The Grim '80s and Women in Refrigerators

I don't want to dig too deep into this, but the '80s were a bad time to be a supporting character in a comic book:

• There was Karen Page, Daredevil's ex-girlfriend, whom Frank Miller had become addicted to heroin and eventually sell Daredevil's secret identity to the Kingpin.
• Jim Starlin killed off the second Robin when the Joker forced his mom to hand him over and then beat him with a crowbar before blowing them both up with a bomb. Readers could vote for whether Robin would live or die by calling in to a 900 number. The killers won.
• We've already talked about Moore's Killing Joke and what he did to Batgirl.

The '90s didn't start off much better, with Ron Marz writing a story about Green Lantern Kyle Rayner's girlfriend being killed and stuffed in a refrigerator by the villain Major Force.

One interesting thing that came from this last one was that comic writer Gail Simone created a list of fictional female characters who had been "killed, maimed or depowered," in particular in ways that treated the female character as merely a device to move a male character's story arc forward, rather than as a fully developed character in her own right.

When the list was circulated, several comic book creators indicated that the list caused them to pause and think about the stories they were creating. Often these responses contained arguments for or against the use of death or injury of female characters as a plot device.

Marz replied, too: "To me the real difference is less male-female than main character-supporting character. In most cases, main characters, 'title' characters who support their own books, are male. [...] the supporting characters are the ones who suffer the more permanent and shattering tragedies. And a lot of supporting characters are female."

Simone maintained that her simple point had always been: "If you demolish most of the characters girls like, then girls won't read comics. That's it!"

There's been a strong push lately to try to increase female readership and strengthen the female characters in comics. Maybe the comics industry understands what Moore understood in the late '90s: the grim '80s should remain in the past.

Weekly Reading: Supreme: The Return #3

Supreme: The Return #3

Published by Awesome Entertainment in November 1999

The covers:

Title: The Three Worlds of Diana Dane!

(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.)

Five months after issue #2 appeared, issue #3 finally came out. I vaguely recall collecting these issues at the time and was always surprised when I'd get an issue. At this point, I'd long since given up on any hope they'd come out in a timely fashion. I just knew Moore was still doing the issues, and as long as he was, I'd buy the issues whenever they came out.

This being the downward slope of Supreme and Awesome, we need to welcome a couple of new artists: Matt Smith (who mostly goes by Matthew Dow Smith now) and Jim Baikie. Baikie is probably the better known to this audience, having worked on Moore's first long-form story in Skizz for 2000AD, and having co-created and done the art on First American with Moore in the Tomorrow Stories anthology.

Smith is mostly known for some Hellboy stories, and his style is very reminiscent of Mike Mignola. I've heard from more than a few Supreme fans that they didn't think Smith's art style worked on Supreme, but personally, I really like it. I think Smith's style pointed toward the more cartoony/stylized artwork that would become popular in comics in the years to come.

Also, I have this theory that since Supreme was supposed to be a stand-in for Superman--a symbol if you will--as you see him through the lens of different artists, you find out what is the core of that symbol. Symbols work no matter who is drawing them because there is a core essence that is universal. I think that's what we're seeing with Supreme. Even with artists as different as Matt Smith and Alex Ross, there is a core that says "this is Supreme."

Or I could just be bullshitting because I love Supreme. Anyway, let's get in this issue, shall we?

Supreme has invited Diana Dane to the Citadel and is showing her his telescope (not like that) so she can see the Backwards Zone and Emerpus, the Reverse Supreme, as he reassembles a comet and sends it flying backwards into space. He then takes her on a tour of the Citadel, where she sees his robot duplicates.

Diana: "Is that a robot duplicate of Ethan?"

Supreme: "Uh... yes. I'm planning suprematon duplicates of all my friends. I just never seem to get round to the others." Ha.

This is a nice callback to issue 43 when Judy Jordan asked almost the same question.

Supreme shows her his garden, where the telepathy roses cause some embarrassment for Diana. So they don helmets and visit Amalynth, the prism world. They become creatures of light, able to move at that speed, and can explore the world under guises named after Professor Night and Twilight.

They talk to a resident, who mentions Billy Friday's and Optilux's journeys to Amalynth before telling them of the problem of beam bandits. Beam bandits, Supreme tells Diana after they make a hasty exit, steal information, which is the native currency. Supreme transforms them into Dr. Dark and Duskwing, his superhero identity on Amalynth.

