Reading pre-Moore Supreme - Supreme #8

 

Supreme issue 8 was published in December 1993. Ripley provides the story. Kurt Hathaway does the story, scripting, lettering and editing. Shawn McManus does the pencils and the inks.

This is such an aggravating issue. Basically, Thor was fooled into working for Hitler during WWII. He learned of his error and after some kind of delay, is now back to do it. In fact, that's what he tells Supreme.

 

Not understanding what Thor tells him explicitly, Supreme decides to just fight Thor.

Ugh.

Meanwhile Max has convinced her editors to let her do a live interview with Supreme. The only problem, she doesn't know how to get ahold of Supreme to agree to it.

The long-forgotten subplot of the serial killer Grizlock continues with him returning to his secret lab. And he immediately starts shouting at the top of his lungs. Why? 

Because it's EXTREME!

The fight between Supreme and Thor continues. And despite Thor explaining exactly why he's there...

 

...Supreme is like, "Is it possible he doesn't realize--" that Hitler is dead. 

This is so stupid.

Also stupid, the fight is going to continue on for a third issue. yay

Interestingly enough, Shawn McManus, who handles the art here, illustrated two of Alan Moore's Swamp Thing issues and, later, with his daughter Leah Moore on Wildstorm's Wild Girl.  He also worked on Sandman and a number of other good series. He's definitely better than what he got to work with in Supreme.

Reading pre-Moore Supreme - Supreme #7

 

 

Supreme issue 7 came out in November 1993. The story is by Eric Stephenson and someone named, I kid you not, Ripley. Pencils and inks are by Shawn McManus. Kurt Hathaway has now taken over the writing, lettering and editing. That's efficient. Just have the letterer try to make it all make sense.

The superpowered beings from the future are known as Starguard and we get their roll call in one of those weird rotated double-page splashes Extreme used to love doing: 

 

They're here to offer a warning. What's the warning? "...be ready--ready to conquer the menace when it arises." That is really helpful. Before they can say more, their emergency alarm goes off and they have to hurry and deal with it... because Ripley and the other writers don't really understand how time travel works. Sigh.  

We then get back to the weird plot about the reporter, Max. Apparently now she's incredibly mad about Dulles airport blowing up... because her dad was inside! 

This is brand new information that isn't presented in any kind of believable way. It's like they realized that her motivation made no sense, so they decided to one up it... to the EXTREME!

Anyway, Max confronts Supreme, demanding he take responsibility, which SHOCKER, he does not.

There's a whole thing about Heavy Mettle being scrapped, which is just about as boring as when Heavy Mettle was active. 

We cut to Thor, who is in Germany, demanding to be taken to see Adolf Hitler. 

 

Thor has returned to kill Hitler, not realizing it is 1993. Supreme flies off to deal with Thor.

I can't wait to see how they resolve this. Maybe by sitting down and having a metaphysical debate about whether gods can exist if no one believes in their mythology anymore? 
 

Reading pre-Moore Supreme - Supreme #6

  

Supreme issue 6 came out in October 1993. Rob Liefeld did the story. Brian Murray did the lettering, story, script, and colors. Chris Ivy did the inks. Kurt Hathaway is the letterer and editor.

The story starts with all five then-living presidents talking about the destruction from the ongoing Supreme/Khrome fight and it is amazing!

 

I can't decide whether they're trolling us or if they actually believe all the ex-presidents were just hanging out with Bill Clinton. Either way, I want more of this! Anyway, Clinton orders Bloodstrike to take down Supreme, which happened over in the Bloodstrike series. (I'll talk about this very slightly at the end.)

In the fight, Supreme discovers the secret to Khrome's power and takes off to disable it, to the chagrin of reporter Max, who hates Supreme (we'll get more into that later). 

We get a few cutaways to side plots (Thor is still around; the serial killer Grizlock has escaped; Heavy Mettle is still boring; etc.). 

Supreme disables Khrome's powers and kills Khrome:

 

Supreme proceeds to quit Heavy Mettle and plans to track down Grizlock when some superpowered beings from the future show up and call Supreme their father: 

 

 

Yeah, ok. What a weird comic. At least you never really know what's going to happen next. 

Let's now take a quick look at Bloodstrike issue 5.

Bloodstrike are assigned to take out Supreme. It doesn't go well for them:

The end. 

Don't worry, though. Bloodstrike works for a covert government project that resurrects them, so they can come back and do more deep ops. Phew!