Open Mike Night: Squadron Supreme (2015) #1/Supreme Power #1

By Mike Weaver and Mike Maillaro

Squadron Supreme (2015) #1

Written by: James Robinson
Penciled by: Leonard Kirk
Inked by: Paul Neary
Colored by: Frank Martin
Lettered by Travis Lanham

Published by: Marvel
Cover Price: $3.99

Weaver: Five heroes from five different realities came together as a team during Secret Wars, and have decided to continue. They primarily seek vengeance against Namor for destroying Dr. Spectrum’s world.  They attack Atlantis, with Hyperion destroying the city itself and then Namor as well...only after he watched his city smashed to bits.  The Squadron decides to stay together, serving justice Punisher style.  People are divided about how to feel about the new heroes, or even if they are heroes.  At the end, it’s revealed that Jim Hammond is tasked with taking them down, with Captain America’s Avengers along for the ride.

I like the original Squadron Supreme miniseries and how it attempted to make heroes doing horrible things make a lot of sense in the context of the story.  This seems like it’s taking the same idea but from another standpoint.  These aren’t horrible things done behind closed doors as the Squadron smiles and waves for the press, these horrible things are the press.  In that way, this feels like a successor book to that one, yet takes a fresh perspective.  I liked that.

Maillaro: One big thing that jumped out at me as I started reading this book.  James Robinson used some of the same BIG IDEAS he did in Starman about continuity.  The Squadron Supreme/Squadron Sinister have appeared a lot over the years, and how everything fits together doesn’t always make a lot of sense.  Robinson makes it real simple.  Each of these versions is from a different universe.  Hyperion’s new team just happens to be made up of one from each reality.  I even like that they took Blur from New Universe’s DP 7 and said that he’s an alternate reality version of Whizzer or Blur.

The other big thing that jumped out at me at the first reading.  Uncanny Avengers??  Again?  This is the second book we’ve reviewed that ended with the Uncanny Avengers appearing at the end in order to deal with some kind of major crisis.  I will admit that they make a lot more sense this time than they did in Black Knight, but it still bugged me a little.  

Weaver: I was thinking the same thing...how many books do we have to seed Uncanny Avengers into?  Is it struggling for sales that much, or is it perceived as that much of a sales bonanza?  I doubt either is true.  But, like you said, at least this time, they explain why they’re there, and it makes sense.

I’m not sure I’m as sold on the idea of the Squadron being each from different realities, especially since the line-up becomes so classic Squadron.  Sure, Blur is a departure, but the rest of them are the long time core line-up.  What I did like is that Power Princess is the one from the classic Squadron Supreme world. Oh, and New Universe representing, since I like New Universe.

Maillaro: I was real surprised that they killed off Namor here.  When you kill off a character like this, sometimes it feels purely for shock value and just to show off how badass your team is.   BUT, I didn’t think that was all that was at play here.  Robinson wrote Namor with a lot of respect and care in New Invaders, so it’s clear he liked the character and wouldn’t just kill him JUST as a plot point.

But Namor had slipped pretty far away from “good guy” over the course of the lead in to Secret Wars.  In a lot of ways, I think Namor needed to die.  And having him killed by characters who suffered because of The Cabal’s genocide made a ton of sense.  If nothing else, this makes Squadron Supreme one of the few books dealing with the moral ramifications of Secret Wars.

Come to think about it, this might be the only book that actually suggests that “Time Runs Out” happened and many heroes were acting in non-heroic ways. New Avengers definitely suggested that Time Runs Out happened since we see Sunspot leading AIM, but it seems to deal with the “good” and not the bad.  I am glad that story is having some consequences, even if I didn’t actually like the story all that much.

Weaver: I agree.  I hate when superhero misdeeds are swept under the rug never to be mentioned again (particularly since I like the one character that seems to constantly have to be identified by his misdeeds).  Namor allegedly has a complicated rights issue as well, although I think that’s for non-print things rather than comics.  Still, if you can’t market a character, why have him sitting around taking up space.

Speaking of misdeeds coming back to haunt Namor, I liked the reference to the classic Timely Human Torch vs. Sub-Mariner destruction of New York City. Every time that’s brought up, I get a little excited, because that story basically is the one enduring thing from Marvel’s pre-Marvel days.  Well, and Cap punching Hitler.

