As a proud card-carrying fan of old school superheroics from Avengers to New Teen Titans and an even bigger fan of epic storytelling, a style comics started getting right in the 70s and 80s unto today, I’ve striven over the last several years to see to it that my personal library of trade paperbacks includes all the seminal “big†stories from the past three decades of comics. I’ve of course got the obvious ones: Crisis On Infinite Earths, Marvels, Kingdom Come, The Infinity Guantlet. Next on my list came some of the smaller events DC has published since 1986 trying always to capitalize on Crisis’ success: Legends, Cosmic Odyssey, Underworld Unleashed, The Final Night and a few others (Invasion and Millenium were never collected in trade, as far as I know, but I’ve got the comics). After that came niche collecting, epics that were contained to one title or a group of related ones: Avengers: The Korvac Saga, JLA: Year One, Legion of Super-Heroes: The Great Darkness Saga, New Teen Titans: The Terror of Trigon, X-Men: The X-Tinction Agenda and more. This is of course just the tip of the iceberg of my collection (c’mon, I run a comics web site, it’s easy to pass off Macbeth being used to level one leg of my desk while my bookshelf is filled with trades and comics as “research materialsâ€), Superman, Daredevil, The Flash and others are all represented as well (I just draw the line at Wonder Woman…ok, fine, I have two Wonder Woman trades as, um, research materials…), but you get the gist of my taste range.
Ever the completist, I picked up Secret Wars and X-Men: The Dark Phoenix Saga this past semester and felt that I’d gotten my hands on just about every trade I’ve been looking for…save one.
With two weeks left in my winter break and two six hour flights to and from England to visit some buddies, I figured now was the time to pick up the story touted to “inspire Watchmen, Marvels & Kingdom Come†(no small claim), not to mention one of my current favorites, Supreme Power, the greatest work of late writer Mark Gruenwald: Squadron Supreme.
I like to think at this point in my career as a longtime comic fan (yes, I consider this a career…given my impending college graduation and my job skills consisting mostly of the ability to chill in other people’s basements and drink Bud Light, I take what I can get) I’m pretty good at identifying the good from the bad (for instance, this week’s issue of Ultimate X-Men may very well have been the worst comic I have ever read…ever…I think I owe Mark Millar an apology) and not liking something just for hype’s sake (damn…I can’t even make it one line after apologizing to Mark Millar without mentioning that I hate The Ultimates); Squadron Supreme is one of those times when the real deal more than lives up to the hype. In the foreward by Mark Gruenwald’s widow (there are great personal statements on Gruenwald and the series throughout the trade from Kurt Busiek, Mark Waid, Mike Carlin, Ralph Macchio and others), she explains how “Gru†felt so strongly about Squadron Supreme that after he passed away she had his cremated remains mixed in with the ink of the trade paperback printing (first edition…I’ve got the third). Kinda morbid? For sure…but as far as ways to be eternally remembered and work to be forever associated with, for a creator as unique as The Gru, who gave comics such a great milestone with this series, there are few better.
In today’s column, we look at the seeds for Squadron Supreme; the who and the what. Next time around, we get into the meat of the matter and check out the how and the why…as in why it was a landmark work and how it led to today’s hit Supreme Power
Sinister Start
Before there was the Squadron Supreme, there was the Squadron Sinister; pay close attention, because things get a bit confusing.
The Squadron Sinister first showed up in the late 60’s in Avengers #69-70 as villainous pawns of The Grandmaster in a “chess game†against Kang, who forced the Avengers to represent him. This Squadron consisted of four members, each a pretty clear knockoff of a member of DC’s Justice League. There was super-strong, faster than a speeding…something alien-who-looks-like-the All-American guy, Hyperion (a Superman knockoff), the acrobatic dark clad fellow with no actual super-powers, Nighthawk (a Batman “homageâ€), the guy with the alien weapon that created anything he thought of, Dr. Spectrum (filling in for Green Lantern) and the speedster, The Whizzer (if you guessed The Flash, give yourself a cookie). The Avengers of course easily routed these second-raters (giving Marvel fans and staffers a wink-wink victory over the Distinguished Competition) and sent them packing to become inventory villains.
