The Rick Veitch commission

I talked before about how lucky I was to get to meet Chris Sprouse and get a commission of the Family Supreme from him. Well, I had one other commission I wanted to get and it was from the artist who was there from (nearly) the beginning to (nearly) the ending and best represents what Supreme was about: Rick Veitch.

I knew what I wanted for a commission, and there was only one artist who would be perfect. While Sprouse probably is better known for Supreme, as it really launched his career, Veitch made Supreme into something special, capturing the heart of Superman comics as they evolved over the decades.

He sometimes takes commissions at his website. So I bugged him and bugged him and bugged him for more than a year before he finally said that he'd do it. This is what I asked for:

I was wondering if you would have any interest in doing a cover for an imaginary Supreme #64? A cover for how the series should have ended.

Considering that Supreme was a homage to the silver age of Superman comics and about the incredible power of the imagination, I thought maybe something similar to Curt Swan’s cover of Superman #423. After all, this would be a cover for a true “imaginary story!”

It could suggest that it was going to tie up all the loose threads: the attack by the Daxes, the return of Radar and Talos, the secret of supremium, the marriage of Supreme and Diana Dane, the final battle with The End, or whatever else you might like to do.

He said sure and I worked out a rough layout for what I was looking for.

My art skills are sick!

I mentioned about how I had heard Alan Moore had planned for Radar's planet as well as Judy and Talos's planets to come help battle the Daxes, so that's why I wanted it on there. I also mentioned that I had heard Moore planned to do a third year exploring inside the supremium meteor, to which he replied: 

About the rumor concerning Superme going into the Supremium.  I can confirm that Alan had planned a new story arc with that very plot. Supreme would have met all the Superman knock-offs in there.  Whole thing went up in smoke when Leifeld went bust.

He asked me to send reference images, because he didn't remember all the characters. He even asked me for images of The End's face, which of course, there never were any. Eventually he settled on a Darkseid-like face, which is awesome since I had heard Moore planned for The End to be a version of Darkseid.

I also asked him a number of questions, to which he was nice enough to answer for me: 

Q: Did you ever read the New Men, Prophet or Allies proposals? There’s been so much speculation about those. 

A: Didn’t read them.  But I did work up about 20 character sketches for the Awesome Universe that Alan was building. [Ed -- You can see them here] 

Q: Why did you stick around for the back-up story in Supreme The Return 3 and the amazing Kirby story in 6 when both Moore and Sprouse left after Awesome went under (the first time)? 

A: Alan and I knew Rob was poison but we loved working the Silver Age stuff so much we kept doing it even with the late checks etc. 

Q: How did you come on the series? There were quite a few mentions that Swan was going to do some of the flashbacks? 

A: Alan originally envisioned Swan but his health had taken a bad turn.  So he asked me. 

Q: Did you reach out to the other artists who had worked on Superman and Supergirl comics to help you on the flashbacks or did Moore (I assume it wasn’t Eric Stephenson)? Like Jim Mooney for the Suprema flashback and Bill Wray for the Mad Magazine homage? 

A: Eric Stephenson brought in Jim and Bill.

He then sent me this rough:

Then a tighter sketch:

The only change I had was Judy Jordan's costume didn't have two Js.

I couldn't get Todd to do a commission (he's much too busy), so Rick connected me with Steve Conley to handle the Klein-like lettering. I told him that I wanted it to be from Image and be #64 but to otherwise feel as much like Superman #423 as it could. He did a great job:

It then went back to Rick who did the inking over the lettering, making it feel all of a piece. And here's the result:

Just for fun, I had it colored in a flat style much like Superman #423:

 
It's been a dream of mine to get something like this for a long time. It's beautiful and will be hanging in my office very soon. I'm also thinking of using it for a little project I'll talk about later.

Here's what Rick said about the final piece:

It was a blast doing. I like the idea of printing the lettering too. Makes for a lovely final piece!

I couldn't agree more!

Wizard: The last Alan Moore Supreme interview

Let's go down the League of Infinity's Time Tower stairs a little way and come out in May 1998. Awesome has pretty much closed up, though they weren't really telling anyone yet, and another issue of Supreme wouldn't show up on the stands for an entire year!

