Reading pre-Moore Supreme - Supreme #5

  

Supreme issue 5 came out in August 1993. Rob Liefeld provided the story. Brian Murray wrote the script, pencilled and did the colors. Chris Ivy did the inks. Kurt Hathaway did the lettering and has now taken over as editor. Interesting.

We start off with some backstory from Khrome about how Supreme used to be his ally. Together they fought with the Katellans against the Torgans. I really have no idea who any of these races are and they play no role in anything I've ever read before or after this, so I'm not going to bother trying to find out more.

 

Anyway, Khrome became a galactic warlord and has now decided to invade Earth... mainly because Supreme is from there! Lucky Earth!

We then get more fighting between Heavy Mettle and Khrome until Supreme joins in and there's even more fighting. There's a ridiculous scene where Khrome grabs a fully loaded jet and smashes it into Supreme, killing all on board.  

 We see a reporter covering the events, who will become important in the issues to come.

Meanwhile, we get some portents of things to come with some people from the future and a god.

 

 

 

 

And then it's back to more of the fight with Khrome, which inexplicably, goes on for another issue! See you next time for more Khrome. 

Reading pre-Moore Supreme - Supreme #4

 

 

Supreme 4 was published in Jul 1993 with a plot by Rob Liefeld; pencils, script and colors by Brian Murray; and lettering by Kurt Hathaway.

After dealing with the terrorists at Dulles Airport in Washington, DC, he flies off to go confront Khrome, the alien leader with a grievance against Supreme. 

We get some scenes of infighting with Heavy Mettle, but they're not going to be around much longer, so let's not worry about them. 

As Supreme fights a Khrome clone, the real Khrome transports to Dulles and blows it up, for reasons that are never explained. I think to punish Supreme? 

There's a long pointless fight between Khrome and Heavy Mettle, which goes about how you would expect.

Supreme figures out the clone situation and goes down to fight Khrome. 

We don't really learn anything new about Supreme or anything that will become important in his later, Moore incarnation.

This is kind of what I assumed these early Supremes were like and they're not letting me down!

Next time... more Khrome... yay. 

Reading pre-Moore Supreme - Supreme #3

Supreme 3 came out in June 1993 and was co-plotted by Rob Liefeld, written and pencilled by Brian Murray, inked by Chris Ivy and lettered by Kurt Hathaway.

This issue starts with Heavy Mettle (the corporate/government group Supreme has joined) looking at film of Supreme in WWII:

Here is one of the first references to the Allies as a super powered group active in WWII and how they helped the Allied powers win the war. But we only get images of Supreme, so we don't know the members of the Allies yet.

We learn a little more about Heavy Mettle before they're dispatched to protect some Pacifica Coexistence Summit. Terrorists show up, as does Bloodstrike, another government op force. They kill the terrorists, including one who Supreme basically microwaves his skull. But then Supreme realizes Khrome, a Katellan alien, is summoning him to fight in space or something.

      

After the first couple of pages, I lost interest for the terrorist subplot, so I decided to look up Brian Murray. Turns out he went on to do a lot of work for DC and Marvel before becoming a Hollywood concept artist, working on stuff like Star Trek: Picard, Mortal Kombat 12, Spider-Man: Far from Home, Ready Player One, and Solo – A Star Wars Story.