Supreme Power ... 2nd relaunch with Howard Chaykin.

[Jakew]

http://forum.newsarama.com/showthread.php?t=150270

This comic is an amazing example how editorial mishandling can turn gold into lead. I'm sort of glad it's relaunching but there is nothing that Chaykin mentions which excites me about the new series  :(

[zuludelta]

Haven't been interested in Supreme Power since they took it out of the MAX imprint a few years ago. I know JMS has his fans, but I've just never been able to get into his stuff... and even with a new creative team, I don't know... part of me just feels that the postmodern deconstruction of superhero archetypes has pretty much run its course as a subgenre.

[Ajax]

Haven't been interested in Supreme Power since they took it out of the MAX imprint a few years ago. I know JMS has his fans, but I've just never been able to get into his stuff... and even with a new creative team, I don't know... part of me just feels that the postmodern deconstruction of superhero archetypes has pretty much run its course as a subgenre.

I don't think it's run it's course. The problem with the subgenre is you get alot of mimicry and what ends up happening is no new ground is covered. Alan Moore's Supreme was a great deconstruction of Superman and the comic industry (It's almost symbolic the series got cancelled the way it did). Warren Ellis work on Authority still stands as the best work on the subject. Plus when it comes to Supreme Power it always felt like a poor attempt to ape The Authority. The genre will remain stagnate until someone comes around and does something new with it.

Though I can see your point about it running it's course since you can only deconstruct something so far, unless you are operating on Zeno's Paradox.

[lugaru]

Warren Ellis work on Authority still stands as the best work on the subject. Plus when it comes to Supreme Power it always felt like a poor attempt to ape The Authority. The genre will remain stagnate until someone comes around and does something new with it.

For me Authority falls pretty far from that mark. Dont get me wrong, I enjoy it as an action title but most of the characters are cardboard cutouts of "super extreme cool" killer heroes... shallow by even wildstorm standards. The series was half shock value and half hero worship... you know, the way that "realistic" heroes blow peoples heads up when they punch them but then again never get hurt. Lots of bark but barely the bite of an X-Title. 

Supreme Power on the other hand is the closest we've come to watchmen when it comes to crafting a deliberately paced comic that is not about the action. The characters all make good sense to me, their flaws are more sad than cool and hyperion is the only character that's made me fear superheroes in years. The way he is isolated, alien and yet a god at the same time, well aware that nobody could ever stop him...

[zuludelta]

I don't think it's run it's course. The problem with the subgenre is you get alot of mimicry and what ends up happening is no new ground is covered.

It might be over-generalizing, but to me, that sounds like good enough grounds to say that a particular field has gone fallow of creative ideas. There might be other ideas out there still unused, in fact, I'm sure there are, but if publishers and writers aren't using them (for whatever reason), then it's functionally the same as there being no new ideas left to try out (for the reader, at least).

Alan Moore's Supreme was a great deconstruction of Superman and the comic industry (It's almost symbolic the series got cancelled the way it did). Warren Ellis work on Authority still stands as the best work on the subject. Plus when it comes to Supreme Power it always felt like a poor attempt to ape The Authority. The genre will remain stagnate until someone comes around and does something new with it.

While they're not mutually exclusive terms, I think many of the recent "deconstructionist" takes on superheroes don't really rise above the level of well-written satire or parody. Not that one is any less enjoyable than the other, mind you. The Authority, as much as I enjoyed the initial run by Ellis and the abbreviated Millar run, didn't really have the substantive critical analysis of the superhero and the techniques of superhero comic story-telling afforded by Watchmen (which really, started the whole deconstruction of superheroes as a subgenre thing, although it certainly wasn't the first comic that tried to view superheroes in a much more critical and psychologically real light). Same with Ultimates, Ultimate Power, The Boys, Nextwave, and a number of other books in the same vein. They're all enjoyable reads (which is all one can really ask for in a comic book) and provide a welcome respite from "standard" superhero tales, but I don't think they've been able to do much as far as adding anything that much more substantive to the critical dialogue regarding superhero comics that wasn't already being examined by some sectors of the industry since at least the late 1970s/early 1980s.

Not that I'll stop reading superhero satire/parody/deconstruction by virtue of it being what it is... I'll take a well-written and well-illustrated comic book any way I can get it, tired premise or not, it's just that "superheroes as you've never seen them before!" isn't that much of a hook for me anymore.

[Jakew]

I really used to like the way JMS would use the Watchmen technique of having one characters dialogue overlaying another characters actions, and the symmetry between the two seemingly unrelated narratives. For example a news clip with Hyperion discussing how nothing is ever "black and white", interposed with a confrontation between black supremacist Nighthawk and his white accountant.

Chaykin talking about making Ulimate Nick Fury an important character in the relaunch and launching six new characters leaves me very cold.

Supreme Power was nothing like The Authority, although by the time it relaunched as Squadron Supreme, I admit there were some similarities (actually it was probably more similar to Ellis' Stomwatch).