Supreme issue 0 came out in August 1995. Eric Stephenson came on as the writer. Penciled by Todd Nauck. Inked by Norm Rapmund, Robert Lacko and Eric Cannon. Lettered by Kurt Hathaway.
When most people think of a 0 issue, they think of a story that happens before issue 1. In Eric Stephenson's mind, it's a story to catch up readers to a very specific point... in this case to after issue 31. What!?!
For those who don't know, Rob Liefeld plucked Eric Stephenson out of his fandom to write Youngblood. He eventually became the editor of the Extreme books while writing some not particularly good ones. He was Moore's editor during the Awesome years. And later he became the editor in chief of all of Image.
The issue begins with a car driving down a stretch of road.
In the car are Amnesia Supreme and his guide, Jack Simon. Jack Simon is a reference to Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, the creators of Captain America. Jack takes Amnesia Supreme to an abandoned military compound in the desert. Jack tells him this is where Supreme comes from, but for Amnesia Supreme, he has no memory of this place.
Jack says he's a former journalist turned comic book writer and that he's here to tell Amnesia Supreme about the myth of Supreme, but that Amnesia Supreme is not actually Supreme.
Jack was initially hired by the Smithsonian to research Supreme's involvement in WWII, and his monstrous acts, which we've seen illustrated before. He tells Amnesia Supreme about Dr. Wells and his experiments, pretty much following the story told in Legend of Supreme. That at some point Supreme disappeared and popped up fighting in Germany.
Jack started writing comics in the post-war era about Glory, Die Hard, etc., but the people wanted comics about Supreme. As he investigated, he found that Supreme hadn't escaped Dr. Well's lab, he had been stolen and moved to a lab in Arizona... the one they're at now. In Arizona, a computer recorded everything about Supreme to be able to recreate him.
Jack then jumps back to tell about Supreme returning to Earth, as we've seen in the last 31 issues of this comic, up until Supreme was killed by Crypt and the body disappeared.
Despite telling us very little that is new, Amnesia Supreme demands, "Why should I believe any of this? You're a comic book writer!"
Jack tells him that he kept investigating even as the government confiscated his evidence. But then Amnesia Supreme showed up. But that only makes the mystery more confusing. According to Jack, either the real Supreme either didn't return from space or he did and now he's gone again.
Amnesia Supreme has had enough and I'm pretty much with him at this point.
We then get an epilogue on an alien planet where a battle-scarred Supreme is loaded into a tube and shot into space.
So, I guess I get that Stephenson wanted to make sure new readers were caught up on all the backstory. A problem is that the backstory of Supreme has never been all that interesting or important. And it definitely doesn't work as a 0 issue.
And it doesn't matter because we'll never see Jack Simon again. Oh well, maybe Stephenson's run gets better from here.
Narrator: "It doesn't."
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