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SUPREME POWER VOL. 1: CONTACT TPB
Highly Recommended (9/10)
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Marvel Comics/MAX imprint
Writer: J. Michael Straczynski
Pencils: Gary Frank
Inks: Jon Sibal
Colors: Chris Sotomayor
Letters: Rus Wooten & Chris Eliopoulos
Editor: Mike Raicht
Price: $14.99 US/$24.00 CAN |
Upon reading volume one of Supreme Power, with hindsight in my favor and several issues beyond this trade to gauge what's going to happen next, I have no problem in saying this: Rising Stars, good as it was, was little more than a warm-up for Supreme Power. It starts out looking like yet another pastiche of the Superman origin, and then the black helicopters swing over, and the whole thing goes off in a completely different direction. It's a nice fake-out from Straczynski, and it's not the only example of great timing and shaking off expectations in the story. Though the story is undoubtedly focused on Mark Milton a.k.a. Hyperion a.k.a. the Superman analogue, Straczynski widens the story until it's about power in all its forms, from the power of racism to the power of governments to the power of ideology, as much as it's about superpowers. He also widens the cast, and though it does seem to be taking him a while to introduce some of the key characters, and the story definitely has a modern (i.e. slow) pacing, I was never once bored. There's a lot to be explored in the world that Stracyznski has set up, and although I am hoping for an eventual end to the story to really give it punch, it does seem that there are a ton of stories to be told before that end comes.
Straczynski has put a lot of thought into remaking the Squadron Supreme as a realistic vision of what might happen if super-heroes showed up late in the game, during the '70s, and interacted with a world much more real than the standard DC or Marvel universe. The emphasis on military, politics and journalism covers a lot of the same ground as we're used to seeing in super-hero comics, but it seems like exactly the arenas where this kind of thing would take place. Straczynski has turned a bunch of relatively goofy super-hero archetypes, thinly-veiled knockoffs of DC characters, into a vehicle for commentary on political and sociological pressures that are relevant to the 21st century. I was especially impressed that he used real political figures and a march of time in this book, which is a fairly small part of the whole thing but which also sets it apart from most other super-hero books pretty effectively.
Given the way that Supreme Power is paced, you can easily see it as a series driven by themes rather than plot. That means a conspiracy element that starts at the government level early on and turns up a notch at the end of this trade, as Straczynski introduces the notion of a very unusual alien invasion. It also means that the character development is key, and on that score, Supreme Power is top notch. I love the way Hyperion is being played, as a terrifying ultimate weapon who really seems pretty polite and obedient and all that good stuff but who still just gives you the screaming willies because you know that if he changed his mind and decided to stop listening, there's pretty much nothing you could do about it. There's such repression in Hyperion's upbringing, such manipulation, and there's definitely a guarded anger and very intelligent, slightly alien intellect guiding his actions. There are also some terrific first meetings this issue between Hyperion and the Blur, which is a friendly and fun talk about the differences of living with powers, and Hyperion and Nighthawk, which is considerably less cordial and features some great work by Gary Frank in showing what Nighthawk is thinking with a darkly comic touch. We won't really get to know Joe Ledger until later in the series, but his introduction here (before he gets his powers) gives a pretty good indication of what kind of man he is.
Gary Frank and Jon Sibal, along with colorist Chris Sotomayor, turn in a fantastic job on the artwork. Clearly Frank has taken to heart the notion of a more realistic approach to super-powers and super-cliches, from the more mechanized and functional-looking life support in Hyperion's ship to the brutal effects of his powers, but there are some scenes here that also show he's got the ability to do the larger-than-life stuff as well. The view of the starship battles that brought Hyperion to Earth, as well as the final scene that demonstrates another super-power very effectively, is grandiose super-hero stuff. Frank's work does continue to look a little strange around the eyes, as many of the characters (notably Hyperion and his two adoptive mothers) seem to be wide-eyed all the time, and I'm also not crazy about the costume redesigns that Frank has come up with, which are arguably more realistic but definitely somewhat boring when compared to the original Squadron Supreme costumes. Overall, though, Frank's work is beautiful, and he definitely pulls off the storytelling with skill. Chilling moments like Hyperion's discovery of his flash vision, the brutal violence of Nighthawk's attacks, the sheer power of Joe Ledger or speed of Blur and Hyperion, all of this is communicated very well on the page.
In fact, my only complaint would be with the way the trade is produced. Oh, don't get me wrong, the paper's nice, the design attractive enough and the price is in the right ballpark. It's just that there are no extras to be found in these pages, just the story and a couple of ads for Marvel's other trades. That's a fairly minor complaint, and one I wouldn't make with most collections, but Supreme Power had a special edition first issue with sketches, commentary and other behind-the-scenes type stuff that would have been ideal for this collection. Much as that material annoyed me on first viewing, with the whole series viewed in context, I would have liked to have had the genesis of the concept packed in with the first volume of the story.
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