History ComicBook / Supreme

[[folder: Erik Larson's Run]]
* Expy: In a way, Liefeld's Supreme could be considered the analogue of Superboy-Prime, a Superboy counterpart who spent years in limbo but came back and became a villain thanks to all the indignities he'd been forced to endure.

* TheBusCameBack: Supreme and his counterparts are forced to release Liefeld's Supreme from his prison in the Supremacy as a last ditch effort to stop the invading army of Darius Daxs. He murders all the alternate Daxs, then exposes the other Supremes to Silver Supremium, permanently depowering them and leaving him the only functioning Supreme left besides Suprema.

[[folder: Original Supreme]]

* TheBusCameBack: [[spoiler:Supreme and his counterparts are forced to release Liefeld's Supreme from his prison in the Supremacy as a last ditch effort to stop the invading army of Darius Daxs. He murders all the alternate Daxs, then exposes the other Supremes to Silver Supremium, permanently depowering them and leaving him the only functioning Supreme left besides Suprema.]]

* FromBadToWorse: [[spoiler:In #63 and 64, the Supremacy is destroyed by an army of Darius Dax counterparts, which is then wiped out by Liefeld's Supreme. He then depowers all his counterparts.]]

** There's also Silver Supremium, a nod to Gold Kryptonite in that exposure causes permanent nullification of Supreme's powers. [[spoiler: Liefeld's Supreme is immune, and exposes the other Supremes to a sample of it so he'll be the only empowered Supreme left.]]

** [[spoiler:Liefeld's Supreme has invoked this. Upon his return from the Supremacy he attacks his former allies and demands to know why no one looked for him in all the years he was gone. Of course, no one knew he'd been missing at all, and Patriot explains they just assumed he'd gone through some sort of life-changing event which resulted in his new personality. Liefeld's Supreme was not amused by the answer.]]
* {{Jerkass}}: [[spoiler:Liefeld's Supreme. He's essentially no better than the bad guys. He spends most of his time wrapped up in internal monologues loathing on the state of supervillains while badmouthing the supposed "witless cattle" who so easily accepted the likes of Moore's Supreme and "a Muslim president".]]

** [[spoiler:Liefeld's Supreme can be added to the roster, now that he's returned and has depowered all the other Supremes save for himself. In a way, he could be considered the analogue of Superboy-Prime, a Superboy counterpart who spent years in limbo but came back and became a villain thanks to all the indignities he'd been forced to endure.]]

* TheCameo: A shapeshifter in the Heavy Mettle team transform into [[MysteryScienceTheater3000 Crow T. Robot]] to snark a black and white film about Supreme.

** Supreme gets called out on this by a female reporter in ''Legend of Supreme.'' It clearly strikes a nerve, and even though he gets mad he doesn't argue back.

* WhatTheHellHero: Many people's reaction to Supreme.

* UnscrupulusHero: Supreme himself. He's violent, delusional and egotistical, but he has a clear moral code and always fights villains who are undoubtably evil. The perfect example of this is his backstory, where we learn he [[spoiler: killed a man, but only because he was a rapist who assaulted a 14-year old girl.]]

In 1997, Creator/AlanMoore took over the series, with permission to {{retcon}} anything he didn't like. Moore threw out most of Supreme's history and recreated him as an explicit Superman homage, complete with his own scientific archnemesis with a name ending in X, a younger and more innocent DistaffCounterpart, a superteam similar to the Franchise/{{Justice League of America}}, and so on.

Moore's run on the series was heavy on the meta-text: his first issue is ''about'' the fact that the entire series is being {{retcon}}ned, with Supreme watching in amazement as some cosmic force recreates the world around him, and meeting a parade of earlier Supremes who were cast out of continuity by earlier retcons (most of which Moore had just made up for the occasion). As he explores his new history over the following issues, it's filled in via means of a series of flashbacks that are each written and illustrated in a contemporary comics style (for example, a flashback set during the 1960s resembles a [[UsefulNotes/TheSilverAgeOfComicBooks Silver Age]] story). The fact that Moore's Supreme is now a noble figure (much like Superman) instead of his former dark self is linked to the fact that, in the new continuity, Supreme spent the eighties and nineties pursuing a quest in outer space and thus missed the [[UsefulNotes/TheDarkAgeOfComicBooks Age of Dark Superheroes]] entirely.

