Supreme 41-56, The Return 1-6

图书介绍

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supreme_(comics)#Alan_Moore.27s_Supreme





Alan Moore's Supreme



Alan Moore was asked by Rob Liefeld to write further adventures of Supreme. Moore agreed, on the condition that he could throw out everything previously done with the character, as he felt the comic was "not very good." Beginning with issue 41 of Supreme, Moore began retooling Supreme, using multiple layers of metafiction, with each issue containing commentary on storytelling, comics history in general, and the Superman mythos in particular. The clichés of the superhero genre were frequently used without Moore's characteristic deconstruction and sense of irony. He stated in interviews that it was also something of an apology, as he had become famous for deconstructing superhero characters in various dark ways.[1]



[edit] The Story of the Year



This new version of Supreme had a secret identity as Ethan Crane, a mild-mannered artist for Dazzle Comics, who received his powers as a result of a childhood exposure to a meteorite composed of pure Supremium, a meta-element that can alter reality. When not saving the world as the archetypal superhero, Crane illustrated the adventures of Omniman, a Supreme-like character undergoing a re-launch with a change of writers.



Moore did not simply ignore the events of the previous issues; he turned them into a central part of his Supreme storyline. In Moore's first issue, Supreme returned to Earth from space and discovered that not only was he living in the most recent "revision" of reality, as it is an ever-changing story, but that there had been many previous versions of himself. Retired Supremes lived in another reality, dubbed the "Supremacy" by its inhabitants, an afterlife for characters whose stories had come to an end. Supreme first suffered from amnesia, but quickly learned that his returning memories were "backstory" that was gradually being filled in. As Supreme himself mused while visiting the site where he first gained his powers: "Maybe I really did just pop into existence a few weeks ago [...], but standing in that hole I felt something. I felt a long, peculiar life well up around me, and even if my life is a tale the Universe wrote only yesterday, it started right there, in that ditch." As Supreme's memories "returned," the flashback sequences to Supreme's childhood and previous adventures were told in the style of different periods from comics history.





Supreme now also had a sister with identical powers, Suprema, and a superpowered dog, Radar the Hound Supreme, who was as intelligent as a human being, though he still very clearly had a canine mindset; these two characters were clear references to Superman's cousin Supergirl and his dog, Krypto, though it's worth noting that they were still distinctly different from the characters to whom they paid homage.



Darius Dax was also introduced in this storyline. He was a Lex Luthor-styled evil genius who begrudged Supreme. Dax died twice in the series. The first time, he died in prison of lymphatic cancer caused by exposure to Supremium. Before he died, Dax transferred a copy of his consciousness to "micro-machines, no bigger than dust mites" which he concealed in a book. He mailed this book to Judy Jordan (a Lana Lang analog) just before his death. When she opened the book, Judy inhaled the dust and the copy of Dax's consciousness was transferred into her brain after her own personality was erased. Dax used Judy's body to trick Supreme and trap him in his own prison. Dax went on to abandon Judy's body in favor of a superpowered android body. Still unable to beat Supreme, he merged the android body with Supremium, causing him to fall backwards in time not once but twice, appearing first as the Supremium Man in an earlier story and, after absorbing still more Supremium, as the very lump which landed as a meteor and gave Supreme his powers in the first place.



Moore's work on the book continued until Supreme #56, at which point the series ended. It was then followed up by the six-issue series Supreme: The Return, until it was abruptly cancelled as well. Moore had written an additional two issues which were never published.



Following the defeat of Darius Dax, Supreme would find an ember of Judy Jordan's consciousness still in her body, which he transferred to an android, Suprematon. Her new artificial body was endowed with superpowers, but Judy found trouble adjusting to another body and having missed the last 20 years of her life. S-1, the only other sentient Suprematon, would confess his love for Judy. S-1 changed his name to Talos, and the two were married by Supreme in the Flying Citadel. The new couple leaves Earth and finds an uninhabited planet to live.



Ethan Crane's growing romance with Diana Dane (a Lois Lane analog) started to falter after she became annoyed with the way he would "get all weird and run away." He tried to reconnect with her as Supreme (after arranging a meeting as Ethan). Supreme gave her a tour of the Citadel to give her ideas for Omniman. After a trip to the Supremacy Diana discovered Ethan's secret identity, and appeared willing to try and continue the relationship in the full knowledge of what she would be getting into.



After Darius Dax became the Supremium meteorite at the end of The Story of the Year[2], he was sent to a place similar to the Supremacy, called Daxia. Every version of Dax before him lived in Daxia, including Darius Duck, Daxor, Daxian, Doomsdax, Mad Nazi Scientist Dax, and "Grim" Serial-Killer Transvestite 80's Dax. The combined intellect of the Daxes let him cheat death once more and return to the land of the living. He immediately set about trying to destroy Supreme once again, and set in motion another circular chain of events, this time involving Billy Friday (a Jimmy Olsen analog) and Master Meteor (see below).