Worst ending ever? Short-sighted marketing ploy? WTF?
“Squadron Supreme” began in 1969 as a thinly veiled crossover of DC heroes into the Marvel Universe so that Roy Thomas could have the Avengers battle the Justice League. Hyperion is a Marvelized Superman, Nighthawk is Batman, the Whizzer (now called Blur) is the Flash, and so forth.
Several years ago, J. Michael Straczynski, creator of Babylon 5 (which I’ve never seen), relaunched the Squadron Supreme into an alternative Marvel timeline, one more immediately relevant, where the government seeks to control these superhumans and use them to their own ends — like having them invade the equivalent of Iraq on our behalf. This sounded like an interesting premise, and so a couple or years ago I picked up the trade paperbacks for half price at the San Diego Comic Con. After getting hooked, and seeing that Marvel was starting the storyline in a new title, I subscribed.
In the most recent issue, #7, a superhuman serial killer (now there’s an idea!) named Redstone has been released by the government because Hyperion and company aren’t listening to them any more, and as we all know, the government is about control. This battle takes on epic proportions. Here you see Redstone frying Hyperion’s eyeballs out. Soon, the blinded Hyperion is accidentally killing civilians that Redstone keeps throwing in his way. Meanwhile, Hyperion’s lover Zarda (the Wonder Woman stand-in) has taken a multi-megaton nuclear warhead into space and has seemingly died in the explosion. Then, in a classic cliffhanger, the Blur and Nighthawk show up vowing to take down Redstone — next issue.
After reading my subscription copy, though, I noticed an odd blue sheet in the polybag. It said (I’m paraphasing), “Attention Squadron Supreme fans, this is the last issue! In exchange for your remaining issues, we’re replacing this title with Moon Knight. If you don’t want that, call us.”
So I called them. It seemed incredible to me that this would be the last issue. When I told Number One Son that apparently this was the last issue, he said, “Damn! This keeps happening to me!” He recounted his past travails with a TV show called “Reunion” that got canceled before the big secret was revealed (he has his own theories about who the murderer was, or something like that) as well as other shows. I couldn’t remember this having ever happened to me with a comic book. They get canceled, yes — but not in the middle of this sort of cliffhanger.
The guys at my favorite comics shop in the world, House of Secrets, don’t think it’s true, no matter what subscription girl at Marvel says. I checked Marvel online and I see a solicitation for #9 (with a cover), but can’t find #8. Hm. And Marvel has already launched a new miniseries in which Hyperion and Nighthawk battle it out over the genocide in Darfur.
So here’s what I’ve decided: I think the remaining five issues will come to be. I think Marvel subscriptions just wasn’t going to offer them (even though saps like me were paid up). Reason? This series is coming to an end, and “Moon Knight” is ongoing — so switch us over and get us hooked.
Well, it’s not going to work. Not with me. I’m not going to read “Moon Knight.”
Although apparently, I will spend 30 minutes reading this issue, 15 minutes on the phone to New York, 10 minutes discussing this in the comics shop, 30 minutes research on the web, 10 minutes making these scans, and 40 minutes formatting and writing this blog entry.
And they say comics are “escapism.”