Because of obvious copyright fears, the Squadron Sinister was rarely used, their only other appearance as a full group coming a few years later in the pages of The Defenders. During that story, Nighthawk turned against the rest of the team, joining the Defenders, while the other three ended up having their memories erased at the end of the story. Nighthawk would actually be considerably fleshed out during his time with the Defenders; his origin remained similar to Batman’s (parents were killed, sought revenge on criminals) but with significant tweaks (his father was involved in some dirty business dealings prior to his death, which was actually the bigger impetus for his heroic actions) and his alter-ego, Kyle Richmond, though he shared Bruce Wayne’s mansion and wealth, was far more of a wise-cracking swashbuckler I the vein of Daredevil or Spider-Man, which carried over to his costumed persona. Nighthawk would enjoy a long tenure with the Defenders before perishing heroically towards the end of the series first run and become enough of a fan-favorite that he was brought back in a 1998 mini-series then played a big part in the brief Kurt Busiek/Erik Larsen Defenders revival a couple years ago (if the rumored Keith Giffen/J.M. DeMatteis Defenders series comes about, it’s possible we could see this Nighthawk again).
Hyperion would have his origin retooled to make him usable (he came from a microscopic other dimension instead of another planet and it was destroyed by human carelessness) whenever a Marvel writer needed a good superstrong heavyweight villain. His personality moved away from Superman in an interesting way as he became the typical alpha male (foreshadowing later characterizations of the Squadron Supreme version of the character), alternately acting like a bullying fratboy and then a lovesick hopeless romantic whenever he locked horns with an attractive Amazonian (first Thundra and later Power Princess). He would have a couple run-ins with Thor and then end up getting lost in between dimensions pursuing Thundra, landing him in the middle of the Squadron Supreme mini-series. He ended up falling in love with Power Princess while posing as his heroic counterpart and romanced her under the guise of his doppelganger. Of course the “real†Hyperion came back and the evil version ended up dying in their final clash, but not before confessing his love to the Princess and setting in motion that would put her together romantically with his twin. Hyperion was a fascinating character in that he was raw power ruled by emotion; he was at heart very selfish, but when he fell in love, he would do anything, fight on any side, for the object of his affection, but was still willing to ruthlessly do whatever it took to get that love (like strangling Power Princess’ aging husband and making it seems like he died of natural causes). As Gruenwald portrayed him, he was a reprehensible character who you rooted to get what was coming to him, but at the same time you couldn’t help but find him kind of charming; he reminded me in many ways of the character of Spike on Buffy the Vampire Slayer as I was reading the series.
Stories involving the Sinister Dr. Spectrum would get fairly ambitious, with the Power Prism being explained as a member of the Skrull race named Krimonn who was able to use his shape-shifting abilities to give the Doctor his/her powers. Interestingly enough, the Power Prism became a symbiote, possessing various host bodies and transforming them into evil Dr. Spectrums (including The Wasp for a brief period); this was years before symbiotic villains Venom and Carnage became en vogue in the Spider-Man books. Again, the origin and powers of Spectrum were tweaked enough that Marvel could use him without worry about DC suing for them aping off Green Lantern.
The Whizzer (the second Marvel character to bear that name) was probably the least interesting of the Squadron Sinister members, so it figures that he would end up being used the most by later writers. Eventually he was renamed Speed Demon and got a whole new costume. Speedsters are a dime a dozen in comics, so no real adjustments were needed to make Whizzer/Speed Demon a workable character.
The “Good†Guys
So imagine the surprise of the Avengers a couple years later when, during an inter-dimensional jaunt to Polemachus (Arkon’s hood), they encountered their old foes, the Squadron Sinister, with several new additions. However, this wasn’t the Squadron Sinister…this was the Squadron Supreme, the heroes of an alternate Earth, similar, but not exactly like the one the Avengers and the other Marvel heroes inhabited. Keeping the “joke†going, the new Squadron members introduced were knockoffs of the remaining members of DC’s Justice League of America, whose membership had swelled since the introduction of the Squadron Sinister. Though the Squadron ended up fighting against the Avengers in their first appearance due to the latter confusing them for their old enemies, they were indeed good guys, though four of their members resembled the Squadron Sinister exactly as far as physical appearance and powers (but had different personalities and in some cases different origins and identities). It would later be revealed that The Grandmaster had encountered the Squadron Supreme before, using them as pawns in a game against The Scarlet Centurion (not Kang, a guy who looked like him…yeah, I know, lotta that going around); he created the Squadron Sinister in their likeness because, being the gambling man that he is, he figured just such a confusing situation would later occur and, well, he’s kind of a jerk.
