Supreme issue 12 was published in May 1994. The story is by Rob Liefeld (still not calling himself Ripley). The script, lettering and editing is done by Kurt Hathaway. Shawn McManus does the layouts and fan-favorite Cedric Nocon does the pencils. And Norm Rapmund does the inks.
Supreme wakes up in the jungles of South America and it turns out that he has lost his powers in the fight with Quantum in the last issue. But it's ok because he has Thor's hammer and he'll just use that to do his... what do we call that he does? It's not superheroing. He mainly goes around and fights people until he kills them or something else happens. Let's be generous and call it adventuring.
I thought this Thor's hammer thing was going to be an issue or two little joke but instead this becomes a major part of this series for way longer than it should.
As he's flying, he suddenly remembers that Grizlock still exists in the least effective transition ever, but as it's my favorite subplot, let's go with that. Supreme flies to a bar in Washington D.C. and finds one of Grizlock's old cronies "Simple Simon," someone never previously mentioned, and tries to find out where Grizlock is. Simon doesn't know, admits to wanting to kill Grizlock is, and vows to become a criminal mastermind himself.
I swear, reading this, it's like the writer read Batman or Spider-Man comics, didn't understand them, and is now trying to recreate them in the EXTREME.
Supreme flashes back to his pre-space sojourn, when some Nazi spies had tried to kidnap a scientist and had threatened to blow up his entire chemical factory. Ultimately they did but Supreme rescued them all from the explosion but the scientist refused to open a locked case that the Nazi's had stolen, despite needing to do so to help the authorities convict the spies. (I guess them blowing up the building wasn't enough of a crime to prosecute?) When the authorities confiscate the locked case, the scientist goes nuts and vows revenge.
And that, boys and girls, is the really not very exciting origin of Grizlock.
Speaking of Grizlock, we then cut to him and his henchmen, Horace. They need to break into Grizlock's secret facility under... Fort Knox!
We also find out that his secrets for heavy water were in the locked case. But apparently there was also enough in there to get him arrested and turn him into a comic book villain.
Grizlock says the glowing Radium rock is starting to react. But rather than use it like Kryptonite, he plans to use it to power his Supreme Slayer suit, which looks kind of surprisingly like Darius Dax's Tremendroid from issue 42.
Supreme continues to fly around aimlessly looking for Grizlock when he sees a fire on the grounds of the White House. (These guys a re really subtle.) There is Grizlock in his Supreme Slayer!
What will happen next? Will there be a really long, mostly pointless fight? I hope so!
Tucked into this issue is a really nice poster of Supreme by Chris Sprouse.
It's a nice reminder that there are better days ahead for Supreme.
