The Extreme Universe is made up of the comics published by Extreme Studios, Awesome Comics and Awesome Entertainment. It first appeared in 1992's Youngblood #1 and was created by Image Comics co-founder Rob Liefeld. The following presents its fictional timeline.
In 1996, Alan Moore introduced the concept of Revisions, Extreme's versions of reboots, allowing for a clear separation of continuities, as well as introducing that there were previous versions of the universe prior to the one first printed by Liefeld.
The Early Extremes[]
- Main article: Early Extreme Universes
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The "first" Extreme universe
The early Extreme revisions mimic real comic book history, with each respective decade referencing what the Superman comics were like through the years.[1] According to Supreme #41, the original Supreme was born in 1920, obtained his powers in 1930 and fought evil in Omega City,[2] with his romantic interest being called Judy Jordan[3] and his main arch-enemy being Dax, a crime boss.[4] Their reality lasted until it was revised in 1941.[2] The second iteration of the universe, lasting through the 40s, replaced the grounded mob criminals with Nazi mad scientists.[4] The revisions of the 50s referenced the high amount of imaginary stories from DC's Silver Age,[5] with characters such as Squeak the Supremouse,[2] Supremite,[6] Fat Supreme,[6] Supreme-of-the-Future[2] and Six-Gun Supreme.[4]
The Supremacy
The 1960s revisions introduced King Supreme, who, upon being exiled to limbo after his reality was revised away, built the Supremacy to house himself and all the previously discarded Supremes.[2] Their foes, transported to a separate limbo, built an analogous city, Daxia.[4] The 70s revisions introduced a Black, female Sister Supreme, referencing interest in social justice that arose during the Bronze Age of comic books,[2] while the 80s mirrored the dark comic books of the era, with Supreme being gritty,[2] his girlfriend being traumatized[3] and his villains being grim, tittering transvestite serial killers.[4]
In 1992, the world was revised yet again, finally giving place to Rob Liefeld's Extreme Universe.
Rob Liefeld's Extreme[]
- Main article: Rob Liefeld's Extreme Universe
This iteration of Extreme shares its creation myth with the Bible, and the Christian God is its canonical God.[7] In the early days of Earth, aliens called The Keep infect the environment with a virus called the Nu-Gene, planting the seed for modern humans to develop superpowers,[8] for eventual harvesting as slaves to The Keep.[9]
World War II: Supreme, Glory, Prophet, the Allies[]
On the eve of World War II, Germany citizen Jonathan Prophet is turned into a super soldier by Doctor Horatio Wells,[10] who is looking to create assets capable of freeing the world from the looming threat of alien tyrant Darkthornn, who has conquered Earth in the future of 2050[11] that Wells has escaped from.[12] When one of Darkthornn's agents reprograms Prophet to kill Wells, the Doctor sends him through time to different eras so that with each lifetime lived Prophet can gain experience that allows his mind to re-develop. To shape his moral psyche, Wells uses the one thing he knows can give Prophet all the answers he will require: the Bible.[13] Eventually, Prophet ends up in the present day of 1992, an amnesiac.[14]
Back in the 40s, with Prophet gone, Wells turns the American son of a Priest, Ethan Crane, into a super soldier as well, birthing the super hero Supreme.[15]
Meanwhile, the Nu-Gene creates the race of the Amazonians, who reside in the dimension of Amazonia.[16] The immortal Glory, daughter of Amazonian Lady Demeter and Lord Silverfall of the underworld, feels at peace in neither world, and when her violent streak product of her father makes her too unruly to be among the Amazons, she searches for her own path in Europe.[17]
In 1943,[18] Supreme[19] and Glory join Roman of the underwater city of Neuport, Diehard, SuperPatriot,[18][20] Mighty Man[21] and Battlestone[22] to form the superhero team The Allies.[18][20] Supreme grows arrogant and bloodthirsty. Some months[23] after Hitler's suicide,[19] he begins an argument with his mentor, Father Beam, and accidentally kills him. Full of grief, Supreme flies to space and exiles himself from Earth.[24]
In the 70s, Battlestone's father, Michael, becomes the radical terrorist Quantum, declaring war on humanity for opressing Nu-Genes. He's stopped and imprisoned by a team of heroic Nu-Genes known as the New Men.[25] Unknown to the heroes, they're being led by a servant of The Keep, preparing the Nu-Gene individuals to be harvested when his masters return.[26]
The modern day: Youngblood, Bloodstrike, Brigade, Operation: Knightstrike[]
After Lucifer is dethroned in Hell, he escapes back in time, landing in the year 1980. He adopts the human guise of Alexander Graves and rises in the ranks of the Pentagon, creating the government task force Youngblood so that they'll defeat his opponent for the throne of Hell when the time comes.[27] The core team is composed by Vogue, a Russian defector who escaped her country's version of Youngblood, Redblood;[28] the Katellan alien Combat and the Acuran alien Photon, whose planets are bitter rivals;[29] a new Diehard, replacing the one who fought in World War II. Despite being mostly mechanical, he becomes Vogue's lover;[18] brutal assassin and HIV-positive Chapel;[30] Sentinel, an inventor who built himself a suit of armor;[31] their leader Shaft, an ex FBI agent who uses a bow and nothing but his human skills to keep up with the rest of the team,[32] despite having a latent, apparently dormant Nu-Gene;[33] and Badrock, who drank an experimental serum in his father's lab at age 16 and his hide turned to rock,[34] making him immortal.[35]