The next time the Avengers would encounter the Squadron Supreme, it would be in pursuit of the evil artifact known as the Serpent Crown, which had found its way to the Squadron’s Earth and ended up on the head of their U.S. President, Nelson Rockefeller, and from there it promptly exerted mind control over him as well as the Squadron (which had, again, added new members). Thus began a “proud†tradition of the Avengers having to battle a mind-controlled doppelganger version of the Justice League; the A-Team of course inevitably came out on the winning end of these little brouhahas while the Squadron came out with egg on their face…score another one for Mighty Marvel!
The “good†Hyperion would came face to face with his evil doppelganger in the pages of Thor, the Squadron Supreme’s only real significant appearance until they carried their antics over into Defenders, where the “bad†Nighthawk had recently died heroically after a lengthy stint as a member then mysteriously returned. The Squadron Supreme’s Hyperion showed up with a shocking revelation: the Nighthawk who had served for months with the Defenders following his apparent death was not the reformed Squadron Sinister member his teammates had known, it was the “good†Nighthawk of the Squadron Supreme.
Since the Squadron Supreme had last appeared, Kyle Richmond aka Nighthawk had been elected as President of their Earth after the Rockefeller/Serpent Crown debacle. In a tremendous show of irony, bad luck, and possibly lack of creativity, Richmond became the second Squadron-Earth U.S. President in a row to fall victim to mind control from a malevolent device/villain from Marvel Earth, in this case a baddie calling himself Over-Mind. The villain used Richmond to take over the U.S. and gradually the world, mentally dominating world leaders and throwing society into chaos, and then sent Nighthawk to Marvel Earth with a mental suggestion that he was his Squadron Sinister counterpart to get him out of the way. With Richmond gone, Over-Mind infiltrated the Squadron and was able to mentally control all of them as well, with the exception of Hyperion, who fled to Marvel Earth. Hyperion would return with Richmond and the Defenders in tow, and they would battle Over-Mind and his mind-controlled Squadron. The good guys came out on top and the Defenders returned to Marvel Earth with Over-Mind in custody…but the damage had been done. The world was in economic and political turmoil, not trusting their leaders and not trusting the Squadron.
Thus the stage was set for the epic twelve issue maxi-series…which I’ll cover next time. But first, let’s meet the players…
The Squadron Supreme
(As noted numerous times, the Squadron Supreme is for the most part a knock off of the JLA. In parentheses and italics after the name of the Squadron member is their JLA counterpart. As time went on, the newer characters would have more differences from the characters upon who they were based)
Hyperion (Superman): He’s got the super-strength, flight, all the vision powers, but Hyperion seems much more an alien than Superman, the All-American farmboy, ever has. He’s more headstrong than Supes, more aggressive, but still committed to doing what’s right at the end of the day. The “alien†nature of Hyperion comes mostly from the seeming ease and comfort with which he detaches himself from humanity (he ditches his Clark Kent-like Mark Milton secret identity in about two panels in the first issue) and places himself above them. He’s cordial with, say, Nighthawk, but he fails to take his point of view seriously; he doesn’t think about his decisions, or why Nighthawk and Amphibian are opposed to them, if the majority follows him, that’s all he needs…and it’s this short-sighted view of things, the detachment from humanity and even the rest of the Squadron (even his romance with Power Princess is something she has to practically force him into) that will ultimately cost him. Perhaps the best comparison for Hyperion is the Superman from Frank Miller’s Dark Knight Returns; the spit-curled smiling demagogue who doesn’t see the world crumbling around him because there’s no problem he can’t punch out and no viewpoint that matters but the people in charge (in DK the U.S. government, here the Squadron).