Another layer of meta-commentary is brought in by Supreme's new civilian identity: he and his newly-acquired equivalents of Lois Lane, Perry White, and Jimmy Olsen work at a comic book company. Their conversations frequently reflect contemporary trends in the comic book industry, and even (sometimes without their entirely realising) things happening around them in their own story.

* ButNowIMustGo: How Supreme's original departure from the Earth was originally presented. The miniseries ''Legend of Supreme'' reveals that he left [[spoiler:after accidentally killing the priest who had taken him in and was in the middle of giving him a WhatTheHellHero speech.]]

* BlackAndGrayMorality: Supreme is presented as a clearly awful person, but the villains he fights are nearly all in the CompleteMonster mould.

* WomanInWhite: Judy Jordan, who is now a much older woman and runs a memorial museum for the Littlehaven Disaster.

Originally, Supreme was a Grim NinetiesAntiHero who had a very similar power set and appearance to [[UsefulNotes/TheSilverAgeOfComicBooks classic]] {{Franchise/Superman}}, but none of his morality or humility. Supreme was violent, brutal, aloof, with a massive ego, made no attempt to connect with humanity or [[SecretIdentity live as a human]], and was convinced that [[AGodAmI he was a god]]. He was one of the first superheroes in the Creator/ImageComics shared universe, and originally emerged during World War II where he fought against Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan – soon after the war ended he left the planet to go explore the universe. Fifty years later, after making a name for himself throughout the universe as a mighty warrior, he returned to Earth to find it now overrun by superheroes of all kinds. While he still battled supervillains and took down criminals, he considered himself unquestionably above humanity and the general public feared and mistrusted him.

Originally, Supreme was a Grim NinetiesAntiHero who had a very similar power set and appearance to [[UsefulNotes/TheSilverAgeOfComicBooks classic]] {{Franchise/Superman}}, but none of his morality or humility. Supreme was violent, brutal, aloof, with a massive ego, made no attempt to connect with humanity or [[SecretIdentity live as a human]], and was convinced that [[AGodAmI he was a god]]. He was one of the first superheroes, and originally emerged during World War II where he fought against Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan – soon after the war ended he left the planet to go explore the universe. Fifty years later, after making a name for himself throughout the universe as a mighty warrior, he returned to Earth to find it now overrun by superheroes of all kinds. While he still battled supervillains and took down criminals, he considered himself unquestionably above humanity and the general public feared and mistrusted him.

* [[spoiler: TheBusCameBack: Supreme and his counterparts are forced to release Liefeld's Supreme from his prison in the Supremacy as a last ditch effort to stop the invading army of Darius Daxs. He murders all the alternate Daxs, then exposes the other Supremes to Silver Supremium, permanently depowering them and leaving him the only functioning Supreme left besides Suprema.]]

* [[spoiler:GrandTheftMe: Darius Dax pulls one on Judy. For decades. Even after he tells Supreme the truth, he still acts like her until he takes over the body of the android Magno, which has AllYourPowersCombined.]]

** "Tell him [[spoiler: Judy's not who he's talking to]]" which is made even more effective with the following:
---> '''Next Issue''': [[spoiler: [[TheReveal The Return of Darius Dax!]]]]

* AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence: [[spoiler:Creator/JackKirby]] Really.

* AdaptationalVillainy: Father Jack Oliver Lancome tries to kill Diana to stop her from finding Ethan Crane. Jack's head bursts into flames, and he resembles [[spoiler: a Jack O'Lantern. In the Alan Moore run, Jack O'Lantern is a member of the Allied Supermen of America alongside Supreme.]]

