Welcome

So a long time ago (the mid-1990s), the greatest writer in comics agreed to take over the writing duties for Image Comics' Supreme. He would radically reshape the character, the book, and due to forces beyond his control, a whole comic book universe. And it led to an award-winning run of comics, three additional titles (among several proposed) and ultimately led to the genesis of Moore's much better known America's Best Comics. And then it all went out of print and was forgotten by way too many.

Having gathered quite a bit of information about Moore's Supreme and Awesome runs, I decided to create a home for the forgotten Awesome. Over the course of a year, I put it all together here.

Each week I did a main "Weekly Reading" post that was a read-through of that issue. I followed that up with a couple of other posts about topics from that Weekly Reading or whatever else I came up with to talk about. You'll find the lost Youngbloods in the Youngblood section and the fan-edit of the last Supreme in After Awesome.

Below is the archive of posts broken up by book. Thanks for checking the site out!

Book 1: Supreme: The Story of the Year

Book 1: Judgment Day

Book 3: Supreme: The Return

Book 4: Youngblood

Book 5: Glory

Book 6: After Awesome

Book 7: 1963

Book 8: Night Raven

Book 9: A Small Killing

Wednesday, August 27, 2025

Reading pre-Moore Supreme - Supreme #13

 

 
Supreme issue 13 came out in June 1994. Rob Liefeld came up with the story while Kurt Hathaway did the writing, editing and lettering. Shawn McManus did the layouts while Cedric Nocon did the pencils. Norm Rapmund did the inks.
 
This is part 1 of "Supreme Madness," a six-part story only in the Supreme series. Instead of a traditional crossover, where you then have to grab other comics to read the rest of the story and how it interacts with other characters in the universe, instead the other characters come to Supreme. It's kind of like the Grand Tour of Image, as we'll see starting next issue.
 
We pick up where we left off, with Supreme facing off against Grizlock in the Supreme Slayer robot suit thing. And then they fight. (Thank god, I was afraid we wouldn't get a good sprawling fight in an issue of Supreme!)
 

 
Even as Grizlock is kicking Supreme's ass, he doesn't understand why he's not kicking it more, since the suit is powered by the radium chunk that shares the same powers as Supreme. Well, Supreme lost his powers, so it doesn't affect him. 
 
The fight goes on for a while, but Supreme is unable to damage the machine until he realizes that if he can't get in, he can make Grizlock come out. Supreme damages the air conditioner. Grizlock comes out and Supreme smashes the machine with Thor's hammer.
 
  
It's interesting to me how similar this is to Darius Dax's Tremendroid story, where Supreme was also being beaten by this robot thing, but like in this story, Supreme is unaffected by the radioactive element powering it. In Moore's story, it's because the League of Infinity swapped Supreme with a decoy. That story is fun, clever, nostalgic and silly. In this, Supreme smashes the machine with a hammer. It's kind of a metaphor for the different approaches. 
 
 
Anway, Supreme is about to kill Grizlock--the evil mastermind who killed Supreme's girlfriend, best friend, and team of sidekicks, before mounting some of their heads on his wall--but Grizlock says that he can restore Supreme's powers. Supreme says ok, but if there's any trickery, he won't be so nice next time.
 
This is just really dumb. 
 
Meanwhile "Simple Simon," the incredibly uninteresting former sidekick of Grizlock tracks down Grizlock's new lab, where he's hooking Supreme up to a bunch of devices. Supreme is like, "Sure, hook me up to things that I have no idea what they do. And here's Thor's hammer, the only power I have. Feel free to plug it into your machine. Why shouldn't I trust you?"
 
Grizlock throws the switch, and surprise, surprise, he betrayed Supreme's trust! What!?! Who could have seen that coming!?!
 
 

 
But Supreme isn't dead and now he's mad--both angry and crazy! 
 
 
 
We'll find out how mad next issue. Get it... Supreme Madness. Oh, these Extreme guys were so clever.

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