Nighthawk (Batman): By the time we encounter him in Squadron Supreme, Kyle Richmond has been through the ringer. Like the “bad†Nighthawk, this one has his origins in vowing revenge for his parents’ death, but then discovering his father was less than a noble guy and vowing revenge on all crime for killing not only the physical forms of his parents, but his cherished memories of them as well. But unlike Batman, Nighthawk is not Nighthawk all the time, he is as committed to fighting the good fight in his Kyle Richmond persona as well to a degree that Bruce Wayne has never even attempted. While Nighthawk shares his DC doppelganger’s analytical mind and thinks everything through before just following the crowd (leading to his schism with the Squadron), he also has a heart he wears on his sleeve; he can’t kill his best friend just because the ends justify the means (there is no way Nighthawk would have protocols on how to kill every Squadron member on computer record…which isn’t to say it’s not all there in his head). Richmond’s disastrous run as President has left him shaken emotionally, but the Over-Mind affair has also made him value humanity’s free will and vow to safeguard it. Nighthawk believes as strongly in his way as Hyperion does in his, and he is willing to compromise his ideals, to a point, to do what he feels is right, but he can’t do it with complete emotional detachment like Batman or, ironically, Hyperion probably could, and the choices he must make will eat away at him.
Dr. Spectrum (Green Lantern): A cool and charismatic pilot who received a Skrull artifact called the Power Prism from one of that race, Joe Ledger is one of the more powerful Squadron members and also one of the members most beloved by the public thanks to his outgoing public persona. He’s Hal Jordan with even more confidence. He’s not perfect, but he wants to be; Spectrum is definitely in love with the romantic aspects of playing the hero. You get the sense that at the point where Squadron Supreme begins, even after all the team and their world has suffered through, Spectrum is still the one with the most optimistic outlook, who sees their job as a grand game and one he ultimately always wins. His overconfidence will quickly come back to bite him.
The Whizzer (The Flash): Stanley Stewart is Barry Allen if he’d lived long enough to have children with Iris and settle down a bit. Family is the most important thing to him, and he shows it in the series. Of all the Squadron, he’s probably the most altruistic and in touch with the common man; a stark contrast to the likes of Hyperion and Power Princess and even Dr. Spectrum and Nighthawk. While Nighthawk wants to preserve humanity’s free will, The Whizzer just wants his family, and really everybody, to be safe, and that’s why he goes along with the plans of the rest of the Squadron even when you’d think he’d be one of the first to recognize the inherent flaws I’ll discuss in dissecting the series. If Whizzer has a flaw, it’s that he’s too nice to speak up against somebody he considers a friend. You get the sense that everything Squadron-Earth has suffered through has also taken its toll on him, as this is the environment his children are growing up in; he’ll do anything to protect them and provide a better life.
Power Princess (Wonder Woman): Zarda, aka Power Princess, is perhaps the character most like her DC counterpart. Her origin differs slightly as she was raised, like Wonder Woman, by a race living in relative secret, but unlike WW’s Amazons of Paradise Island, PP’s Utopians are not all female (or at least are not indicated to be so in Squadron Supreme); also, the Utopians leave Earth prior to Zarda setting out for the world at large (though their doctrines provide the genesis for the main plot of the series). In terms of personality, Zarda is much like Wonder Woman, somewhat overbearing and a bit too formal in her regality, but also charming if overwhelming in her role as a diplomat and very frank with her feelings. Another interesting twist is that the love of Zarda’s life is an old man, her sweetheart from when she was a superhero during World War II, who has aged while she remains eternally young; post-Crisis, Wonder Woman grew apart from Steve Trevor (whom Zarda’s common law husband is clearly based upon), but Power Princess stands by her man, still living with him and remaining faithful to him.