As much as I want to say Namor was offed for shock value, the only shocking thing about the whole scene to me is that Hyperion waited until after Namor saw him lift Atlantis out of the ocean and chuck it back in before killing Namor.  Besides, Namor will be back.  I’m pretty sure.

Maillaro: Just because I love seeing comic geeks head explode, I am going to propose that they replace Namor with a Muslim woman for a while.  But yeah, I tend to think Namor will be back soon too.  Call me a jaded comic fan, but comic death never sticks.  They couldn’t even keep Mockingbird dead, and I really doubt anyone was clamoring for her to come back (though now she’s marketable because of Agents of SHIELD...so go figure).  Wolverine and Namor should both come back at the same time with no explanation.

Though as a New Warriors fan, I always liked Namorita.  I kind of hope that we see some of the consequences of the Squadron’s actions, and that includes Namorita and her running buddies coming after them!   That would really bring this series full circle.

I thought this was a real solid first issue.  All the players were clear, and we got a pretty complete story here.  The battle to take Atlantis was done in one issue, not a 6 issue arc.  Namor’s death was sudden and shocking and promises bigger stories to come.  

For a while, I had wondered if James Robinson would ever hit the peaks he did during Starman (I hated his Hawkman and Justice League), but in his time with Marvel, he’s definitely coming close.  New Invaders was awesome, and Squadron Supreme is off to a real good start.

Weaver: I agree.  This was paced beautifully, giving you character set-up, action, drama, and a hint of things to come.  My only complaint is that it didn’t seem like it would be that different if Hyperion lone wolfed it versus taking the Squadron along.

I’d give this a 4 on both writing and art.  Very solid bordering on great.

Maillaro: Yeah, I will agree with that.  The rest of the team seemed a bit superfluous.  Which I guess is true of the Justice League anyway.  There isn’t a lot of things that Superman would need any real help dealing with.  

I will go a little higher on the writing just because I respected the intent of trying to piece together scattered bits of continuity.  I love when Busiek did it in Avengers Forever, and I always love with Robinson does it.  So 4.5 for the writing and 4 for the art.  Though I will admit, I might have rated the art a little higher if I hadn’t just read Supreme Power before reading this one.  Gary Frank’s art blew me away there.  More on that next.

OH!  One last comment, where’s Nighthawk?  I am really curious what his take on this version of the Squadron Supreme is...

Weaver: Uhhhh...there’s a Nighthawk that is definitely on the team.  He just has a pretty different (for him) uniform.

Maillaro: Oh that’s right.  Supreme Power Nighthawk is on the team.  I will admit, I completely forgot that by the end of the book.  Nighthawk is usually such a big presence in a Squadron Supreme book, and he didn’t do much here.   I also thought the random inclusion of Thundra was interesting.  Wonder what role she will play in this book.  I can’t see her as the team’s conscience.

Maillaro: The Squadron Supreme was originally intended as an homage or parody of the Justice League.  When Mark Gruenwald did the Squadron Supreme miniseries back in 1985, he took the idea of iconic characters and wrote a political commentary about what that would mean in the world of the 80’s.  

JMS wrote Supreme Power as a Max title back in 2003.  Like the original, it took homages to the Justice League and set them in a more realistic modern world.  Supreme Power’s first issue is a retelling of the Superman story.  An alien ship crashes into Middle America.  But instead of this baby being raised by the country folk who find him, the government steps in to raise him in a focus-panel driven environment.  His name, his parents, even his pets are carefully selected to ensure that this boy is being raised with American values.   But as young Mark’s powers develop, he finds himself questioning whether this is the right place for him.  He’s willing to stay as long as his parents love each other and love him...but is love even possible in this carefully scripted environment?

Weaver: And if it is possible, does Mark have any idea of what it actually is?  By the end of the issue we know that he knows he’s in the middle of a restricted area that’s pretending to be a quiet family home, but decides to stay on because he believes the agents portraying his parents love him.  Yet...his parents have no real relationship, and are heavily implied to have had sex exactly one time in the thirteen years they’ve been playing his parents.  Love isn’t really displayed in any meaningful way, yet I don’t doubt Mark feels it.  I feel like his parents are going to come to a horrible end (I know this series is long over, but I wanted to stay spoiler free while doing the review).

Maillaro: Like you said in your opening comments for Squadron Supreme, I did enjoy that this series did seem to take some of the same ideas of the original, just putting a very fresh spin on them.  I will say that it did kind of bug me how slow this issue moved, but JMS does tend to cut a very deliberate pace in his writing.  Could the story have advanced more?  Definitely.  BUT, at the same time, I did think that by the end of this issue we understand Mark/Hyperion and the setting really well.  

