Reading pre-Moore Supreme - Supreme #37

 

 

Supreme issue 37 came out in March  1996. Jim Valentino did the script and layouts. Pencils by Joe Bennett. Inked by Norm Rapmund. Lettered by Kurt Hathaway. Eric Stephenson was the editor and did the co-plot. There were two covers, both by Dan Fraga.

We pick up with Supreme, now in the body of Old Bearded Supreme with the constantly smoking Trenchcoat Constantine. He asks where the other Supreme went and the Wannabe Constantine says he's off doing some good deed with his boy scout mentality, and I can't tell if he's being ironic or just has never read this comic before.

New Supreme in Old Bearded Supreme's Body says he wants to kill Old Bearded Supreme in New Supreme's Body and Trenchcoat Constantine offers to help. Why? Because he is wily and plays by his own rules. And it's really annoyingly dumb.

In outer space, Probe is flying to find Supreme when she's stopped by Enigma, some cosmic mysterious character, that apparently existed before this random cameo. They have a conversation about how Probe knows Enigma from the future before Enigma says that he's going to teach Probe how to use her powers.

On Other Earth, Old Bearded Supreme in New Supreme's Body rescues a runaway commuter train. 

And as he flies off (I guess we've forgotten that Supreme can't fly on this planet) New Supreme in Old Bearded Supreme's Body blasts him with some high-tech weaponry.

Enigma renames Probe as Lady Supreme and teaches her how to use her Supreme powers. Her real Supreme power is keeping her torn-apart costume to remain exactly in place. 

Back on Other Earth, some woman named Mrs. Spencer tells someone named Louis to go get footage of the Supremes fight for their TV channel. And to take Bartholomew. I guess that's someone named Jamie, because he grabs her and takes a flying car to the fight. 

He starts reporting and tells us how the Shepherd and the Keep took this Earth's superpowered beings and the non-powered villains went wild. Then Supreme showed up. But as his beard grew, his powers started to fade. This makes almost no sense, since the Keep stuff happened like two issues ago. Whatever.

In space, Enigma says Probe is ready and teleports them to the Supreme fight. Probe puts a stop to the fighting and they decide to try to figure out who is the real Supreme. 

They call out Wannabe Constantine, but he reveals that he's actually Loki!

 

Three more issues to go! 

Reading pre-Moore Supreme - Supreme #36

 

Supreme issue 36 came out in February 1996. Eric Stephenson did the story. Jim Valentino did the script and layouts. Pencils by Joe Bennett. Inked by Norm Rapmund. Lettered by Kurt Hathaway. 

Eric Stephenson's run sure didn't last too long did it before Valentino stepped in, did it? I know Valentino was part of the effort to bring Moore onto Supreme, reportedly telling Moore that they wanted him to do whatever DC wouldn't let Moore do with Superman. So I think Valentino is trying to tie up all the loose threads on Supreme to make way for Moore to take over with a clean slate. And boy does this comic need it, because it's become a mess.

We start with Probe in outer space, her costume in tatters but somehow magically covering the necessary tiny bits. Recovering from the fight with Shepherd, she was able to telepathically get the location for where he last saw Supreme in outer space.

 

Also, she's coming to the realization that she doesn't feel pain the way she did before taking over Val-En's body, and coming to the conclusion that maybe the pain has only been psychosomatic. So, hoping to get some training on using her Supreme-like powers, she flies off toward Supreme. 

Back on Earth, Kid Supreme is in the middle of a student and teacher brawl. He's wondering why everyone seems so enraged and fighting each other. 

 

We then cut to Sith, one of the Keep, who is doing something with the former Youngblood member Psi-Fire to make the whole world brim with hatred. 

Kid Supreme discovers some Latina girl with shock powers who is killing one of the teachers at his school. 

He's too late to save the teacher and after knocking out the girl, feels really guilty. As he's walking away, she wakes up and vows to kill him.

On other Earth, Old Bearded Supreme and Trench Coat Constantine are examining Supreme. They think he might be a clone or something, but we find out Old Bearded Supreme no longer has his super powers. He says that his captor made this world into a perfect prison for him. But that Supreme offers Old Bearded Supreme the means to defeat his mysterious captor.

He proceeds to put his personality into Supreme's body, giving himself his powers back.

 

I will say Valentino's characters do go on and on, talking/thinking a lot but not saying much. And rather than tying things up, it seems like they're just getting more complicated.

Oh well. Only a few more issues left. 

Reading pre-Moore Supreme - Supreme #35

 

Supreme issue 35 came out in January 1996. Rob Liefeld and Eric Stephenson did the story. Stephenson did the script. Pencils by Joe Bennett. Inked by Norm Rapmund. Lettered by Kurt Hathaway.

Hey look, another company-wide crossover. These are always the best, aren't they? As always, I'm only recapping what happened in Supreme, not the other issues. According to the "Story so far" section of the credits page, something called the Keep is trying to invade Earth and the Extreme Universe characters are trying to stop it.

We start with Probe in space having ripped a hole in the Keep's mothership. She goes back in thinking there's a Nu Gene inside (Nu Gene being the Extreme equivalent of a mutant from Marvel). Instead she finds the Shepherd (what is Liefeld's obsession with religious terminology) and they immediately start fighting. Swell.

 

On Prophet's space station, a bunch of heroes show up and try to communicate with Dr. Wells, who sends Prophet to join them.

On the Keep mothership, a bunch of heroes are confronting Quantum, the homicidal killer and father of Battlestone and Cabbot. He agrees to help the heroes confront the Keep.

Back to Probe battling Shepherd. He tells her that he's seen Supreme out among the stars, which piques Probe's interest. 

On Earth, the Keep are blowing things up as the heroes from the space station teleport somewhere and rescue some other heroes. Basically, all of the other heroes are joining together to fight the Keep.

Back to Probe, where Shepherd beats her up and takes off. 

Yeah, I was totally wrong about these company-wide crossovers. They're totally great. Ugh.