Axiom’s Edge Science Fiction and Fantasy

Squadron Supreme

By Sam Christopher

First Story Arc: Power to the People

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 Stars

In the ‘70s, Marvel and DC did a number of crossovers, two Superman/Spiderman team ups and a Hulk/Batman to mention a few, but one of the hottest stories they ever discussed was an Avengers/JLA teaming that never came off. (This team up did occur, of course, a few years ago now but in the ‘70s it just never looked like it would.) Marvel blamed DC, DC blamed Marvel, blah blah blah—bottom line, it never happened. But Marvel writer Roy Thomas had already created an analogue to the JLA with the Squadron Sinister, a group of four villains brought together by the cosmic entity Grandmaster to do battle with the Avengers. Later, it was shown that these villains were patterned after the heroes of an alternate Earth, a team named The Squadron Supreme. This team’s roster was filled out to more closely parallel the JLA’s and supported a couple of miniseries in the ‘80s and a graphic novel (in the days before “graphic novel” became the designation for any comics story the way it is now). This became known as the Earth-712 version of the team (Marvel Earth is designated Earth-616).

Years later, the great writer J. Michael Straczynski (creator of Babylon 5, and the comic Rising Stars) decided to try his hand at “reimagining” the Squadron Supreme in his Supreme Power series. Said to be set on Earth-31916, this team was a more cynical, science fiction-oriented offshoot, having the soft edges that typically come with comics logic made sharper. Hyperion, the Squadron version of Superman, is shown to be an alien who crash landed as a baby and was kidnapped by the government and given “parents” who raise him in the controlled environment of a government safehouse. Power Princess (Wonder Woman) is ostensibly a Greek Goddess who maintains her physical perfection by absorbing the life force of anyone handy. Blur (The Flash) is the child of a single parent who exploits his unexplained superspeed for monetary gain, becoming a kind of corporate billboard for the highest bidder. Which brings him into direct conflict with Nighthawk (Batman), a black man who saw his parents killed as victims of a hate crime and whose main now focus is crime that affects mainly black victims. He sees Blur, who is also black, as a sellout. Amphibian (Aquaman) and Dr. Spectrum (Green Lantern) are linked emotionally, the former a mute girl who was drowned but did not die, the latter a government agent testing a crystal weapon taken from Hyperion’s ship. Emil Burbank, the 31916 version of Lex Luthor is also brought into this mix. Later, this group would interact with the heroes of Marvel’s Ultimates line in the series titled Ultimate Power, taking that world’s Nick Fury while leaving their Power Princess behind.

In the first arc of the new series, Howard Chaykin (Black Kiss, American Flagg) and Marco Turini begin the story five years after the devastation that occurred on Earth-31916 in the wake of the events of the Ultimate Power mini. The Squadron has disbanded and most of the members have disappeared while mankind rebuilds. Nick Fury and Emil Burbank are government operatives and Arcanna Jones, a Squadron member who most closely resembles Marvel’s own Scarlet Witch in power, has gone into business for herself. Man has even sent four astronauts to the Moon, where, unknown to the general public, they find an alien artifact, a spore which infects them and is then surreptitiously spread to various people around the nation. This creates an analogue of Spiderman, Captain America (Old Soldier, who is actually made from the dust of various soldiers of different eras buried in the Tomb of the Unknowns), and Iron Man, in addition to the astronauts being an ersatz Fantastic Four, all of these creations being fairly drastic variations on the heroes we know. In addition, there are others not so familiar. Most of this first arc is used to show the new superhumans, reintroduce some of the old team, and give us hints and glimpses of others. This is a world of reawakening power, power that Nick Fury means to control through the reinstitution of the S.H.I.E.L.D. Project he headed on his own world. Fury uses his history as a pragmatic soldier to navigate the corridors of governmental power and shows an easy ability to win over individuals of great power to his side.

“Power to the People” is an excellent lead in to the rest of this ongoing series, my only problem with it being the time. Some of the things that happen, some of the reactions that people have in the series, especially some of the superhumans, just don’t seem to jibe with it being set five years after the Squadron Supreme basically disappeared. It just seems sometimes that that disappearance couldn’t have happened more than a few months before the beginning of this story at most. That said, it’s a minor complaint. As for the rest of the Squadron, in the current miniseries Ultimatum, Princess Zarda (Power Princess) is going to try and reopen the dimensional gateway between the Ultimate Universe and Earth-31916 so we can evidently look forward to her return to the fold, and the end of issue #6—the last installment in this arc—gives us a hint of other members returning; Blur and Nighthawk, along with the couple of former members previously mentioned here, were shown in this story. Chaykin’s writing is excellent here, as is Turini’s pencils—not generally a fan of this style of art for super hero stories but it really seems to fit here.

This storyline will be available in a trade paperback in March.