I also thought it was kind of cool that they used real live politicians like Jimmy Carter and George HW Bush to help put the book in context. These characters weren’t exactly shown in the best light, but I still liked that it helped us understand the time and place this story was covering.   Sadly, our old friend Richard Nixon was no place to be seen.  I actually think the story might have made a little more sense if it started during Nixon’s presidency than Jimmy Carter, but I will admit that feels like a real petty gripe.  

Weaver: I think that Evil Jimmy Carter showed up specifically because he wanted to draw some conclusions about how the events happening during Mark’s childhood influence him.  Beyond the real life politicians, I enjoyed the news broadcast snippets.  They helped out with the background a lot.

I didn’t feel that this story was terribly slow paced.  Okay, nothing really happens beyond a dog accidentally dying.  But there weren’t a lot of wasted moments either.  If it continued this slow, I might have a problem with it around the fourth or fifth issue, but not yet.

I know this is a Max title, and Max at the time was in its infancy and trying to fight a well-established Vertigo, so it needed to stuff a bit of adult material into it, but every single time sex was brought up in this book, it felt out of place and awkward.  Granted, the parents’ one night stand was meant to feel that way.  I still think that the idea of adding sex in just because you’re marketing it for adults is one of the most annoying things you can do to a plot.

Maillaro: Yeah, Alias sometimes had the same problem.  Which is ironic, because the awkward Luke Cage/Jessica Jones sex scene ends up leading to one of the most stable relationships in comics.  And it was even included in the Jessica Jones series.    The sex scene didn’t bother me as much as the George HW Bush using the Power Prism to imagine a secretary as a dominatrix and then commenting that it could spice up his relationship with Barbara.  That whole thing just made me feel dirty.

One thing I did like is that in the end we got a little bit of a teaser of what’s to come next, with Blur getting introduced.  Most of the comic felt like a disconnected one-shot, but the last two pages reminded us that there was a bigger story to consider here.  I thought that was really well done.

Weaver: Secretary?  She was looking into a microscope in the panel.

Maillaro: I am sexist.  I was looking at her legs, and didn’t notice what she was doing.  I always endeavor to be honest in my reviews…

Weaver:  Anyway.  Yeah, that was the part that really threw me off and felt out of place, especially since they did one of the more favorable showings of HW Bush anywhere with that one creepy exception.  He displayed intelligence, made reference to his former CIA job, and had some good intuition at the end.  Oh, and wants to use magic to make his wife a dominatrix.

Maillaro: Though to be fair, they did kind of make Carter a jerk too.  I think they might have been trying to show that everyone is a mixed bag of good and bad, but I think they did overbalance a little, and it more felt like a gratuitous nod to the “mature” rating than anything that fit the story they were trying to tell here.  

Another thing that jumped out at me here was the art, especially the character’s expressions.  The opening page where we see “Ma and Pa Kent” there isn’t any dialogue, but the closeups of the characters faces as they are listening to music tells an entire story.  Even before Ma says that this baby is the thing that can save their marriage, you understood these were two people who were having some serious issues.  I loved that subtlety and attention to detail, and it’s done well throughout the issue.

Weaver: Gary Frank and JMS make a good team.  They were fantastic on Midnight Nation too.  The only problem is...Frank tends to get really far behind, resulting in numerous delays.  If he could solidly kick out a book of this level every month, he’d be a household name.

Maillaro: Same goes for JMS to be honest...those two are made for each other.  I am going a 5 for the art.  A 4 for the story.   It felt like there could have been more here, but I actually think it was better for them to go this route.

Weaver: Those seem pretty fair, but I liked the pacing of the story a bit more than you did, so I’m going to bump that to a 4.5

Maillaro: Well, that wraps up the year in Open Mike Night!   It’s been a lot of fun.  We started the year at Comics Nexus, and then ended up homeless briefly before RJ gave us a new place to write at Critical Blast.  Which has been awesome!   Who knows where the next year will take us, but there is no one I’d rather spend it writing with than you, Bro!

Weaver: Well, I can’t really top that, so I’ll just say likewise.  I’ve enjoyed greatly reviewing comics with you, whether they were good, bad, or somewhere in between.  See you next year!

Final Scores