Quasar #13

[iamrman]

I shouldn’t be so mad Gruenwald is dusting off the Squadron Supreme again. He clearly cared for them a lot.

You mean they’re not being mind-controlled? Give it time.

Comments

[beyondthefringe]

This is the (reduced) Squadron, fresh from their Death of a Universe graphic novel, which in turn was something of an epilogue to their 12-issue maxiseries. That series led to a number of team shakeups, deaths, and defections, including Nighthawk, Blue Eagle, Nuke, Tom Thumb, Amphibian, and Hawke-er Golde- er, Black Archer. "Moonglow" is really Arcanna, their answer to Zatanna, who assumed her opponent's identity for um... reasons.

Lady Lark has taken to wearing the Eagle's wings. Hyperion is technically blind because of injuries sustained in the series, hence his fancy shades. The two who don't look like JLA knockoffs are Haywire and Shape--one a newcomer who stuck around after the disaster of Issue #12, the other a mentally handicapped reformed villain.

They're gonna be around in the MU for a little while, just, y'know, doing stuff until they can finally head home.

I love that Hyperion identifies this world by which heroes protect it. Right now, the MU multiverse is still sparse enough that you can do that. Also, multiversal travel's not a casual thing yet...

This further establishes Quasar's title as a playground for everything Gruenwald loves--the weird, the obscure, and the abandoned.

[scorntx]

And there's the New Universal crossover coming up some issues down the line, which is all three of them.

[michael_ellis_day]

A little bit of ancient comics fandom history:

Back in 1973, comics fans Mark Gruenwald and David Lofvers self-published The Complete Justice League of America Reader, a 22 page guide to the first 100 issues of JLA with creator credits, synopses, plus interesting trivia and lists. Four years later, Gruenwald expanded this to be published by DC Comics itself as The Amazing World of DC Comics issue 14. A few months later Gruenwald was hired by Marvel where he stayed for the whole of his professional comics career.

Later, when Mark was already at Marvel, someone at DC reached out to him about the possibility of actually writing a JLA story. I don't know how that would have worked or even how serious the offer was. It may just have been a "if you ever leave Marvel give us a call" thing. But Mark said he turned it down because it would have been the so-called "Detroit League" (Aquaman, Vibe, Gypsy, and Steel) and not the JLA he was a fan of. Doing the Squadron Supreme meant getting to do his take on his favorite team without having anyone else tell him what he couldn't do.

[scorntx]

"Doing the Squadron Supreme meant getting to do his take on his favorite team without having anyone else tell him what he couldn't do."

Except, apparently, have a Martian Manhunter knock-off.
(Which is an insanely odd place to draw the line.
"You can have versions of everyone... except Martian Manhunter.")

[cainofdreaming]

For that you have to write First Line. Thems the rules.

[michael_ellis_day]

I know there was the Skrullian Skymaster, and I know that when he made his first appearance DC was becoming annoyed about the Squadron Supreme getting their own series so they started paying closer attention, but I don't know any details beyond that.

[scorntx]

Hmm. X-Squad.
Got a good ring to it.
X-Squad.
Anyone else? No?

It's funny seeing Makari being all sassy here when they become less sassy under Gillen.
Not often Gillen makes a character less sassy.