Amphibian (Aquaman): This is an interesting case as the Amphibian of the 80s is more like what Aquaman would evolve into in the 90s and beyond than how he was around the same period (Amphibian also borrows more than a little from Marvel’s own aquatic anti-hero Namor). Amphibian never seems completely at ease with his “surface-dweller†teammates, but he displays this through an aggressive nature and by strongly expressing his opinions rather than insecurity. At no time does Amphibian display any sort of feelings of inadequacy due to his powers or need to hydrate; he actually gets in Hyperion’s face about him not taking into account Amphibian’s need for water when designing the Squadron’s new headquarters, something the Aquaman of the 80s never would have done with Superman. Aside from Nighthawk, Amphibian is the most independent of the Squadron and, interestingly enough, the only other one who is willing to stick up for the rights of the common man and even for criminals (even though they are “surface-dwellersâ€). Amphibian sticks with the Squadron after Nighthawk leaves, but its because he feels he can be more effective policing the team from within and preventing them from going over the edge; how successful this notion is becomes Amphibian’s major arc in the series.
The Skrull (The Martian Manhunter): The Skrull (or “Skrullian Skymasterâ€) actually only appears in a flashback for a couple panels recounting the origin of the Squadron as a previously uncreated analog for the only Justice League founder unaccounted for, The Martian Manhunter (and since Marvel already had their own race of green-skinned shapeshifters, they probably felt making Martians, who had also already appeared in Killraven, similar would be redundant). He’s not in the actual Squadron Supreme series, paralleling the real Manhunter’s long pre-Crisis absence from the Justice League, as he was the first member to leave the team during the Silver Age.
Golden Archer (Green Arrow): Wyatt MacDonald is one of the more intriguing characters in the series, but then, isn’t the archer always one of the most intriguing? He shares the arrogant Robin Hood nature of both Hawkeye and the original Green Arrow, but eschews the fervent political leanings of the latter, adopting instead his romantic nature and love of women to the extreme. He is a showman, first and foremost, then a lover, then after that a hero. You get the sense he (at least initially) is a member of the Squadron more because he gets a high off the romantic ideal of being a hero rather than the core concepts of right and wrong; Archer is into the surface stuff, the glitz and glamour, he doesn’t really think much about the responsibilities he has taken on by calling himself a hero. Not surprisingly, he gets along well with Dr. Spectrum, who really isn’t that far removed from this way of thinking either, which is another way in which Squadron Supreme was ahead of its time: examining heroes who do what they do for more complex reasons than just “because it’s the right thing.†Like many of the other characters in the series, Archer quickly learns how over his head he is in and is forced to grow up in a hurry (an aside: Wyatt has a very Scottish name, but his pattern of language is far more British; I’m not sure if Gru did this intentionally, intending Wyatt just to represent Europe on the whole rather than a specific part, or not).
Tom Thumb (The Atom): Tom Thumb is perhaps further away from his DC counterpart than any other Squadron Supreme member. Tom Thumb is also the focal point for some of the most compelling emotional stories in Squadron Supreme. He’s a pint-sized genius with no powers who is nonetheless one of the key members of the Squadron due to his technological contributions. But while Hyperion and Power Princess may appreciate all Tom has done for the team, this isn’t the Silver Age and guys like Nuke, Golden Archer and even Dr. Spectrum aren’t shy about bullying and degrading the guy they consider the weakest link on the team. Tom is a complex personality study delving into psychological issues unheard of in super hero comics up to this point. Tom is plagued by insecurity and social awkwardness; in most team books of the time, we were just left to assume all the Avengers or JLAers hung out with one another after the mission finished up, but we see in Squadron Supreme that from mission to mission, while the others play poker, Tom retreats to his laboratory to try desperately to make his mark on the world or to talk to a computer, his only companion. In his appearances prior to the limited series, Tom was always shown as surly and sarcastic (resembling Puck of Alpha Flight in both appearance and attitude); Gru does not completely chuck that portrayal (Tom retains the general attitude in his public appearances and in interactions with his teammates), but he gives us a personal look at Tom when he’s alone and takes into his head, showing it’s not always so much fun to be the little guy hanging around the gods. At the beginning of the series, you may feel the same way about the unspectacular Tom Thumb most of his teammates do, but after getting to know Tom and watching him struggle through incredible challenges and even more difficult decisions, whether it’s with greater sympathy, admiration, or both, you will not view Tom Thumb the same way.
