Squadron Supreme #1: The Utopia Principle

[sagrada]

Let's hear it for them, the Squadron Supreme! The mightiest champions of humanity on now-extant Earth-712, a world blessed and cursed with but a fraction of the superbeings that roil the omniverse!

Twelve of the most spectacular beings in creation, who battle fiends and forces before which an ordinary person would be so much vapour! Though they come to the brink again and again, still they never break the trust their charges have in them!










Yes, at last it's happening, True Believers and you Kirby-Kursed Apostates! I got a scanner and learned to not be as terrible as I was before with it, so...we're doing it now. That thing. That I was going to do coming up on a year ago.

Fair warning, if you have this feeling that the scans aren't quite straight, it is because they are not. After hours of fiddling I STILL haven't got the knack for positioning down.

Anyway, on we go.

No comparison can be drawn between this and Identity Crisis, except that both are comic book storylines about superheroes and Serious Problems, with slippery slopes leading to a grim conclusion. Um.

Not going to be showing the whole story for time and space and site-legality reasons(besides which, reading it on the internet is the worst possible way to experience this God-damn masterpiece, which is the second reason I've cut the image quality down, the first of course is make things less crazy for people with slower internet*), just the issues related to the core dilemma both Squadron Supreme and Identity Crisis ultimately revolve around: free will and its interference. Though it must be said that Squadron Supreme deals with that much more fully. The benefit of a 12-issue maxiseries, I suppose.

I can make no claim to being a writer who is in any way good, so I'll just summarize off-screen events for the rest of this post. Thank you for your attention.

*_{If that hasn't worked, please do shout out in the comments about it}




Hyperion lands the now-useless Squadron satellite and brings it to shore with the help of Amphibian, Dr. Spectrum and the Whizzer. The four head to the meeting point the Squadron agreed to arrive at after a reconnaissance of the damage to their world.

Nighthawk, Lady Lark, Golden Archer and Tom Thumb are delayed fighting a fire that threatens a gasoline plant while Arcanna, Blue Eagle, Nuke and Power Princess encounter starving Americans raiding food trucks and trigger-happy local militias. Nuke displays troubling temper issues.

































The Squadron meets with their loved ones, while Kyle Richmond, alias Nighthawk, resumes his role as President of the United States to prepare his formal apology and resignation from the post. As Kyle's changing into his old, non-Overmind-issued costume Hyperion comes to see him, hoping to patch things up. By the time he leaves, they're worse than before, Kyle slipping into his laboratory to carve a bullet made of the one substance that can hurt his friend: argonite.

The Squadron makes their appearance on international television directly after Kyle Richmond explains himself and steps down, Hyperion announcing their plans to make this world better than it was, to make of it a paradise. During the speech, Kyle struggles with himself, trying with all his might to kill his best friend and comrade-at-arms. He fails.




So it starts.

One thing I really loved while reading this was how...nice the Squadroners are to each other. They're almost caricature-like in that way, a broad pastiche of the "old chum" attitudes of the Justice League from the 60's. They love and trust each other, even when they disagree, and when the time comes to break that (as it must, this being a tragedy) it's so much the worse. Gruenwald's oddly-archaic choice of words and writing style are one of the major reasons this comes off as timeless as it does.

Let me know if anything here needs changing.

14 pages out of 42.

Comments

[beyondthefringe]

When this came out, Younger Me was fascinated by what was going on. I hadn't had any real exposure to the Squadron previously, so this was weird and different. A team that was so CLEARLY the JLA, right down to satellite headquarters, old mountain sanctuary, and clear parallels for everyone from Superman to Firestorm. And yet they were at their absolute lowest point. Costumes ripped, exhausted, the world in shambles--they'd FAILED and were paying the price.

This issue was a real kick in the pants. Sure, there was a lot of "As you know, Bob" to catch us up to speed on the whos and whats and whys, but there was a lot of emotional power to their anguish and their moral dilemma... and of COURSE the Batman expy is the one to break ranks and the first to quit.

This really is a masterpiece of comics. And if you'll remember, this is the series that Mark Gruenwald LITERALLY put himself into... in the form of his ashes being mixed into the ink for the first run of the collected trade paperback. Say what you will, but when a man's dying wish is to haunt a series...

Oh, and for those of you playing at home, the green guy in the flashback is known as The Skrull and later the Skrullian Skymaster, the alien who gave Spectrum his Power Prism in this universe. Although this is the first and last we see of him in this series, it's good to know they had a shapeshifting green alien on board in the beginning.

[qalchemist]

I agree. As a kid, this had a huge impact on me. It was groundbreaking for the time, IRRC - it was for me, at least - and I read and re-read this run dozens of times.

[trooper924]

I've always wanted to read this series, but I've never been able to track it down.

And apropos of nothing, I'm kind of surprised that no one's made a version of the Squadron based on the DCAU Justice League.

[cdamascus]

If you don't mind reading digitally, it's all up on Marvel Unlimited.

[starwolf_oakley]

There was an interesting "post-story Flashback" to this in the "Saga of the Serpent Crown" in the 1989 Marvel Annuals. WEST COAST AVENGERS ANNUAL #4 to be specific.

[jeremyp]

Thanks for posting this. For me, this series is one of the best treatments of heroes dealing with the complexities of the world, and of heroes taking over the world.

One of the things I like about this series (compared to Injustice for example) is that none of the characters devolve into simplified caricatures, who seem clueless/insane. The Squadron Supreme and the team that rises to oppose them both struggle with the ethics of what they're doing, and the consequences of their actions.

[katefan]

Thanks for posting these pages. I think the part about the characters being nice to one another might feel a little over the top, but I'd take it over Millaresque douch-baggery any day. :)

[dragontail]

A goddamn masterpiece, indeed. Unquestionably one of my all-time favourite runs in comics.

[icon_uk]

Superb choice for a posting! Definitely a classic series that deserves more recognition. Mark Gruenwald at the top of his game.

Mod note! - Size of image above cut

[icon_uk]

Oh, should also mention that it would be much appreciated if you would reduce the size of the image above the cut to conform to the board rules about such images being no more than 400 by 300. Thank you.

Re: Mod note! - Size of image above cut

[sagrada]

Fixed, sorry about that. I'll read over the rules very thoroughly before posting again, be a shame to waste time over preventable problems.

[wizardru]

One of the things that works the most about this fantastic series is how good a job it does of establishing the conflict and then executing it, giving all the parties involved reasonable motivations and escalating logically. The characters have valid reasons for trying to do what they're doing, no one is holding the stupid ball and things escalate in a logical, if tragic, fashion.