Comments on: Into the back issue box #19

By: Tanzim

Tanzim — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 16:41:44 +0000

Loved story of the year, but i can see Greg’s point.

By: Prankster

Prankster — Wed, 28 Feb 2007 22:08:05 +0000

I actually think this issue would stand alone better than you’re claiming. Sure, someone who knew absolutely NOTHING about comics would be lost, but I think even the average non-comics reader is smart enough to realize that Supreme is Superman with a name change. I mean, everyone knows Superman, right? Whether it would actually appeal to them is open to question–you’d have to have a taste for the bizarre–but again, that’s not something limited to superhero fans. As I’m hardly the first to point out, the Supreme stories are deliberately hearkening back to an era when comics were much, much more popular and widely read than they are today.

Anyway, I think Supreme is actually better than the two series it “bridges”, 1963 and Tom Strong, because it grew totally organically out of an existing comic that Moore revamped (and given that, did a rather brilliant job). His reconception of Youngblood (which in turn grew out of Supreme) is one of the great, disappointing never-happeneds of the comics. And then there was Glory, which was basically a trial run for “Promethea”, and in fact probably would have been better than that series as well (I liked the idea that the heroine was schizophrenic, and that the whole Supreme universe may have been taking place in her head). In each of those cases, Moore was taking a comic that was already popular with the mid-90s Image fanboys and trying to reintroduce them to the classic, goofy, imaginative wonder of Silver Age comics. And given the direction the comics industry went after that, he seems to have succeeded.

Agreed about the art, though–though again, if you’re going to make a meta-commentary about mid-90s comics, you have to have it drawn in a mid-90s style, which usually means it’s going to be pretty crap…

By: Matt D

Matt D — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 18:25:22 +0000

I think that part of the problem is that you’re not looking at this in a vacuum. A lot of the self-refential stuff like Tom Strong and All Star Superman and whatever else hadn’t hit yet at this point.

That was part of what made Moore’s Supreme so novel.

A lot like if you read Watchmen now as opposed to reading it when it first came out, how different the effect is.

By: Morten Pedersen

Morten Pedersen — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 17:16:48 +0000

I like Alan’s supreme run, because of what Alan was trying to sculpture Supreme into, and that was a tribuite to the silver and golden age Superman, which Alan grew up reading.

Issue 51 was not one of the best issues, some of his first Supreme issues was alot better, but all of Alan’s issues was 100% better than Liefeld’s Supreme run.

By: DanCJ

DanCJ — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 16:39:11 +0000

I like Supreme, but for me it got better after the first 12 issues, when he didn’t feel the need for a retro-style flashback every issue.

By: Axel M. Gruner

Axel M. Gruner — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 07:53:16 +0000

I always thought Moores’ Supreme was a large comment how the comics industry at large works. It might even be his personal literal comment on the House of DC. It is a Superman Elseworlds story, but here Superman realises that his continuity is revamped again and again. Oh, and that Cyberzerk dude… I think he’s just a fanboy running amok, going to the publishing house of his favorite character.

By: Anthony Strand

Anthony Strand — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 05:01:28 +0000

I think Supreme is some of Moore’s best work ever. I really do. Sure, it doesn’t work at all if you don’t know Superman forwards and backwards, but it isn’t supposed to. As for being written for the trade – well, that was where I read it, so I didn’t notice one way or the other.

By: Beta Ray Steve

Beta Ray Steve — Mon, 26 Feb 2007 00:16:59 +0000

It was around this issue “Supreme” began to lose its charm for me. It was so self-referential it didn’t have a life of its own. And the story-within-a-story device was beaten to death.

By: Dan K

Dan K — Sun, 25 Feb 2007 23:51:28 +0000

Alan Moore’s Supreme run was silly and self referential- but that was kind of the point. Your probably right in saying that a lot of people would be totally confused if this was the first comic they had ever picked up, but you have to allow for the fact that it was the 11th issue in the story (I bet if you read issue 11 of Watchmen in isolation that wouldn’t make alot if sense either).

By: Greg Burgas

Greg Burgas — Sun, 25 Feb 2007 23:06:58 +0000

I’m not saying the entire story is bad, Fortress Keeper. This issue isn’t all that good, though, and I wonder how it fits into the entire saga.

By: Fortress Keeper

Fortress Keeper — Sun, 25 Feb 2007 22:47:28 +0000

Gotta say I disagree with you there. Supreme: Story of the Year is one of my favorite super-hero tales of the 90s.

But as to your last point, super-hero comics are silly, self-referential and rambling. That’s one reason why we fanboys love them so – even if it is seldom admitted.