SQUADRON SUPREME #1

Capsule Review

Mark Gruenwald’s Squadron Supreme did the whole superheroes-as-fascist-enforcers thing a year before Watchmen hit the stands (though not as well), and James Robinson cuts right to the core of that idea in this re-launched Squadron Supreme title. This team is composed of the sole survivors of a score of worlds that got wiped out in the run-up to Secret Wars, and all of them have a bone to pick with Prince Namor, the Sub-Mariner. That part isn’t so unusual — Namor is the resident superhero asshole of the Marvel Universe, and the line-up to punch him in the nose stretches around the block. What sets this Squadron apart is that they aren’t interested in half-measures like knocking Namor through a building or ridiculing his bathing trunks. Nope, they want to kill the guy, and they want to destroy Atlantis, too. This taking-life-and-death into their own hands business is what most harkens back to that Gruenwald series, but this book hots up much quicker than that 1980s mini-series, and it definitely goes to eleven. When a talking-head-on-the-street lauds the team for “doin’ what The Avengers are too scared to admit needs doin,” we are clearly signaled that the Squadron Supreme might be the team today’s world deserves, and that moral ambiguity looms ahead! Leonard Kirk’s art was dynamic and broad-shouldered, but I could have done without the two-page spread of Atlantis thrust up from the sea, looking like a basket of pink sex toys. No matter, I’m in!

Approachability For New Readers

The heroes-from-multiple-worlds thing is confusing … and newcomers will be left to wonder about everyone’s beef with Namor … but the book otherwise does a decent job of introducing the heroes and the premise.

Read #2?

Absolutely.

Sales Rank

#46 December

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