Diana: "I look like one of those tragic girls you see at conventions!" Ha. I wonder if Moore's feelings on cosplay have changed as it's become much more accepted in the last 20 years?

They confront the beam bandits and plop them in the photo-penitentiary, where the bandits can reside next to Optilux and "those frightening Bon Jovi cultists."

They return to the Citadel and decide to go to the Time Tower in part two of the story. Diana asks about Suprema and Radar, but Supreme says Suprema is after Slaver Ant (so soon after she was just caught?) and Radar was moody when Supreme mentioned that Diana was visiting. They decide to fly up in the Time Tower to 2150 and are soon in a Jack Kirby-inspired future, drawn by Rick Veitch.

I asked Chris Sprouse why Rick Veitch stuck with Awesome after the financial collapse, and he mentioned that because it took so long for the ABC books to get off the ground, Veitch may have needed the work Awesome provided. And according to Veitch, he made sure he got paid for his work.

In 2150, Supreme and Diana come across the female duo of Fighting American IV and Speedgirl fighting some "fezbollah" terrorists. Soon, the future Supreme, Supremax, comes in to lend a hand. Moore, with his usual knack for twisting the language, has fun with the mixed-up future. Although it's cleary all references to our times: "the disneyest thing" is the most amazing thing, "tysoned" the villains is to knock them out, etc.

Supreme and Diana find out that Supremax is Supreme's grandson just as the villain Baxter Frunnt (back to front) captures them to sell them to Damien Dax. But Diana convinces Frunnt to tell them his (their?) plan and then kicks him in the double crotch. Supremax drops some hints that Diana is his grandmother, but Supreme quickly makes them exit the Time Tower and they head to the lab.

(For some reason, Diana's shirt has now gone from white to red.)

Now Jim Baikie is drawing as Supreme leads Diana through a new golden gate to the Supremacy. They meet up with '50s Supreme and his Diana Dane. The Supremes head off while the Dianas head to the Supremall to hang out with the girls.

Original Diana Dane explain that some Supremes have Dianas and some have Judies, and some have both. At the mall, they meet up with blaxploitation Sister Supreme, Queen Diana from the '60s, traumatized grim '80s Diana and Diana Duck.

This is basically one long joke about how women are treated in comics. The '50s version tells our Diana to be, "independent and plucky, but often do things that are moronic or out of character!" The '60s version tells her to "be snoopy and pry into his secret identity!" Whereas, '80s version tells her, "H-He'll pay more attention once you're raped, crucified and hooked on heroin..." She says they had a phone-in to determine whether she should be killed or just tortured (in a reference to the death of Robin, which I'll talk about later). Diana Duck's advice is simple: "Wear a big hairbow and no pants!"

This section falls into Moore doing his Mad Magazine routine, with Baikie a good fit for the material, as Moore explained in a tribute to Baikie after his death:

"Several years later we found ourselves working together again, this time for Image Comics and its various splinter-companies, most memorably on Supreme, where I remember Jim contributing to a riotous comedic short piece that played with the most ludicrous and fondly-remembered tropes of early 1960s superhero comics, and gave Jim a chance to indulge his extreme fondness for Harvey Kurtzman and Will Elder’s anarchic and demented Mad extravaganzas."

The Dianas meet back up with the Supremes and the characters from our continuity make their exit. Supreme offers to show her more, but Diana corners him, asking him if he likes her, which he says he does. "When you like a girl, do you always take her to a string of different worlds, times and dimensions to get her attention," she asks. Yes, he does. So she kisses him.

We see Radar listening to them as we end the issue. I wonder what it means. Obviously we'll find out next week in "...And Every Dog its Day!"

While this issue is sort of hit or miss for me, I like that we've finally gotten a view of Emerpus and Amalynth, after so many references to them in earlier issues. Moore and Veitch's Kirby tribute is okay, but there's a much better one coming up. And I mostly dislike Moore's use of the Supremacy here. Even if his criticism of how women are treated in comics is well intentioned, it's so obvious and not particularly funny, that I think it drags the issue down toward the end.

