A bit late to the party
Years after the horrible Hyperion has left the Earth, Doctor Spectrum has taken over America's superpowered defense. However, there seems to be trouble brewing on the horizon from within their own borders: the good doctor is not all right in the head.
The Good
I've had to write so many reviews for ComicVine that've started with "It's only the first issue, so...", but I'm going to have to pull it out one more time. Seeing Doctor Spectrum go a bit off the deep end is interesting because he always seemed like the "sane" one in the Squadron Supreme. Seeing what he'll do when he finally snaps (especially with that much power) is worth waiting for.
Seeing that Hyperion has been on Earth all this time is a bit of a twist; I'm expected the roles will be reversed a little bit as its Doctor Spectrum will be the crazy one, this time.
The Bad
It's been awhile since Supreme Power's last go-around, and just from my searches in comic shops its trade paperbacks are a little difficult to find. Though the book gives us a brief look at the old series, you're really going to need to have read up in order to get all the references. All the old superhero characters are conspicuous in their absence.
This book kind of perpetuates the "big government is bad!" stereotype that's present in all cynical MAX books. Seeing Obama with a shroud of shadows over his face, looking sullen that he's ordered the take-down of a Syrian superhuman monster just really emphasizes the "faceless government is out to screw you!" message.
The Verdict
You know what? Even though I said that seeing the previously-murderous Hyperion and the one-saintly Doctor Spectrum switch places will be interesting, I think that Supreme Power may be reaching, a bit. Supreme Power may have done the whole "Superman goes rogue" storyline before, but there was another book that did it infinitely better: Mark Waid's Irredeemable.
And Higgins' role reversal (the good guy goes insane with power and the former villain has to stop him!) is ultimately just a continuation of Waid's later stories with The Plutonian and The Survivor in that book. While Supreme Power's new storyline makes sense in the book's chronology, it should have happened years ago, when the series still had legs. Its emergence now just looks like a tired copy of a book that's done the storyline better, and continues to do it on a monthly basis.
