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What happens when a Justice League pastiche decides the only way to save the world is to run it? On this episode of Collecting Issues, the monthly comic book club podcast, Ben and Michael read Squadron Supreme #1–12 (Marvel Comics, 1985) by Mark Gruenwald, Bob Hall and John Beatty.
Hyperion, Power Princess, Nighthawk, Doctor Spectrum, the Whizzer and the rest of the Squadron Supreme wake up in a world wrecked by alien mind control, and their solution is the Utopia Program: disarm the population, fix hunger, cure death and, eventually, rewire criminals' brains with Tom Thumb's behaviour-modification tech. What could go wrong?
We get into the Squadron's origins as Marvel's answer to DC's Justice League, the grim secret lives of its heroes, the B-Mod debate that splits the team, Golden Archer's horrifying abuse of Lark, the bizarre Hyperion doppelgänger subplot, Nuke and Doctor Spectrum's fatal fight, and the brutal final showdown. We also ask whether this is an accidental first draft of the postmodern superhero comic, and how it stacks up against Watchmen, Kingdom Come and Identity Crisis.
Plus: eighties comic book dialogue, a whole lot of recap panels, and the famous story of Mark Gruenwald's ashes being mixed into the ink of the Squadron Supreme trade paperback.
Spoiler warning: this is a book club, not a review. Read the comic first, then come back.
Next up: Fault Lines, an eerie, Twilight Zone-style sci-fi anthology of three stories from Irish creator Robert Cullen.
Chapters
00:00 Intro & Spoiler Warning
04:24 What Is Squadron Supreme?
31:27 Secret Lives & Character Backstories
38:57 The B-Mod Debate
42:57 Golden Archer & Lark
50:54 Hyperion's Doppelgänger
58:34 The Civil War Showdown
01:11:46 Outro & Next Episode
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Tags / keywords
Squadron Supreme, Mark Gruenwald, Bob Hall, Marvel Comics, Hyperion, Power Princess, Nighthawk, Justice League, Watchmen, Kingdom Come, Identity Crisis, Bronze Age comics, superhero deconstruction, comic book podcast, comic book club, graphic novel review, Irish podcast
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