Gladiator/Supreme came out in March 1997. Written by Keith Giffen. Penciled be Ed Benes and Carlos Mota. Inked by Wellington Dias, Rene Micheletti, and Joe Pimentel.
Was there anyone dying to read a pre-Moore Supreme versus Gladiator of the Shi'Ar comic? Probably not. But here we are. Despite this coming out the same month as Supreme 47, with Moore fully reworking Supreme, this one shot features Giffen's Bible-spouting murderous space Supreme who pops into the comics every now and again.
The issue starts with Gladiator investigating a destroyed Shi'Ar garrison outside the primitive world of Denuvi-7. Someone with extreme power destroyed this place and Gladiator gets a black box to try to figure it out.
On Denuvi-7, Supreme is hanging out when he realizes the people of the planet are making idols of their god.
Deciding to check it out, he also spouts some exposition about how he destroyed the garrison because he didn't want them subjugating the innocent. He gets down to the people, who can't understand him, but he sees their idol, and it looks like him.
Meanwhile Gladiator is reviewing the black box and conclude only two beings could have done it: either that alien who came to earth as a baby or Supreme. (A nice little Superman joke for you.) They warn Gladiator that the people on this planet worship a figure like Supreme, so if he's not careful, he could taint the entire planet against the Shi'Ar. They also don't want Gladiator to become a new idol for the population.
Supreme goes to a church and realizes the priests want Supreme to be their new false god, which he's not having.
So he goes nuts and starts killing the priests and destroying the church when Gladiator shows up. And this being the last pre-Moore Supreme comic, they do what they do and fight for pretty much the rest of the issue.
As they do, they destroy parts of the planet, so the people turn on the priests who told them to worship Supreme. To give credit where it is due. Giffen tells this without any understandable dialog, which is actually some really clever sequential storytelling.
Back to the fighting, Supreme ends up crushing Gladiator into unconsciousness. He checks Gladiator's pulse and can't find one and assumes Gladiator is dead. So he flies off. Gladiator then wakes up and explains that the Shi'Ar don't have pulses or heartbeats.
We end the story with the Shi'Ar opening relations with the inhabitants of Denuvi-7 and the population replacing their faith in Supreme with their faith in the Shi'Ar.
There's almost enough there to be an interesting comic, but just not quite. But it doesn't matter because Moore was already well on his way to turning Supreme into something much better,
So let's end this there. Pre-Moore Supreme was often terribly written, had all kinds of continuity problems, lacked any kind of interesting or consistent backstory or characterization, and never added up even when Jim Valentino tried to retcon the whole thing. People used to ask me if after reading Moore's version, they should read the early issues. I always said I didn't know, as I hadn't read them. Well, the answer is a lot more firm now. But still, it was a fun little trip through the early 1990s Image Comics boom. But I'm also glad to return to much better comics.
Thanks for coming on this trip through time with me. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to drop them int he comments.
