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The Squadron Supreme is a pastiche of the Justice League from an alternate universe. After a catastrophe caused by them being taken over by a supervillain, the vast majority decide to remake the world and solve all of its problems. Yet some of their members question what they've done and are determined to stop their undermining human rights and free will no matter what the cost.This was actually an interesting book with solid art, some well-drawn and emotionally characters and some really good m...
I didn't read Squadron when it originally debuted, mainly because I couldn't stand the look of the characters. Having now read it, I can say I still don't like the character designs but the story is alright. Although the ending seemed abrupt and I want to know what happened with some of the characters.
I admit that I had something of an odd soft spot for the Squadron Supreme.Those parallel Earth Marvel characters began life as a joke. They began life in an Avengers story as barely concealed Justice League clones. They popped up a few times over the years, usually either under the influence of mind control or somehow otherwise misled into fighting heroes from Marvel’s main world. But creators usually put enough of a spin on the team to make them interesting.The team was an unusual choice for th...
Squadron Supreme is interesting in a sense that it both satirizes the Justice League and is a serious interrogation into the fine line between utopia and fascist state. Although I don’t find the book as a whole as enthralling as Watchmen, Squadron Supreme utilizes a similar serious (though less gritty) approach to superhero narratives that would go on to be present in Watchmen and Marvel Civil War. I actually think Squadron Supreme does a better job with a Marvel Civil War storyline than Mark Mi...
This book was fine. Marvel ripped off The Justice League and then Mark Gruenwald wrote a precursor to Watchmen and here it is.It was fine.Halfway through, I put the book down and forgot about for a few months. I was struggling to get through it. Not that it was bad, but it is a relic from the days when comics were...different. So, it was slow, a bit obvious, over the top, etc.Fast forward to about two days ago when I found the book again, and I tore through the last half in no time. Stayed up la...
Still targeted primarily at children, most pre-Watchmen superhero comics are a bit on the cheesy side, and Mark Gruenwald’s 1985 maxi-series Squadron Supreme is generally no exception to the rule—at least as far as characterization, dialogue and plot development are concerned. On a conceptual level, though, Squadron Supreme stands out as an early attempt to deconstruct the superhero paradigm in a real-world setting, raising questions along the lines of: Wouldn’t beings with superhuman abilities
Marvel’s one hundred (100) percent ripoff of DC’s Justice League of America. I mean, it was obvious Hyperion was Superman, Doctor Spectrum was Green Lantern, Power Princess was Wonder Woman, et cetera. No one ever tried to make a secret of it. So why in 1986 did I feel a need to buy a Justice League copycat when I could have just read the DC original? Simple answer: Mark Gruenwald.Say what you will of Gruenwald, but he was one of the best comic writers of the time imo. He was that rare writer wh...
Written in 1985 by Mark Gruenwald, the Squadron Supreme mini-series may well be a transition point in comics. It stands on the line between Avengers/Justice League comics of the 70's and earlier 80's and the darker grittier comics that began about 6 months later with Batman: The Dark Knight Returns. I truly think this series influenced the comic industry and the writers more than most let on to. It is about a bunch of super heroes who after a horrible tragedy try to restore peace and justice thr...
This omnibus has some great artwork and terrific writing. I loved the philosophical, political, ethical, and moral questions and ideals that are questioned and brought up in the comics. They definitely made me think. These comics dealt with some heavy stuff indeed. The characters were all very human and had their flaws. They lied, kept secrets, got jealous, sought revenge, fell in love, etc. basic emotions that we have all felt or at least thought of at some point, they have as well. They felt r...
I'd read many things about Mark Gruenwald's Squadron Supreme over the years, and it got to the point where I felt I really should give it a read.Going into it I knew it didn't take place on Earth 616 like the rest of the main marvel stories, but was surprised to find it takes place in the multiverse still (Earth 712) and that the Squadron had made appearances in The Avengers before, via inter-dimensional shenanigans. I had thought it was its' own separate entity. Every day is a school day!Gruenw...
