Supreme Power: High Command by J. Michael Straczynski

Supreme Power (Vol. 3): High Command by J. Michael Straczynski

In this volume, the government ups its game against Hyperion, attempting to discredit him in the eyes of the public and attack him where they feel he is weak. They also seem not to have learned anything from the fiasco that has been their involvement in metahuman affairs up to this point, and still think they can play god with inhumanly powerful pawns. Not too bright, but I’m afraid the estimate may not be too off the mark for how governments would respond to the possibility of controlling the ‘easy’ power that superheroes (and villains) present.

All in all I have to say that I was a little disappointed with the lack of pay-off in this concluding volume of what I think is the first story arc of Supreme Power. So we have Hyperion coming to some important decisions about who he is and how he will relate to his adopted world at the same time that the government thinks they can use some old-school methods to rein him back into the fold. He certainly leaves them with a message that they can’t ignore, but I still feel like the story didn’t move very far forward from where it began, though I guess what we didn’t get in plot we did get in world building and stage setting. Most of the other characters are still pretty peripheral at this point and merely serve to point out the different ways in which superhumans are willing to relate to their world and the ‘normal’ people it contains.

I’m curious about the ultimate end to which all of these ‘heroes’ are headed, and the fact that they’re riffs on some of the most iconic superheroes in the industry adds a level of interest, but I have to admit that having been given so little pay-off in what has amounted to 18 issues of the monthly series (which now branches off into character-specific volumes that may or may not continue the ‘main’ storyline to any great degree) is making me dubious. I will likely come back to see what’s up, but right now I think I need a bit of a palate cleanser from the ‘dark age’ of superheroes.