In the back of the issue, we get a preview for Lary Stucker's Brigade, which I was surprised to find is better than I thought, but I'll talk about that and a lot of Awesome odds and ends in a later post.

As always, please check out the Supreme Annotations Page, for more details and references and please help me by letting me know anything I missed that can be added. Thanks!

The Allies (or are they?)

While Moore was working for Awesome, he wrote a proposal for an Allies series, which never saw the light of day. It was going to feature Supreme, Glory, Professor Night, Roman, Die Hard, Spacehunter and The Fisherman. I can only assume the stories would have been similar to the one that appeared in Judgment Day: Aftermath.

Strangely, in 1999, long after Moore had left, Awesome announced an Allies series written by Eric Stephenson based on Moore's story ideas. They even had an ad for it in the back of Supreme: The Return #1:

 

Of course, those weren't the characters from Moore's suggestions. Here's what Stephenson said about working on it:

"The Allies is going to be a lot of fun. I'm trying to stay true to what Alan laid down for these characters as far as the groundwork goes, but at the same time, I'm not slavishly imitating his style or approach. I don't even know if it's possible to do that! At any rate, the line up for the new team is Die Hard, Supreme, Glory, Badrock, Spellcaster, Thor and Fighting American and the first issue deals more or less with how this new team is assembled and how they deal with their first threat. An important thing to note about the team is that it's essentially a group of seven heavy hitters. These guys will be handling huge, larger than life crises in a way that teams like Youngblood just plain couldn't."

And here's what Rob Liefeld had to say about it in November 1998 in Newsarama:

"While the majority of titles that Awesome has published have catered to the

fantasy/sci-fi audience we want to get back into the super-hero business in a

big way and THE ALLIES is our ticket," said Liefeld. "Alan has created a great

batch of new super-villains in Dr. Drang, The Killer Mist, The Basilisk, and

Florax The Dominator! This team boasts what I believe to be the most powerful

line up in comics history. It's not often you get the Thunder God of Myth

standing next to the most powerful man in the universe. The stories will be on

a grand scale with epic confrontations, but we know that the characterization

is what will bring the readers back. Eric and I collaborated on what many

agree to be the best work of my career in YOUNGBLOOD #6-10 and a few TEAM

YOUNGBLOODs, and this work will easily top those efforts. I'll be doing the

first four issues of THE ALLIES and then I'll begin work on the RE:GEX movie

and begin working on a new RE:GEX mini-series. THE ALLIES will be a big book

for Awesome and will open up a whole new field of opportunities for us."

Newsarama later asked More about the Allies:

"Allies comes from a bunch of very, very short, very brief synopses that

I did for Awesome a couple of years ago," Moore says. "The ad that ran in

Previews is actually completely out of date and has noting to do with the

comic that is going to be coming out. As Rob explained it to me that was the

art they had, on hand. The team I wrote was made up of completely different

characters."

Also, the creator credit will be slightly different than originally reported.

"I've got no objection to Rob using any stuff of mine that he paid for," Moore

says. "However, I told him that I'd prefer if he downplayed the "stories by

Alan Moore" aspect because my input if anything was very skeletal outlines.

But Rob assures me that nevertheless, they are bigger, stronger outlines than

anyone else in the business, but by my standards, these are three or four

line, vague ideas for possible stories. As far as I am concerned, The Allies

is a Rob Liefeld/Eric Stephenson production, and any resemblance to my stories

will probably be coincidental. There wasn't much there to begin with."

Rob Liefeld however, politely disagrees with Moore. "As you can imagine with

the stories that have circulated about how detailed Alan's scripts are (We

have his scripts for a four-issue Warchild miniseries that he wrote for us,

and literally, Alan wrote four pages describing the first page of the issue.

The first panel is an entire page!), his synopses and outlines much more than

the standard length and content."

"Alan wrote very thorough synopses for The Allies that have true beginnings,

middles and ends," Liefeld says. "What he calls 'synopses' are more complete

than what some creators call 'scripts.' But in accordance with Alan's wishes,

The Allies will now read, "from stories by Alan Moore." But everything else

that will be coming from Awesome is fully written by him, and I think people

are going to be very excited to see it."

Moore need not have worried, as none of the issues from The Allies ever made it to print. Maybe one day we'll get to read the proposal so we at least know what his ideas for the series were.