Supremium Man Mk. I & Mk. II

[miko2]

Alan Moore hurts my head. Having read the Supreme trade paperback/graphic novel a month or so ago, and now having read Supreme: The Return, all I can say is: Ow. That Moore guy sure likes his time paradoxes.

Let's start at the beginning. As a boy, in 1925, Ethan Crane and his dog investigate a metorite that lands in the woods near their house. This meteorite is composed of 100% Supremium, a substance that warps reality. It gives super powers to Ethan and his dog. Thus Supreme is born.

The local professor keeps the Supremium metorite in his lab. In 1958 a villain known as "Supremium Man Mk. II" shows up. He seems to be made of Supremium. He fights Kid Supreme and his dog (they age very slowly as a result of their exposure to Supremium), then breaks in to the professor's lab, steals the supremium meteorite and absorbs it into himself to increase his powers. Instead the villain becomes "too heavy for the space-time continuum" and falls through a hole in space-time, disappearing from view, never to be seen again (so we assume). In the process, Ethan Crane's sister is exposed to Supremium, gains powers, and becomes Suprema.

Thus, Supremium no longer exists in the world. Supreme later creates synthetic Supremium in a lab using trace elements from his own blood. He studies this in his lab until the 1990's, when his arch-enemy Darius Dax (in a stolen body) absorbs it into himself in an attempt to make himself more powerful. Instead, he falls through space-time to 1958, where he fights Kid Supreme as SUpremium Man Mk. II. He absorbs the original Supremium meteor and again falls through space-time to 1925, where he crashes into the woods in the form of a meteor.

This gives us the ultimate irony that Supreme's brilliant but evil arch-enemy, who was always jealous of Supreme's powers, is also the reason for the existance of those powers.

So that's your first time paradox: Supreme got his powers from Supremium, but Supremium only existed from 1925 (when the meteor fell) until 1958 (when Supremium Man Mk. II fused with it, fell through time, and wound up becomingi the 1925 meteor. The synthesized Supremium is also carried into the past, never to be seen again.

But Alan Moore isn't content with just one time paradox. He's actually dealing with a whole host of weird alternative timelines, dimensions, and paradoxes. In the first story, when Supreme appears in his newly revised version (the Alan Moore version) he visits the "Supremacy" where all of the retired versions of Supreme exist. Much later we get to see what happens to his arch-nemesis Darius Dax. After he becomes the meteor that gives Supreme his powers, he is effectively dead, and winds up in "Daxia" where all of the retired versions of Darius Dax wind up. The various Dax's lament the fact that there is no longer a Darius Dax to confront Supreme in the "current" timeline/storyline.

"But that doesn't have to be!" exclaims Darius Dax. "Couldin't I just go back there?"
"But you're dead in normal space-time," says Nazi Mad Scientist Dax. "It would be a breach of continuity logic!"
"It would shatter all the rules of existence itself!" exclaims the Silver-Age Darius Dax.
"Hee Hee Hee! It would lead to chaos and universal disorder!" laughs Grim '80's Tittering Transvestite Serial Killer Dax.

None of which bothers any of them in the least, so they do it.

We later see Dax pondering the paradox that is Supremium. No Supremium exists in the world anymore. But then he recalls the original Supremium Man Mk. I, who fought Supreme on many occasions. He first appeared when Darius Dax built some sort of portal machine he called an Enigmatron. "I'm not sure what it does, but no doubt it will help me destroy Kid Supreme!" he gloats. Then he turns it on, and Supremium Man Mk. I steps through. As he does, he completes an already started sentence, "-warping yellow radiance, I can go there right now!"

Supremium Man Mk. I has access to many different colors of Supremium, each of which has a different effect. The important points are that Amber Supremium alters time, and that he needs White Supremium to finish the set. ""It's why I'm here! White Supremium only exists in this reality, during a narrow time-loop. I suspect it's the point all Supremium originates from!"

They break into the professor's lat and take just a small sample of the White Supremium. However, Supremium Man Mk. I is afraid to kill Kid Supreme for fear of creating a time paradox. "I need to take my revenge on the adult Suprmeme of the future!" he says. "In fact, thanks to my Amber Supremium and it's Time-"

And he disappears.

When the Darius Dax of the future remembers this, he locates his old Enigmatron and turns it on. "I'd better handle it carefully," he says as he turns it on. "I still don't know waht it is, or what it can do...."

And through the gateway steps Supremium Man Mk. I, in mid-sentence. "-warping yellow radiance, I can go there right now!" he says.

I suspect you see where this is going? After fighting with Supreme he accidentally mergies with weird comic author Billy Friday (who had previously been altered by the synthesized Supremium). His White Supremium is destroyed in the process. Blaming Supreme for this disaster, he decides that he needs to find more White Supremium. "If there's no Spremium here, I must go to a place where there is! In fact, thanks to my Amber Supremium and it's time-"

And he disappears.

The strong suggestion, of course, is that he immediately teleports back to Darius Dax's Enigmatron in the 1930's, where he can gather some White Supremium and then travel to the 1990's to repeat the confrontation with Supreme again. Mind you, he also apparently appeared to fight Supreme on several other occasions -- but it still looks like some sort of time loop is in play.

Supreme was cancelled before Alan Moore could finish his second storyline. I kind of suspect he was going to deal with Darius Dax again (who was still loose and plotting when the story ended), and that it would involve more convoluted time looping....