Squadron Supreme Omnibus Variant Cover

by Robert Greenberger

When Roy Thomas and John Buscema first introduced the Squadron Supreme way back in 1971, little did they imagine these DC knock-offs would thrive in the Marvel Universe. But since their arrival in Avengers #85, the Supreme and variations of the team, have endured, largely because they allow writers and artists to explore another world and what it means to have super-powers.

In the increasingly convoluted Marvel cosmology, they originally hailed from Earth-712, confused by the Avengers for the Squadron Sinister from their own Earth-616. The perennial guest stars merited their own series, a twelve-issue event from Mark Gruenwald, the only man who could explain the multiverse for both DC and Marvel and make them plausible.

Mark was a wonderful Marvel editor and a passionate writer taken from us all too quickly at age 43 and his spirit is missed. Fortunately, Marvel is collecting his best-regarded work in an omnibus collection. The 456-page volume will include not only the maxiseries (illustrated by Bob Hall, Paul Ryan, John Buscema, and Paul Neary), but a crossover with Captain America, which he also wrote for a decade. Rounding out the book is the Death of a Universe sequel (drawn by Ryan and Al Williamson).

The solicitation asks, “What happens when the greatest heroes of an alternate world institute the Utopia Project, vowing to abolish war and crime, to eliminate poverty and hunger, and to cure death itself! Can they possibly succeed? And when do heroes stop being heroes?”

Good questions and ones thoroughly explored by Gruenwald. Along the way, each member of the Squadron, patterned after members of DC’s Justice League of America, receives an origin story, making them stand out as individuals. We also learn in a bit of retconning that the Grandmaster used the Supreme as a template for the villainous incarnation.

What’s interesting is that Squadron Supreme ran from 1985 into 1986 at the same time, DC collapsed their multiverse in Crisis on Infinite Earths and The Watchmen arrived, which also explored what it meant to be a super-powered being in a realistic setting. While Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ characters retired from the limelight, the Squadron chose to be proactive, remaking their world into a Utopia. Hyperion, the Superman-doppelganger, leads the charge feeling they have the power and therefore the responsibility to make the world safer for its inhabitants. Challenging that assumption, and concerned that absolute power could corrupt his allies absolutely, is Nighthawk, who quits the team. He’s outvoted and the Supreme takes control of America, remaking society through positive role modeling in addition to mandated behavioral modification.

Squadron Supreme by Mark Gruenwald Omnibus

Across the story, some members get corrupted, some abusive and the noblest of intentions get twisted beyond recognition. Friends turn on one another and the Squadron is no longer supreme, but fractured. When things spiral out of control, Nighthawk recruits the symbol of liberty, Captain America, for help. As you might imagine, there is no happy ending.

But the disheartened team also relearns the lesson that there remains a need for heroes when they have to confront the threat of the Nth Man.

At a time when too few of the Marvel titles had a point of view and a direction; this series resonated as something special. The series has endured and is fondly recalled with some reviewers still hailing its qualities even today. Just last month, Damian Hospital blogged, “I just want to say that Squadron Supreme does hold up for me against the super-heavyweights in comic book revisionism and deconstruction (although Gru did not set out to do that) like Watchmen, Dark Knight Returns, Kingdom Come, Identity Crisis, The Authority, and Civil War.”

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