Squadron Supreme #2

By James Robinson, Leonard Kirk and Frank Martin

When you think back to the Squadron Supreme of old, many things may come to mind: A Justice League knock-off, a superhero team, some pretty good characters. Throw all that out the window because none of it matters with this new iteration. We have a new Squadron Supreme. This is a team that is not afraid to make a kill out of revenge or take on other super-teams, and it’s actually made for a pretty good book so far.

James Robinson has been around comics for a while and knows how to write a good story. The first issue of Squadron Supreme had them take a little off the top of a well-known Marvel mainstay. As we move past that, this issue focuses on the members of the team as they try to find their place in this new world. Robinson brings a human element to many of these characters that make them very relatable. Hyperion is lost and almost without much of a purpose. The scene between Hyperion and a lonely trucker is something we don’t get enough of in comics today; just a conversation between two people trying to fit in. Nighthawk, who changed his name to Raymond Kane, is also looking for answers. Robinson does a fine job of distancing him from being a generic Batman. Ultimately, this issue works because Robinson takes the time to flesh out many of the characters off of the battlefield. It’s not an explosion every other page, but it doesn’t need to be.

The pencils are handled by Leonard Kirk with colors by Frank Martin. Kirk does a good job with this issue, but at a few points, there are some misshapen faces and odd-looking body parts. The panels involving Power Princess are probably the best of the issue. These panels work because she goes through a few different facial emotions and there is a very cool page of her looking out a window while silhouetted. A bunch of credit should also go to Frank Martin for his wonderful job coloring this panel as well. Kirk draws many of these pages clean and there really shouldn’t be too many discrepancies aside from the one mentioned above. Even something as odd as a horse fighting Nighthawk looks pretty good here. Leonard Kirk and Frank Martin certainly put out a nice issue.

Squadron Supreme is off to a very good start. James Robinson has put together another good series that is engaging and fun to read. The pencils by Leonard Kirk help paint the picture for this world that Robinson envisioned, and with the help of Frank Martin, it looks wonderful so far.