Comic Info
Comic Name: Supreme (Volume 2)/Supreme: The Return
Publisher: Checkers Book Publishing Group
Writer: Alan Moore
Artist: Chris Sprouse/Rick Veitch/Gil Kane/Jim Starlin/Matt Smith/Jim Baikie/Ian Churchill/Rob Liefeld
# of Issues: 10
Release Date: 2003
Supreme #54
Reprints Supreme (2) #53-56 and Supreme: The Return #1-6 (October 1997-June 2000). Supreme’s life continues to change as his past and future enemies continue to haunt him. With return of villains like Szazs and adventures with the League of Infinity, Supreme finds his day full including his new love in Diana Dane. With Darius Dax finding his own revisions world, he’s out to get revenge on Supreme.
Written by Alan Moore, Supreme: The Return continues where Supreme: The Story of the Year ends. Supreme was published by Awesome Entertainment, and relaunched as Supreme: The Return. When Awesome Entertainment collapsed, Moore’s Supreme comic also ended. Checker Book Publishing collected the issues but as of now, Supreme is out of print but can be found online.
Supreme continues to explore the “idea” of comics in this volume. While the last volume of Supreme basically chronicled Supreme’s origin and return to power, this volume lacks the direction of the first story.
Supreme: The Return #1
Supreme: The Return does have its moments and each issue is still quite good…just not up to the first collection’s level. There are fun stories (like the South winning the war and what the League of Infinity has to do to stop it), to both the revised versions of Diana Dane and Darius Dax. The last issue of the series is an homage to Jack Kirby’s run on Superman’s Pal Jimmy Olsen. It is all fun, but just feels like stories instead of something bigger…plus, stories of the Supreme villain “The End” aren’t ever told. The abrupt end to Awesome Entertainment was the ultimate End (and it could be argued that the series cancellation fits in perfectly with Moore’s story).
The art for the series also continues to be strong. Moore taxes his artists a lot by forcing lots of different genre drawing. The artists have to know how to make a comic in the late ’90s and early ’00s look like a comic from the ’40s, ’50s, ’60s, ’70s, etc., and mimic other classic artists. He has a big “team” to do it, so it does work. Alex Ross also once again provides additional Supreme sketches for the collection.
While Supreme: Story of the Year was an interesting and great, concise look at the evolution of comics, Supreme: The Return wanders. The series is hurt by the fact that Moore never really got a chance to finish it. His final story was eventually presented with help from Erik Larsen who picked up the story as Supreme #63…Larsen’s Supreme ran to Supreme #68.
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