Review: [Supreme Power] by JMS

This one was a gift from Nic. It’s a nice Marvel hardcover that reboots the "Squadron Supreme," basically a highly powered set of heroes that aren’t mainstays in the Marvel universe. The take puts in the modern world circa the 90s with backstory in the real world. Thus the thing has a bit of a Watchman vibe although the power level is higher in general.

The main story follows Hyperion, basically a Superman type whose alien baby-ship falls into government hands. He’s raised to be a loyal agent while nothing is told to him of his past. Of course, that won’t last forever and there’s an undertone of menace to the character that definitely makes him different than Superman.

Nighthawk, the Batman type, and the Blur, the Speeder, are both race-swapped to be African American. The Blur is kind of a fun coming of age young adult who hasn’t quite matured into heroism yet. Nighthawk instead of being scarred by normal crime against his parents was scarred by a hate crime and as a result aims his heroism only at African Americans. There’s some potential for a problematic mentor relationship with the younger speedster. This plotline interests me and I’m curious to see where it goes. They also did a good job of giving Nighthawk a costume that seems like it would be genuinely menacing in a live action movie.

Joe Ledger, a military man who got merged with some alien take, isn’t really a "twist" character, he’s more just the standard kind of charming government agent that does some questionable black ops work. That said, I often like that character and I do here as he’s fairly charming. He’s got an occasional mind control problem that may be interesting or annoying, too soon to tell.

They’ve got an undersea superhero, that was gender-swapped and looks like another species entirely, albeit still mammalian in one key sense. She hasn’t been featured much but seems to have some potential.

Rounding out the cast in Princess Zarda who spends much of the book wandering around naked until she starts stealing stuff to make herself more beautiful. Let’s jump back to her outfit design notes

Andrew said he thought [Zarda] was going to look a bit "Dirtier" than this, so could you give me a bit more guidance? Thanks Gary

(By the way, I’m thinking along the lines of "Superheroine" costume that a stripper would wear in her act).

The set up of the character is meant to evoke Wonder Woman but she comes across as more of a twist on Starfire. As in "What if we took Starfire and removed her personality, hair, and had no censorship." What a twist!

Art is pretty good and has a consistent "real" feel while still being fairly iconic. The art on Ledger and Hyperion’s first encounter was pretty amazing. I never really lost the story in the action, although sometimes what’s going on is purposefully vague.