However, in Wizard Magazine, Awesome was fully promoting their comics, including this half of a two-page ad:

 

This trade paperback would never come out. This Alex Ross painting would eventually be used as a Wizard giveaway. And Supreme with Alan Moore and Chris Sprouse would only come out for one more issue, and certainly not monthly!

Tucked away in the issue was a two page spread on Supreme, featuring a wonderful pin-up by Chris Sprouse:

 

Most of the "article" is devoted to what Moore had already done with Supreme, but they interviewed Moore (presumably before he found out Awesome was toast and bailed). This was just as he was finishing up his scripts on what would become Supreme: The Return #3-6 and Supreme #63. He even talked about his plans for #64 and what might be beyond:

SUPREME'S ROMANCE with Diana Dane takes a step forward in April's issue #59, when Supreme takes Diana on a tour of worlds. "He takes her to Prisimworld, which is made entirely of light," Supreme writer Alan Moore says. "Then they go to the year 2150, where they meet the female Fighting American IV. And then to the Supremacy, where all the other-continuity versions of Supreme and Diana exist. All the Dianas get together and have a little coffee morning to compare notes, something which makes Supreme slightly nervous.

All of Supreme's affection for Diane doesn't sit too well with his best friend, however. "In issue #60, Radar, who's been feeling left out, basically reaches dog puberty, and goes out to find his own love life," Moore says. "Those two issues will be a little lightness before #61, which is a fairly mind-bending encounter with the alien Supremium Man."

After that, Supreme will find a new civilization deep in the Himalayas with extremely familiar overtones in #62, which will serve as a break before stuff starts to hit the fan with issue #63. "Supreme #63 will be called 'Revelations,'" Moore says. "It will feature the return of a major villain, an interlude and dark clouds gathering for #64, which will be at least double-sized and features a massive war between two different cultures that has been building for a little time now."

And after that? "Right now, #64 may be my last issue," Moore notes. "It all depends on whether or not I can find a new line of stories I feel is interesting and worth developing. There's one possibility that [Moore's friend, writer/artist] Rick Veitch and I are talking about, so we'll see where that goes."

The rumors I've heard suggest that Moore planned to have the Supremacy and Daxia fight in issue #64 with Talos's world and Radar's world eventually joining the battle and shifting the balance to help the Supremes to win.

Rick Veitch and others have talked about Moore's plans for a third year, with the idea of Supreme exploring inside the supremium meteor. One rumor I heard, which Veitch confirmed, suggested that Supreme would have run into other superman figures from comicdom, perhaps like Moore's own version of Marvelman, etc.

A fun little comicstrip found at Alan Moore World

One final fun little nugget from the Wizard article: they asked Moore about issue #50, Sprouse's first issue:

SUPREME #50-The beginnings of the Supreme/Diana Dane relationship, featuring Supreme recounting some of his more colorful relationships. "One of the better balanced issues so far," says Moore, "and [penciler] Chris Sprouse's first issue, which I thought looked wonderful."

It's hard to read this and not get nostalgic for what an amazing run it was and get wistful for how it all ended so badly. 

Weekly reading: Supreme #63

Supreme #63

Published by Awesome Entertainment in April 2012

The covers:

Title: Revelations

(As always: Supreme is currently out of print. There are a number of ways to read it, which can be found on the How do I read Moore's Awesome works page.)

For twelve years I knew there was a script for this issue and I always just assumed it would never see the light of day, much less actually be turned into a comic. Then came word in 2011 that Erik Larsen, of Savage Dragon fame, would be relaunching the series, starting with Alan Moore's last script.

Holy Malloly!

According to Larsen, he was interested in dealing with Rob Liefeld's original idea of Supreme, about a supreme being with no morals holding him back. He decided to start with Moore's last script as a good launching spot to get there.

Unlike a million other promises by Rob Liefeld this one did materialize. It wasn't drawn well. The covers suck. It leaves us on a cliffhanger that Erik Larsen completely manhandles in following issues. But you know what, who cares? It's an issue of Alan Moore's Supreme that I never expected. And that's always a great thing.

So let's dig in.

