I’ve been meaning to read Supreme Power for the last year and a half and somehow I just never go around to it. Lucky for me, I managed to pick up the three trade paperbacks of the main series when I was at Wizard World Chicago, so I decided to start reading the first TPB and ended up flying through it followed by the 2nd and boy was I impressed! J. Michael Straczynski can seriously write a badass story and the art by Gary Frank is simply amazing. A great combo if you ask me.

This story is Marvel’s second rendition of the original Squadron Supreme, which had it’s basis on DC’s famous heroes back in Avengers #85. It’s all fun stuff, but you can read the wikipedia article if you want more info on that series.

**spoiler alert for the first 12 issues**

The Supreme Power series takes its focus on Hyperion (the Superman of the series) in the beginning. We see his coming to Earth and being taken in by the US government–rather than, in Superman’s case, being taken in by a farmer and his wife. The government names this project of a child, who they can already tell is very special, “Hyperion”. Cool right? The story moves onward to show more of, as the government names him, Mark Milton’s upbringing. His parents are fake, the world he lives in is fake (like in The Truman Show or something) and eventually he realizes this once his powers begin to manifest.

Straczynski does a great job of emphasizing how terrible it is to raise a child is in a loveless relationship. I liked the point that he made by showing out how fucked up Mark Milton begins to get given his upbringing. This, of course, is shown further on in the series, but lets not rush things.

Fast forward to the near future, Hyperion is a secret government weapon. Badda-bing-badda-boom the US is winning Desert Storm. I thought this was kind of politcally funny, but that’s beside the point which is people aren’t dumb… well at least most aren’t and eventually someone is going to notice that the US is miraculously winning wars, and what do you know? Someone does: a journalist. After he does a serious amount of investigating coming near inches from breaking the story, the government realizes how close he is and breaks the story of Hyperion for him. And the world is amazed. Hyperion becomes an idol for America, but this means the government can no longer use him as a weapon without the rest of the world flipping out.

In the middle of all this, we also see the creation and build up of three other characters:

Nighthawk (Batman): A black supremacist who only saves black people in Chicago. A true anti-hero to the story, he becomes the way he is because his parents were killed when he was a young boy by a white supremacist (irony?). Apparently he is rich as fuck and acts as a vigilante in Chicago.

Blur (The Flash): A speedster who rivals that of Hyperion (did I mention he had super speed?) from the south who does small deeds to help others and is also black. He is anonymous in the beginning. His powers are unexplained.

Doc Spectrum (Not sure…): His powers get developed later in the series, but he basically has infinite amounts of power and can go toe-to-toe with Hyperion. This power is caused by a crystal found in the ship that brought Hyperion from space. Before he was affected by the crystal, he was Joseph Ledger: a military man asked to try and control said crystal by a general for the US army. Upon touching the crystal to his skin, it instantly bonds with him and put him in a coma.

Amphibian (I got that from wikipedia; Aquaman(?)): I’m thinking you can guess her powers… breathing under water/living under water… as far as we know. Also, being naked–which isn’t a power, but just plain fun. She isn’t too shown off in the first 12 issues… she has a few spots here and there, but the most we see of her is near the middle of the 2nd arc of the story where she meets Doc Spectrum. Even then, it’s brief. Her powers are unexplained.

Princess Zarda (Wonder Woman): This character… she was a bit strange. She is shown a few times earlier in the story as some Greek goddess who is being fed by a family and only her hands are shown… it’s odd. Eventually, after Hyperion’s fight with Doc Spectrum (I’ll explain) she comes out–naked–and she goes from nasty old to gorgeous and progresses the story. Her powers (as far as I know) are the same as Hyperion’s: alien.

Moving forward, Hyperion begins to question who he is and where he comes from. Especially after meeting Blur and Doc Spectrum he begins to see he isn’t alone. Eventually we see Blur going public with who he is and gains a giant contract with a few athletic companies bringing in tons of money for him and how mother. This, near the end of the 12 issues Nighthawk gets on his ass for not helping out his people, to which Blur reponds that, basically, Nighthawk is a racist. It was kind of cool.

Doctor Spectrum and Hyperion fight after Hyperion–happier than a pig in shit–decides to go find “another like him”. Doc Spectrum isn’t right in his head at the time and decides to fight Hyperion… as it turns out, Hyperion is way fucking stronger than the government thought. This all helps to push Zarda’s want to take over the world with Hypersion after her and Hyperion ‘hang out’. You really have to read it to understand it.

The 2 arcs end with a mysterious killer, who, as it turns out is super strong, likes to rip the arms off hookers and is a former convict on death row. Thanks to Nighthawk’s snooping abilities, Hyperion, Blur and Nighthawk investigate the murder, but nothing is solved. Zarda ends up going a bit crazy and Amphibian stays in the water (she’s kind of depressing). Doc Spectrum is protecting a scientist who is inestigating a co-worker that ends up being the cause for this mysterious killer. Thanks Science!

The next trade-paperback is going to super awesome as, I hope, this all gets concluded and I get to read the Hyperion mini-series, and such. I’m super excited.