Supreme Power Aged Poorly...

[Timothy Hunter]

Unlike DC's Vertigo, Marvel's Max imprint has a sordid reputation built around it. While Dark Horse, Marvel's own Epic, and the aforementioned Vertigo made their bread and butter on depicting adult themes intelligently and exploring genres largely absent from mainstream American comics, Marvel Max was perceived as being regular Marvel comics, with gore, ****, and profanity.

Most of the comics published under the Marvel Max line have faded into obscurity aside from Garth Ennis's Punisher and Nick Fury, Brian Michael Bendis's Alias, and J Michael Straczynski's Supreme Power.

Supreme Power follows the footsteps of prior deconstructionist superhero comics such as Watchmen, Miracleman, Marshall Law, Brat Pack, The Ultimates, and Zenith but doesn't really add anything new to the table. It's yet another story of a government controled, morally challenged Superman. The only thing that distinguishes Supreme Power from it's inspirations is that it dials the gratuitousness slightly up a notch. Nudity and swearing are great and all, but for a story so run of the mill as Supreme Power, it does not feel earned. In fact the comic might've better off without it. It's hard to take Supreme Power's attempt at realism seriously when every page makes a point of how "raw" it's trying to be. The novelty of saying "****" in a Marvel Comic wears off after an issue or two.

Those are my thoughts, I would love to hear other people's opinion on Supreme Power. One positive I can give it is the Gary Frank pencils. A different comic repeased by the same creative team, Midnight Nation, I found to be much more enjoyable.

[Digifiend]

I haven't read it - but not adding anything new that wasn't done by previous comics, doesn't mean it aged poorly. It just means it was unoriginal.

[Username taken]

I don't think Supreme Power was a deconstruction in its own right. It was an updated grittier version of Squadron Supreme. The end point of Supreme Power was the team taking over the world like the original Squadron Supreme mini-series.

Supreme Power was a very good piece of work on its own. JMS was peak and Gary Frank's art was beautiful.

The Gruenwald Squadron Supreme isnt really talked about enough as a deconstruction because it actually predates Watchmen and a lot of superhero deconstruction that came after.

[The_Last_Czarnian]

It was a good story that suffered from the usual JMS ability to bring it home and finish it.
Deadpool MAX is still the best version of the character, speaking of obscure stories from the MAX imprint.

[Huntsman Spider]

I don't think Supreme Power was a deconstruction in its own right. It was an updated grittier version of Squadron Supreme. The end point of Supreme Power was the team taking over the world like the original Squadron Supreme mini-series.

Supreme Power was a very good piece of work on its own. JMS was peak and Gary Frank's art was beautiful.

The Gruenwald Squadron Supreme isnt really talked about enough as a deconstruction because it actually predates Watchmen and a lot of superhero deconstruction that came after.

That's a very good point about Mark Gruenwald's Squadron Supreme deserving to be at least mentioned in the same breath as Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns. Hell, it might be better than both of those because going under the radar meant the industry wasn't drowning in shallow attempts at recreation and imitation of it the way it was with Watchmen and DKR. I mean, they were all at first trying to say something serious and meaningful about the nature of power and superpowers and what it would mean to be a superhero in "real life," such as it was, but then it just degenerated into being as violent and cynical, if not nihilistic, as possible to cover up the imitators and would-be recreators' lack of anything substantial to say with regards to superheroes and/or the genre.

[Thor-Ul]

I though than the OP was going to talk about Nighthawk and his racial bias.

[inisideguy]

I really enjoyed it. But to each his own.

[Hypestyle]

Revive that title. if the MCU deals with these characters, it needs to be on that Earth.

[ed2962]

The problem isn't that it hasn't aged well, but more that while it had some very interesting ideas, it was a flawed work when it came out.

[Ken Ashcroft]

I still like it. I liked it at the time so maybe I’m just been nostalgic about it?