Supposedly, Checker, who had published the collections, raised a stink about Image publishing this issue, feeling that they had the rights to all of Moore's Supremes. But Image prevailed and decided to renumber the Rob Liefeld series to go back to the original numbering and add up all the other series to get to what might be considered the real numbers. So this became Supreme #63 because Supreme ended at 56, then there were 6 issues of The Return and then this one. So, I guess Supreme Sacrifice didn't count. Never mind, I'll get to that later.

Looking at those covers above, it's like a contest to see what's the worst art they could use to promote this book and it was a three-way tie, so they all got covers!

On the inside front cover, they swipe Todd Klein's credits page even though it has nothing to do with the Story of the Year storyline:

But at least they have taste.

The issue starts with the Omniman comic-within-a-comic as Omniman of the present is confronted by a Oscar the Omnibunny and Original Omniman. They take him to a Supremancy-based Omnigarchy. We see Darius Dax reading the comic in a comic shop, which carries forward the nice meta commentary Moore had been building on in previous issues.

But Dax is troubled. The concept sounds familiar to Daxia, which is too much to be a coincidence.

In the Citadel, Diana Dane is strolling through Supreme's zoo, where she meets Luriel, the angel. She asks if Luriel still has a thing for Supreme, but she can never be with Supreme because she's real and Supreme is just an imaginary idea.

Then Suprema flies up and confronts Diana. Diana recognizes her from the coffee shop back in issue #52A, so Suprema is irked that Diana knows her secret identity. Suprema wants to make sure Diana isn't an alien trying to get retribution on Supreme by marrying him and then destroying him.

Suprema: "Sorry to ask, but you'd be surprised how often that happens." Ha.

Suprema and Diana talk for a bit before Suprema admits: "Y-You think I'm prissy, don't you? I mean everybody in Youngblood thinks I'm prissy! Even Twilight, she's my best friend, and she does this impression of me that's all squeaky, like a cartoon?"

It's a nice vulnerable moment for Suprema that isn't quite ruined by Larsen's art.

Diana tells her that she just needs friends who don't have superpowers. She offers to hang out, which Suprema thinks would be peachy. Supreme flies up and he heads off with Diana to get dinner.

Meanwhile, Dax decides to go to Daxia to share his revelation. He meets up with Darius Duck and they go to talk with King Dax. Our Dax tells them about the comic and how he thinks there must be a Supremia. But if so, they don't know anything about Daxia and are ripe for attack.

Our Dax has a tryst with an evil Diana Dane (Dianax), and there's the subtle hint dropped that they might plot to overthrow King Dax.

Moore has a nice structure of the issue going switching back and forth from Supreme to Dax, seeing the parallels and differences in the characters and worlds.

In the Citadel, Supreme and Diana's date is starting to heat up as he takes her to his room to see the hand creating the universe. At the same time, Dianax is caught in bed by her husband Daxian, whom our Dax kills.

As Supreme and Diana share a wonderful moment of lovemaking, the Daxes gear up and head for war.

The issue ends with a cloud of Daxes about to attack the Citadel while Diana, in Supreme's arms says, "It feels as if the Earth is moving, a-and as if the sky is opening...and as if there's nothing in the world but love."

 

And that's the end of Alan Moore's Supreme. Considering all that has happened, I find it hard to believe he'd ever return to pen a finale. In one sense, this was the way Supreme had to end, on a cliffhanger. Moore had too many jokes about revisions coming at the worst moments for it not to end this way. And read Diana's words again. The Earth moving. The sky opening. And then a world that is nothing but love. Doesn't that sound like she's moving into the Supremacy?

I can reconcile it in my head, but the heart is unsatisfied. I want the war with the Daxes. I want to know how supremium is involved. I want to reconcile the idea that they're stories, which Supreme is coming to realize. I want to see Talos and Radar bring their worlds into the fight. I want too much, I know. But I'll talk more about that later.

Larsen started his run writing the series with Supreme #64. I'll talk about that run late next week. While I'm conflicted on it, I want to make this clear. I'm eternally grateful that Larsen decided to draw this issue. he didn't have to and it could have easily stayed buried for many more years. The only reason we have it is because of Larsen, and for that, he will always get credit in my book (or on my blog, which I'm sure will make him sleep easier at night).

Starting next week: After Awesome!

As always, please check out the Annotations Page for more details and references and be sure to let me know any that I missed.