Reading pre-Moore Supreme - Supreme #24

Supreme issue 24 came out in February 1995. Gary Carlson was the writer. Penciled by Cedric Nocon with Shannon Denton. Inked by Norm Rapmund. Lettered and associate editored by Kurt Hathaway.  

What a cover! Not only are we in Extreme Sacrifice Aftermath, but Supreme Apocalypse is coming!! Words! That sound extreme! When strung together! But mean nothing!!

Okay, against my better judgment, let's take a look at the issue. We start with a cult member named the Baptist sacrificing someone to "the dark one." It's like someone at Extreme discovered religion and rather than any reading or anything, just took random words and threw them in this comic. He rips out the guys heart, washes it in a pool of water and sticks it back in the guy, who is now called Blackheart. Shrug. None of this comes up again in this issue, so who cares.

Cut to half a world away, a flying man gets struck by lightning and crashes into Tokyo. 

I'm pretty sure this isn't the way lightning works, because a person needs to be grounded to feel the shock, but expecting that kind of knowledge from the Extreme Bros is way too much.

The Cor-Tek corporation sends out Zero Squadron (named after the Zero fighter plane during WWII), an armored super squad. 

Watching them fly off, the head of Cor-Tek takes a call from a Predator-looking guy named Dexter Cortex (guess it's his company), who tells him to figure out who the flying guy was.

Meanwhile, on the ground, the flying guy has no pulse! He's dead. 

Oh wait, nope. He's feeling better. 

This has to be a gag, right? They've now done this fake death thing in two consecutive issues. 

Anyway, he gets up but has no idea who he is. I mean he looks like a young Supreme, has a white, red and gold costume like Supreme, and this is Supreme's book, so let's say he's probably Supreme. Oh, and one random guy on the street tells him that he's Supreme. Good enough for me.

The Japanese are not too fond of Supreme, having single-handedly dropped the nuclear bombs on Japan during WWII. And that's when the Zero Squadron attack.  

There's a lot of fighting, including when Amnesia Supreme accidentally kills one of Zero Squadron with his laser eyes because he forgot he had laser eyes. 

Not going to lie. That was a little funny. 

The Japanese head of Cor-Tek decides to commit suicide to atone for the utter failure of Zero Squadron, but before he can go through with it, Dexter shows up and kills him first. 

Extreme!

I kind of like to imagine this is how Elon Musk runs his companies when he's all hopped up on drugs. 

We see Amnesia Supreme sitting on the ground when a kid shows up and tells him, no, he's not Supreme. And then he shows Amnesia Supreme the issue of Supreme 25, which we'll find out more about next.

So, look. I'm glad they're going in a new direction. @$$hole Supreme was a total drag. The Thor hammer thing was stupid and went on forever. But I'm not sold on Amnesia Supreme just yet.

Reading pre-Moore Supreme - Supreme #23

 

Supreme issue 23 came out in January 1995. Rob Liefeld did the story. It was scripted by Gary Carlson. Penciled by Cedric Nocon and inked by Norm Rapmund. And lettering by Kurt Hathaway.  

Oh boy, this comic is part 2 of Extreme Sacrifice, a company-wide crossover event. Those are my favorite kind of company-wide events. Forget picnics. Crossovers!

You know how you can tell this stuff sucked? There's no Wikipedia entry for it. That means I actually have to figure out what it is to explain it. Ugh.

As far as I can tell, Chapel, one of the Youngblood, kills himself to take over Hell and now plans to start Armageddon. He sends a guy named Crypt to lead the apocalypse and kill some newborn, who is the only hope for humanity. Crypt attacks Supreme, which gets us to this issue.

We start the issue with Supreme on the moon in a costume much like the one from Legend of Supreme for absolutely no reason, since the personality is not the same at all and that one had powers and this one must still rely on Thor's hammer. But why should we let continuity bother us by this point? 

Supreme is having big, existential thoughts about the state of superheroes in the Extreme universe while hanging all over the American flag left by the Apollo astronauts. Why? No idea.

Suddenly Crypt shows up and stabs Supreme through the back. 

They fight for a bit, with Crypt doing most of the damage before Crypt impales Supreme with the flagpole. 

Splurting blood in ways that blood does not splurt in outer space (thank you Star Trek VI), Supreme continues to fight and Crypt teleports Supreme back to Earth, where he is ultimately found to be dead. 

Except, no, a reporter reports Supreme felt better and flew off after Crypt.

I think they realized they hadn't actually finished the page count for the issue, so they just stretched the fight out even longer and ignored the dialog about Supreme being dead.

There's a side plot  about Knightsabre and Graves fighting about who is on whose side in this war of good and evil. Moore will later cast these two as father and son, but they sure don't act like it here.

In New York, we see Supreme and Crypt continuing to fight. 

Sometimes I feel like maybe I should write more about these fight scenes. Like maybe I'm doing a disservice to these comics. But they include dialog like, "I'm sick of your mouth, Crypt! You keep taunting me, but you forget one thing--I am Supreme!" And that's why I'm happy to skip over these pages and pages of pointless fighting.

So Crypt finally kills him (or does he) and tosses the body into Spawn's alley. 

But all Spawn finds is a ragged cloak and some blood. Supreme's body is gone!

What will happen next? A whole new era of Supreme. Yay! But not a good one. Boo!

Reading pre-Moore Supreme - Supreme #22

 

Supreme issue 22 came out in December 1994. Story, editing and lettering by Kurt Hathaway. But Rob Liefeld also did the story. It was scripted by Gary Carlson of Big Bang Comics fame. Layouts by Cedric Nocon, penciled by Mark Pajarillo, and inked by Norm Rapmund, Mark Morales and Vince Russell.

We begin the issue seeing a dwarf magician making a hammer that looks strikingly like Thor's hammer. When it's done, she sends it to Odin in Asgard.

 

It turns out this new hammer is Skjyllnir, the perfect copy of Mjollnir, except its powers only last 15 hours. Given to Thor, now he and Supreme can fight. Thank goodness. I was afraid this book would be about something. 

They trade blows for a while Loki fumes and wants to see Thor lose. So he uses his spells to help
Supreme, such as when a mountain falls on top of him. 

 

Supposedly he uses his magic to make Supreme angrier, but I've been reading this comic and Loki doesn't need to do anything to make Supreme angrier. That's his default state.

Thor separates Supreme from his hammer, but Supreme just calls it back to him. Meanwhile Baldr confronts Loki and makes him stop helping Supreme. 

 

Even without the cheating, Supreme blasts Thor's hammer from him and then destroys the hammer, leaving Supreme the victor. 

 

Just as Odin is declaring Supreme the victor, Baldr forces Loki to confess. Odin sends him to the netherworld. 

Odin says that since Supreme won at the end without Loki's help, Supreme is the winner and can keep the hammer. 

 

What!?! We have spent 14 issues, more than half with Supreme with no powers except those from the hammer of a watered down copy of Marvel's Thor. And now we've confirmed that he's going to keep using it for the foreseeable future? This is such a stupid comic. 

Oh, and we're about to wade into a company-wide crossover, so this comic is about to get even stupider. 

Ugh.