The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1062: Supreme #2, February 1993

I forgot to mention that I'd already read the first appearance of Supreme not too long ago, in Youngblood #3, a short tale that basically sets up the events of today's comic. Supreme decides to kill one of his old enemies, Grizlock, who, from the single page chronicling his crimes, seems to be an actual monster. Supreme's had enough, spent enough time away from human mores, and decides that the world would be better off without this person in it. And then Heavy Mettle (a terrible, terrible superteam name) poke their noses in and try to stop him.

Then they stop, talk to him, and their corporate backer offers him a job.

Something I have noticed about early Image comics thus far: inevitably, the heroes will fight one another and then, for no apparent reason, one hero will decide they should talk instead, and then everyone gets on board. This is a tried and true superhero comic moment, the battle of the heroes, but usually there's more reasoning behind the cessation of hostilities. Here, however, it seems to be deployed simply because that's what one does. I think that phrase actually sums up many of the problems I see with these early issues. Things seem to be done because that's what one does. I wonder if it comes from artists who worked with writers seeing this sort of thing being used repeatedly and simply thinking it was how superheroes meet. Not that I want to take away from the creativity and effort being put into these comics, but just because you can draw superheroes doesn't mean you're automatically a writer.

I feel like I'm retreading things here. I didn't hate this comic, and I was fully expecting to. It's not great, but it's certainly not the worst I've read. I am curious to see where this predilection for killing his old foes goes with Supreme. I'm also curious about his back story, which I think we'll get in the main series and in a couple of minis I'll be reading interspersed throughout. I hadn't thought about the back story that was getting displaced when Alan Moore's revision wave sweeps the continuity. This liitle tidbit with Grizlock hints that it might be very, very dark.

But we're not surprised, are we?

To be continued.