Supreme issue 40 came out in July 1996. Jim Valentino did the story and the pencils. Tom and Mary Bierbaum do the script. Sam De Larosa does the inks. Lettered by Kurt Hathaway. Eric Stephenson was the editor and didn't do the co-plotting again.
Here it is! The last Supreme issue before Moore took over the series and turned it into something good. The story is a mess with Loki and too many different versions of Supreme running around on a couple of different planets. Jim Valentino was a big part of bringing Alan More onto Supreme so he does his best here to clear the deck and give Moore a clean slate to start his run.
So let's get into this. On Other Earth, Louis, the reporter, is covering the aftermath of the Supremes' fight with Loki. As the media pesters them, Probe and Supreme fly off.
We see a little of Balthazar being strapped into his wheelchair of death contraption. But this is the last we ever see of them, so this whole subplot was completely pointless.
We then cut to Enigma in Asgard, talking to Odin about Loki's actions. Loki walks in and says that he has agreed to a trial, where Enigma can present testimony.
Enigma starts his story in WWII and says that Loki fooled Thor into working for Hitler (something we saw earlier in the series). His ultimate goal was to bring about Ragnarok, the apocalypse. But Supreme rose up and defeated Thor and the Nazis. So Loki swore revenge against Supreme and his heirs.
After the war, Supreme left Earth and was eventually attacked by Loki. To save himself, Supreme went forward in time to get the help of Star Guard. They traveled back in time to fight Loki, but Loki decimated them.
Probe and Supreme talk, with Probe saying that she thinks Supreme is just a force of nature and all the Supreme variants don't matter. Supreme decides to head back to the real Earth but Probe is going to stay on this planet as its new hero.
Back to Enigma's testimony. Enigma saw Star Guard getting killed and told Supreme to go back to Earth and get Thor's hammer as a means to defeat Loki. But as he was heading back to Earth, Loki attacked again and Enigma opened up a time portal, which plopped Supreme down in orbit of Earth but ruined his memory.
"Supreme sensed he'd failed in some epic conflict, against an overwhelming force that still threatened the very survival of Earth."
Look, I appreciate Valentino trying to retcon Supreme into a story that makes any sense, but this retcon only makes it worse because it doesn't match up to what we've read. In the early issues, Supreme showed no sense of failure or that he feared some threat to Earth. He just flew around and did whatever he wanted. But whatever. Let's just finish this off.
Anyway, Enigma then testifies that he hoped to jog Supreme's memory by setting Thor loose, which led to Supreme taking his hammer. Star Guard showed up to warn Supreme, but that didn't help, since they never bothered to say what they were warning Supreme of.
After Supreme's contest with Thor, Enigma, brought "a superfluous Supreme from an alternate timestrand into this one." I think this might be bearded Supreme from issue 25, but that doesn't make a whole lot of sense either. Anyway, Enigma sent this Spare Supreme off into space for safekeeping.
Loki then found Enigma and almost killed him, but he turned into energy and merged with the Spare Supreme. Back on Earth, Supreme was almost dead after Crypt's attack. But Loki wanted to finish off Supreme himself, so he teleported Supreme to Other Earth to die slowly, tormented by his failure. I guess this was Old Bearded Supreme.
Loki discovered Spare Supreme and had him defeated by Torgans, who jettisoned him in a rocket tube to Other Earth. Enigma jumped from Spare Supreme to a scientist before remaking his body. Except that's not how it happened in issue 34. There was an orb that had landed on the planet that affected the scientist. Ugh. This retcon needs a retcon.
Anyway, Enigma finishes off by telling about getting Probe and the fight with Loki.
Odin has to make a judgment and reveals that he believed Enigma all along and wanted to see if Loki had learned anything about being honest. Odin punishes him to be bug-sized to the land of his people. I'm not sure why this is such a terrible punishment, but again, I'm glad to be done with Loki.
We then see Probe... Lady Supreme, I guess, flying through the city on Other Earth and are encouraged to read her own series, which I'll talk about in a bit.
And we get a splash page of Supreme in orbit around Earth vowing to "find the answers that have eluded me." What questions? This series has never asked any questions nor looked for answers. What a weird way to end. Oh well, we also get a little "In memoriam" to Curt Swan, which is a classy touch.
So, the main series is all caught up! There are a few stray stories to look at in the coming weeks, but I'm curious to know what you thought. Did you like early Supreme? Did any of it make any sense? Was this all a complete waste of time?
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