doesn't like that Supreme is trying to take Sally away and starts showing his displeasure in the form of lightning: "Take not my bride, lest ye shall perish!"
"I didn't realize he thought we were dating," Suprema replies.
Sorry, I may just quote all of Sally's lines for the rest of this weekly reading.
They manage to get out of the black hole and then confront Gorrl in the form of a giant white star. They try to reason with him and come to find that he's lonely and far from his kind. Supreme believes the radiation from quasars are whale-songs of migrating galaxies. Sally convinces Gorrl that he needs to go be with his own kind and he agrees. There's a wonderful page as he departs where we just see space and then stars and then the image of a king on a throne and a single bright spot departing away.
Meanwhile Supreme explains that things have changed in the 30 years that Sally's been away from Earth: "Littlehaven's a ghost town and Glenvale's gone. As for your boyfriend, he's probably middle-aged and married."
"Drat," she says.
Yeah, I think you're going to enjoy Suprema as the series goes on. You know, reading this again, I really wish we had gotten a moment in some future issue where Suprema met middle-aged and married Troy. But it wasn't meant to be.
Drat.
They return back the way they came and now see the single Supreme flying out toward Gorrl from the beginning of this issue. Radar radios ahead and prepares a ticker tape parade for Suprema, which is a wonderful little scene.
Moore fully intended this conclusion to resonate with longtime Supergirl fans:
Here is that cover:
So, not quite the same, but close enough. It's telling though that while Moore wanted this image of Supergirl for the cover of this issue, this is what he got instead:
In the letters pages, we get this bit when one writer asked if Moore would stick around on Supreme beyond his initial 12-issue contract:
So, get ready for Judgment Day, which I'll take up after Supreme #52a & b.
Anyway, for next time: The Finest of all possible Worlds!
Please check out the Supreme Annotations Page, for all of the details that I completely missed.