Lady Lark (Black Canary): Lady Lark has a similar personality to the Silver Age version of Black Canary, spunky and playful but with a burgeoning sense of independence, but she has the added element of a far more interesting origin. Linda Lewis was a pop music sensation ala Dazzler before experiments on her by Squadron nemesis Dr. Decibel rendered her unable to use her vocal chords without emitting a piercing sonic cry. Lark relishes her role as a hero and member of the Squadron, but she also makes reference during the series that sometimes she wishes she would give it all back for a chance to sing again. Lady Lark is the one character I wish Gru had given a little more time to, in particular the contrast she offers between fame as a celebrity and as a hero, but I understand that in a twelve-issue limited series with so many characters, you’ve got to choose your battles.
Blue Eagle (Hawkman): Blue Eagle made his debut in the second Avengers-Squadron clash as American Eagle, then was Cap’n Hawk (to this day I never understand the comic book writer’s fixation with using Cap’n instead of Captain ever) in his Defenders appearances, then switches over to Blue Eagle in issue #2 of Squadron Supreme. The reasoning behind the name changes are that he started out as a hero carrying on the legacy of his father, the first American Eagle, but had some sort of “difference of political opinions†with his Dad, alluded to in the first issue of the limited series after his father passes away; out of tribute to his father, but still wanting to assert his independence, he settles on Blue Eagle. The first American Eagle was a member of the Golden Agency, the Squadron JSA analog, which the ageless Power Princess was also a member of; having Eagle as the only legacy hero was a nod to the bizarre relationship between the Golden and Silver Age pre-Crisis Hawkman (the only DC Silver Age revamp in which, despite a new origin, the hero looked exactly the same as his predecessor). Blue Eagle is the smug and square-jawed military guy who is not designed to be a very likeable character; he’s a hero, but he’s tough to sympathize with because he’s a jerk, but not in a cool rebellious way. He serves a larger purpose in the big story though as he typifies at many times why the Squadron’s plans are wrong, and not always intentionally (something I’ll delve more into next time).
Arcanna (Zatanna): Arcanna is something of a dull character on the surface (she shares the magic-derived powers and flashy costume of Zatanna, but lacks the showmanship and other fun elements of her DC counterpart), but there is subtle study in duality going on with her that makes her story more interesting. Aside from The Whizzer (and maybe even including him), Arcanna is the most domestic of the Squadron, happily married with a very plain husband and two children. At the same time, Arcanna seems to value her role in the Squadron before her responsibilities as a mother and wife, or at least places the two on the same level, as she mystically disguises her pregnancy for the latter half of the series so the Squadron won’t take her off the active roster. It’s also worth noting that she seems to be the character the others always take their problems too (ala Donna Troy in New Teen Titans), but both Whizzer and Power Princess make throwaway lines portraying her as a bit of a glamorous sexpot, which flies completely against both her den mother image and her domestic one. If Gru had explored this contrast more, or placed Arcanna in more situations with Whizzer and created a tension between placing family or heroics first, Arcanna might have been a more interesting character, but again, only so much room and so much time (I do understand she has a bigger role in the sequel graphic novel Death of a Universe which I have on the way through eBay and I’ll hopefully have in time to discuss in the next column).
Nuke (Firestorm): Nuke is the latest member of the Squadron and does not match up much with Firestorm except that each was the resident “young hothead†of their respective teams. If you can get past Nuke’s abrasive exterior, he’s an interesting point-of-view character for readers early on. He’s clearly overwhelmed by being in the Squadron and doesn’t even stop to think about the decisions made by Hyperion and the others. He’s also got a very big problem on his hands in the first few issues (which I won’t give away here) and his reactions to it are very real as he displays an anger and ultimately insanity that you can sympathize with. He reacts to adversity in a way superheroes rarely had up to that point and as a result creates the most emotional stories of the series’ opening stages.
(Members of the “classic†Silver Age Justice League who were not accounted for were Elongated Man and Red Tornado)
Next time: we crack open the twelve-issue masterpiece itself and examine issue by issue what makes it a classic.