* EvenEvilHasStandards: An alien warlord named Korgo attempted to become President by dueling Bill Clinton. However, Korgo then quietly begged Supreme to put him back in prison after spending a few hours with Hilary.

* TooSpicyForYogSothoth: Korgo the Space Tyrant assumes the presidency of the United States after defeating Bill Clinton in single combat, but after taking Hilary as his consort he is extremely grateful to Supreme for sending him back to Looking-Glass Land.

* TheCape

* HeroicAlbino: Supreme along with his sister. Their white hair is the result of exposure to GreenRocks, though one of his villains does refer to Supreme as an albino.

* ShoutOut: Many of them to Superman. One of the more subtle ones is when we see Supreme on "Other Earth" with weakened powers, he is actually very close to [[UsefulNotes/TheGoldenAgeOfComicBooks Golden Age Superman]] in power set and strength: able to leap tall buildings in a single bound, for example, rather than being capable of flight. The WW2-era team of [[BakerStreetRegular Baker Street Regulars]] called the Junior Supreme Squad is also a shout-out to teams such as the Newsboy Legion.

* UnreliableNarrator: During the "Supreme Madness" storyline, an insane Supreme ends up telling his backstory to ComicBook/{{Spawn}}. It's the first and clearest picture of Supreme's history that we get in the series – but then we immediately see Spawn thinking to himself that he knows for a fact that the general public did ''not'' love and trust Supreme back in the 1940s the way he tells it.

* DeathActivatedSuperpower: Related to Supreme's CameBackStrong powers: during the process of creating Supreme he died seven times, and came back to life stronger every time. The process also changed his appearance, down to the fingerprints – that is why when Supreme appears to die fighting Crypt and then the next issue a new younger and re-powered Supreme with amnesia turns up, it's entirely plausible that this ''could'' be Supreme himself having regenerated into a younger form.

* ShoutOut: Many of them to Superman. One of the more subtle ones is when we see Supreme on "Other Earth" with weakened powers, he is actually very close to [[UsefulNotes/TheGoldenAgeOfComicBooks Golden Age Superman]] in power set and strength: able to leap tall buildings in a single bound, for example, rather than being capable of flight. The WW2-era team of {{BakerStreetRegular|s}} called the Junior Supreme Squad is also a shout-out to teams such as the Newsboy Legion.

* UnreliableNarrator: During the "Supreme Madness" storyline, an insane Supreme ends up telling his backstory to ''ComicBook/{{Spawn}}''. It's the first and clearest picture of Supreme's history that we get in the series – but then we immediately see Spawn thinking to himself that he knows for a fact that the general public did ''not'' love and trust Supreme back in the 1940s the way he tells it.

* DistaffCounterpart: Lady Supreme. Her true identity is [[spoiler: Probe, Supreme's daughter from a thousand years in the future.]]

* {{Expy}}: Of Superman, obviously, mainly in terms of power set and appearance. More direct comparisons are generally left as easter eggs: for example, back in the 1940s he apparently had his own equivalents of Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen who were murdered by Grizlock soon after he left Earth. In terms of personality and outlook on the world, though, Supreme and Superman couldn't be more different.

* HeelRealization: Thor was duped into fighting for the Axis Powers in World War II, and so became one of Supreme's foes. When he realised what had happened, the Germans took him down and imprisoned him. After fifty years in captivity his first action was to try to find Adolf Hitler and kill him.
* IdentityAmnesia: The issue after Supreme's apparent death at the hands of Crypt, a younger-looking superhero with powers and costume very much like Supreme's suddenly appears with no memory of his past – for a long time it is ambiguous if this is the real Supreme or not. Eventually it is revealed [[spoiler:that this is Supreme's future daughter Probe, body-switched with her brother – she regains her memories when a large swathe of male superheroes across the Image line are transformed into women.]] After this, [[spoiler:she takes on the new codename of Lady Supreme.]]

