Anyone reading the "Supreme Power" or "Invincible" comics?

I do, and I think they’re great, esp. “Supreme Power”!

Just picked up Invincible last night. Good stuff.

I’m liking Supreme Power. I think it works better taken in a lump than individual issues, though.

I got the first 13 all at once, then when I read 14, something about it disappointed me. I can’t see anything particularly different, so I’m thinking it’s the fact I got the story of the first 13 issues in one (long) lump, and here I just had a little 20-odd page chunk.

My favourite bit was just before the Blur came out. The general in charge of the Hyperion project mentions that the name the papers had given the rumoured superhuman - the Atlanta Blur - was the worst possible name they could have given him.

I had to stop reading and giggle for a few minutes, since the original of the Blur was named Whizzer.

I also read them immediately after reading Squadron Supreme, which was…interesting, to say the least.

I really like the new versions of the characters, particularly Nighthawk, Doc Spectrum, and Amphibian.

It’ll be interesting to see how the world conquest stuff will turn out.

I love, love, love Supreme Power.

  1. It has Princess Power, the analogue of Wonder Woman, walking around nude for roughly two full issues. Pubic hair is visible.

  2. In a dozen issues, there’s been one super battle, and that one was one-sided, yet the story doesn’t feel like it’s being stretched out.

  3. Hyperion’s line after Dr. Spectrum unloads the energy equivilent of an atomic bomb on him: “I . . . felt that. Do it again.” This was one of my favorite moments from a comic last year, coming in second only to the final resolution to the battle between Kyle and Major Force in Green Lantern.

  4. On how to kill the alien baby (paraphrased from memory): "Attach a railroad spike to a hydraulic press. Put the business end in the center of his chest. After a few hours . . . "

  5. Consistently gorgeous artwork, which includes a naked Princess Power for most of two issues.

  6. Hyperion “searching” for Blur.

  7. Measuring Hyperion’s powers in terms PKH (people killed per hour).

The biggest negative for me so far is how badly Mark’s handlers botched his going to school. This was just badly thought out by Strazynski.

You naughty, naughty girl. ^__~ (OK, like I’m one to talk…I have no disagreement with what you say above, and the amount of time I stopped to take in the shots of Amphibian…well…ahem)

Personally, I don’t see this much different than how badly they botched the rest of his upbringing: Instead of doing what they could to raise a man who was truely, honestly, patriotic of his own free will, they consistantly lied to a kid whose powers would prevent them from maintaining those lies over the long run, eliminating the one thing that kept him tethered to them (his loyalty to his adoptive parents) - and doing it in such a way as to point out the lie that was at its center, made attempts to restrict him from following his concience, then couldn’t believe it when their mistreated pitbull turned on them. And, honestly, sadly, I don’t disbelieve any of this.

Oh, I don’t disagree that in the long term, treating him as a weapon to be used and not as a person was counterproductive. What I’m talking about is the level of gross incompetence shown at the practical level. If they wanted him to go to “school” the obvious solution is a Twenty-One Jump Street situation. Recruit a couple of dozen young looking adults from military intelligence to pose as stereotypical high school students, and have Mark go to school with them. Using real teens didn’t jibe with how they’d done everything else with him at that point.

He had x-ray vision and super hearing, and was beginning to be old and smart enough to figure out what’s was real and what was not. That’s why they had to arrange the faked accident for this agent_handler parents to get them out of the picture. Trying to continue and coordinate the scam on a massively larger and more complex scale with a entire school, would have been a disaster.

Good point. I withdraw my objection.

I reaf both, and discuss them in the Weekly Comics Thread, or at least mention them each time I get them. :wink:

BTW, if you limit yourself to a dozen issues here because you don’t have 13 and 14 yet… If you think the Hype/Doc throwdown was one-sided, wait until you hit 13.

[spoiler]Nighthawk, due to Hype and Blur being delayed, ends up going mano-a-mano with a murderer with most of Hype’s powers.

Ain’t pretty.[/spoiler]

I love supreme power, it’s one of the best written comics out there. My favorite bit was when the general had Mark down in his daisy-cutter rigged office. I couldn’t figure out why he was being so caustic- shouldn’t he try to tell him the other side of the story? “we could have killed you as an infant, but didn’t. We lied to you to protect ourselves from what you could become… wouldn’t you do the same?”
Then I realized- he’s got a dead man’s switch. He wanted to goad mark into killing him, so he wouldn’t have to kill himself. He failed.
On a different note, it seems that power princess is what you get when you don’t raise a superhuman in a controlled environment. She is completely contemptuous of human life, even those who worship her, takes what she wants, and kills for any reason at all. In this little party, the human race has just lost all power over it’s own destiny. I hate that.

I hadn’t until I read this thread this morning. Went out and bought the second TP of Supreme Power ( couldn’t find the first, but the guy at the store said it was fairly easy to jump into late ).

Just finished it and enjoyed it. So, thanks :).

  • Tamerlane

I’m somewhat uncomfortable with the Invincible plotline at the moment, particularly the way folks have seemed to get over the revelations about Mark’s dad so easily, especially our protagonist. Now, I may’ve missed an issue dealing with this more, or maybe they’ll touch on it more in the future (esp. developing Mark’s mom’s problems), or it makes sense in context - like he’s just trying to ignore it and hope the guilt and anger and sorrow will go away eventually if he just throws himself into hero work. But still, it seemed a little sudden to me.

I’m not really sure what you’re talking about. There are a lot of backstory plotlines up in the air at present. What “revelations about Mark’s dad” are you referring to?

Oh, I’m up to the beginning of that battle, and this is one of the things I love about this book. If this were a DC book, Batman would be able to beat a guy of that power level, Major Force for example, which I just have never found plausible.