Squadron Supreme

When America is at the brink of collapse, a group of superheroes - the Squadron Supreme - take it upon themselves to create a utopia within a year. I feel like this book can be summed up with this clip from the cartoon Chowder: https://youtu.be/TIZneWRGxZ8?si=sv9rIgW6ADQQTcDi This book's themes predate a few other comics which ended up being more famous (Marvels, Kingdom Come, Watchmen). I've only read Watchmen but I can definitely see how Squadron Supreme walked so Watchmen could run. This book is a powerful modern fable about how imperfect we all are, superpowers or no, and that the best intentions can't prevent a person from making terrible decisions. The only possible downside to this book that I think might keeping its accessibility to readers at large is that it's written in the old school comic book style; that is, lots of thought bubbles and lots of overexplaining of action that we can see is drawn on the page. But is it truly a downside when that's also part of it's charm, a bit? I myself am not a huge fan of that writing style but I couldn't help but be hooked.

A really fascinating and engaging superhero epic that should be considered a lot more groundbreaking than it is. It tackles mature themes, deep moral quandaries, and realistic effects of super powered beings imposing their will on the world with all their good intentions and lack of foresight. The kind of stuff that's been done to death by now in comics, television, and film, but... Squadron Supreme kind of got there first? But a year or so later a little book called Watchmen came out and took it to deeper, darker extremes. Ironic, then, that a DC book would ellipse a Marvel book paving very similar ground, considering the Marvel book in question is made up of analogues of DC's Justice League heroes and villains. When I'm not distracting myself trying to figure out who is an analogue of who, the story itself does a great job of making me care about these characters on their own without my having to mentally graft their DC faces and personalities onto them. They're not just empty cyphers doing DC cosplay. They have their own history and even deeper ties to the Marvel Universe at whole. The book does a good job of standing on its own without requiring "homework" to be read. (not that that stopped me from reading as much of their prior appearances as I could before diving in, but that's just how my brain wants to work) It's a good PG-13 antidote to the (sometimes difficult to digest) R-rated content of Watchmen. They're not the same but I think they deserve to be talked about in the same breath more often. They both take comic book tropes down dark and thought provoking alleyways. Squadron Supreme just does it without all the nihilism.