* KickTheDog: Jeremiah Grizlock's debut consists of him giving a {{Hannibal Lecture}} about how he murdered each and every one of Supreme's loved ones during his fifty-year exile...because he was BORED.
* KidFromTheFuture: A whole team of them from a thousand years hence turn up a few times. [[spoiler:Eventually one of them becomes Lady Supreme.]]

* ShoutOut: Many of them to Superman. One of the more subtle ones is when we see Supreme on "Other Earth" with weakened powers, he is actually very close to [[UsefulNotes/TheGoldenAgeOfComicBooks Golden Age Superman]] in power set and strength: able to leap tall buildings in a single bound, for example, rather than being capable of flight.

Originally, Supreme was a Grim NinetiesAntiHero who had a very similar power set and appearance to [[TheSilverAgeOfComicBooks classic]] {{Franchise/Superman}}, but none of his morality or humility. Supreme was violent, brutal, aloof, with a massive ego, made no attempt to connect with humanity or [[SecretIdentity live as a human]], and was convinced that [[AGodAmI he was a god]]. He was one of the first superheroes, and originally emerged during World War II where he fought against Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan – soon after the war ended he left the planet to go explore the universe. Fifty years later, after making a name for himself throughout the universe as a mighty warrior, he returned to Earth to find it now overrun by superheroes of all kinds. While he still battled supervillains and took down criminals, he considered himself unquestionably above humanity and the general public feared and mistrusted him.

* ShoutOut: Many of them to Superman. One of the more subtle ones is when we see Supreme on "Other Earth" with weakened powers, he is actually very close to [[TheGoldenAgeOfComicBooks Golden Age Superman]] in power set and strength: able to leap tall buildings in a single bound, for example, rather than being capable of flight.

* UnInstallment: The original ''Supreme'' series was deliberately identified in its indica (and on the first issue's cover) as "''Supreme'' volume 2". Creator/RobLiefeld wanted to eventually create a "volume 1" that would cover Supreme's exploits during World War II – this never ended up happening, with the glimpses of Supreme's [[TheGoldenAgeOfComicBooks Golden Age]] adventures being limited to occasional flashback stories.

Originally, Supreme was a Grim NinetiesAntiHero who had a very similar power set and appearance to [[SilverAgeOfComicBooks classic]] {{Franchise/Superman}}, but none of his morality or humility. Supreme was violent, brutal, aloof, with a massive ego, made no attempt to connect with humanity or [[SecretIdentity live as a human]], and was convinced that [[AGodAmI he was a god]]. He was one of the first superheroes, and originally emerged during World War II where he fought against Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan – soon after the war ended he left the planet to go explore the universe. Fifty years later, after making a name for himself throughout the universe as a mighty warrior, he returned to Earth to find it now overrun by superheroes of all kinds. While he still battled supervillains and took down criminals, he considered himself unquestionably above humanity and the general public feared and mistrusted him.

* {{Crossover}}: Gladiator/Supreme by Keith Giffen. It's a one-shot comic where Gladiator (another Superman Expy) of the [[XMen Shi'ar Imperial Guard]] fights Supreme (here depicted as a crazy KnightTemplar) for trying to exterminate one of the Shi'ar's client races.

* ShoutOut: Many of them to Superman. One of the more subtle ones is when we see Supreme on "Other Earth" with weakened powers, he is actually very close to [[GoldenAgeOfComicBooks Golden Age Superman]] in power set and strength: able to leap tall buildings in a single bound, for example, rather than being capable of flight.

* UnInstallment: The original ''Supreme'' series was deliberately identified in its indica (and on the first issue's cover) as "''Supreme'' volume 2". Creator/RobLiefeld wanted to eventually create a "volume 1" that would cover Supreme's exploits during World War II – this never ended up happening, with the glimpses of Supreme's [[GoldenAgeOfComicBooks Golden Age]] adventures being limited to occasional flashback stories.