Cream of the Comics – 8/9/06

SQUADRON SUPREME #6
by J. Michael Straczynski and Gary Frank

Tomorrow, Marvel’s hitting us with issue #6 of Squadron Supreme, written by J. Michael Straczynski (JMS, for short – AKA the mastermind of Babylon 5). Now, for those of you who just crawled out of the ocean and grew legs, Squadron Supreme is a book Marvel put out in the 1980s which starred analogues of DC’s Justice League, but it did them in a much darker, more ‘real-world’ fashion, beating The Authority to the punch by over a decade. It’s considered a classic to this day. A couple years back, JMS took up the torch, and kicked off the series with a fresh start, calling it Supreme Power.

You might be asking yourself why I’d bother telling you to pick up a series at issue #6. Well, before the book was called Squadron Supreme, when it was running under the title of Supreme Power, the first issue I grabbed was #4. It was an issue that focused on Nighthawk – the Batman analogue. What I saw left a bit of an impression:

At the time, the book was under the MAX imprint. Now that it’s under Marvel Knights we won’t be seeing anything quite that ruthless, sadly. But my point is, I needed little other than that issue to run with the series. And the upcoming issue #6, which (as I’ve noted) hits the stands tomorrow, is similarly a Nighthawk-focused issue. Since this is the first real time we’ll be seeing the guy in a year, it should be a good re-introduction to the character. And it should be a good introduction to the book.

Try it out. And if you like it, you’ll be onboard well before the Ultimate Universe crossover drops. Which will make you WAY cooler than all your friends.