I want to start this review with the beginning words of every issue of this great story arch. "When civilization tottered on the brink of collapse, they stood united against the forces of darkness... men and women of vast power who solemnly vowed to do what no group of beings had ever done before - to create a paradise on Earth!"To put it in the words of the Gru himself, the premise of Squadron Supreme in a nutshell is: "that the Squadron Supreme decides to do what no other group of superbeings
The Squadron Supreme (Marvel's Justice League analog) are mind-controlled into destroying the country. After recovering, this last straw for the superteam convinces the majority of them to apply all of their powers to autocratically ruling the country as dictators and solving all of its problems. Hunger, crime, unemployment would all become history. Some members of the Squadron take issue with the methods: all guns are confiscated, criminals' brains are modified, and the dead are cryogenically f...
My friend Mark warned me this would be a good book. He's a big Squadron fan. And with good reason: this plot moves fast, it is very innovative, and Mark Gruenwald is clearly a very good world-builder. There's so much context this story takes place in, you'll think you've missed 7 back-issues that were never actually written. There's only one prob:It takes place in the '80s.Now, I like the '80s, and you probably do too, but the problem is that it CLEARLY takes place in the 1980s. It loses its tim...
I don't tend to review my graphic-collection purchases, since it's hard to decide whether to think of them as individual pieces or collections. But this was an interesting read. It was one of the earliest of the comics that tackled head-on the later individual-freedom versus need-for-safety-and-peace paradigm that became repetitive in the comic world (aka "Civil War" and so forth, not to mention the theme of many of the Batman narratives, and Watchman). My own opinion is the series starts of a b...
This is a book that really doesn’t get the attention it deserves. It was the superhero deconstruction before Moore’s more famous one with that guy in the trenchcoat and the naked blue god. This book is what would happen if the Justice League from Marvel’s Distinguished Competition decided to take over. The Authority, the Justice Lords, all of those and more owe themselves to Gruenwald’s take here even if they don’t know it. It may be clumsy in places, but that’s only because it was one of the fi...
Squadron Supreme has the ambition to be more than just a comic, but it can't escape the worst affectations of the bronze age. The premise is sound: Superheroes would ultimate decide that the best possible world would be one in which they are in charge and that turns into a disaster. However, the execution here is too mired in the old-fashioned norms of older comics—each issue has several pages of recap, usually my means of some character having some weak pretext to need to explain the story so f...
Granted, the Squadron Supreme was never my favorite concept for a group of characters. Essentially, they are Marvel's play off of DC's Justice League (Hyperion = Superman, Whizzer = Flash, Nighthawk = Batman, etc.) and they were frequent foes of the Avengers and brainwashed in just about every arc they appeared in. But Mark Gruenwald, God rest his soul, took this book in a whole new direction. What if people with superhuman powers stopped simply fighting crime and/or injustice and actually took
It's interesting to finally read what's considered the original "superheroes become totalitarians" story, along with Miracleman. While it's not awful, it's not great, either. The art's quite good in spots and the story's got some fun ideas, though the ending's fairly rushed.
Superheroes as you've never seen them- out to rule the world.The Squadron Supreme has just survived the Overmind, a powerful alien being out to take over their Earth. The United States was the Overmind's base of operations, and he used President Kyle Richmond (formerly the superhero known as Nighthawk). From behind the scenes, Overmind used the mind-controlled Richmond and the Squadron Supreme (minus Hyperion, who escaped his control) to take over, and in the aftermath of his defeat, the planet
The Squadron Supreme is Marvel's version of the Justice League, with versions of Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, down the line. The book attempts to tackle a more "realistic" story, where the Squadron Supreme decide to make America into a utopia, and what the consequences of that act would be, as well as the moral question of the free will of the individual versus the good of society. Not exactly the most original idea, but one of the first times it was really explored in comics. What sets it ap...