Other task forces pop up in quick succession; Bloodpool is Youngblood's training program where agents work to graduate into Youngblood, but after budget cuts disband the program, the Bloodpool become an independent force;[36] Operation: Knightstrike handles off-the-book military deployments.[37] Chapel contributes there alongside his childhood friend Al Simmons until Al is murdered by Jessica Priest,[38] sending Al's soul to Hell, where its inhabitants manipulate his memories and Chapel's to make both men believe Chapel was Al's killer.[39] Bloodstrike is a team of expendable soldiers sent to suicide missions, as all its members are subjects of the government's Project: Born Again, which allows them to come back to life as zombies over and over. The team is lead by Battlestone's brother, Cabbot.[40] Finally, there's Brigade; unlike the rest of the teams, Brigade are vigilante superheroes working beyond the law,[41] originally motivated by Battlestone wanting to expose Project: Born Again's cruelty and the fact that it had the final goal of becoming viable for human politicians, eventually making all of the government one big sham.[42]
Supreme returns; the next wave of heroes[]
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These heroes, with all their shades of gray, battle villains such as The Four,[43] Prince Genocide,[44] rogue Youngblood member Psi-Fire,[45] Cybernet[18] and the Brotherhood of Man.[46] In Space, Supreme is attacked by Loki, the Norse God, who wants to kill the hero to bring about Ragnarok; Loki targets Supreme and his legacy simultaneously, involving his descendants from 30th century, including the woman named Probe. The mysterious other-dimensional being called Enigma rescues Supreme and places him in the orbit of Earth in 1992, but the move leaves the hero an amnesiac, who has to discover how to fit in the modern world,[47] gaining a sidekick in Kid Supreme along the way.[48] Awakening at the same time, Prophet undergoes a similar journey,[14] while facing his evil clone Crypt, created by Darkthornn.[49] When the angel Avengelyne questions God and tells Him that humans are undeserving of His love, she's exiled to Earth, to walk naked among humans and ponder His judgement until the moment they speak again.[50] The bounty hunter Bloodwulf travels the cosmos.[51] The immortal Troll,[52] the mysterious Knightsabre[53] and Cybernet defector Dutch join Youngblood.[54] Shaft's dad, Colonel Bravo, travels through time, popping in and out of the timestream in order to keep Earth safe like others such as Link,[55] the New Man[56] and Jeriko.[57] Lori Saunders becomes Earth's latest Maximage, the appointed mystical protector against The Keep.[58]
Extreme Prejudice, Extreme Sacrifice, Extreme Destroyer[]
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Eventually, Quantum escapes prison and murders most of Bloodstrike, with Cabbot being the only member left;[59] he takes on the name of his team as his solitary codename.[60] Chapel is revealed to be the Lord of Hell who dethroned Lucifer, and must be stopped;[61] he defeats Supreme,[62] but, wanting the kill for himself, Loki swaps the hero with his future daughter Probe,[47] who acts as Supreme in a male body until she recovers her memories and taking on the name Lady Supreme,[63] performing amazing feats such as delivering the killing blow to Darkthornn.[64] Brigade is raided by the government and Bloodstone is arrested;[65] while the rest of team are licking their wounds, Crypt brutally murders most of them.[66] The Keep arrive on Earth, and Quantum surprisingly defeats their leader, taking over the role and accepting the heavy responsibility in order to lead them away from humanity.[67]
Following the ultimate defeat of Loki by the returning, real Supreme,[47] a revision happens, erasing this continuity.[68] This coincides with the reality-dissolving attack of Entropy, who separates the Extreme population from the larger Image Universe,[69] but whether this triggered the revision is not explicitly stated.
After being vanished to the Supremacy like all his precessors, Liefeld's Supreme is imprisoned by his fellow Supremes as he is too aggressive to be civil.[70]
Alan Moore's Extreme[]
- Main article: Alan Moore's Extreme
Reading order[]
References
- ↑ https://www.supermanthroughtheages.com/theages/users/supreme/archive/moore_is_always_better.html
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 Supreme #41
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Supreme: The Return #3
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 Supreme: The Return #2
- ↑ https://forgottenawesome.blogspot.com/2017/06/weekly-reading-supreme-41.html
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Supreme #52A
- ↑ Avengelyne #1
- ↑ New Men #9
- ↑ New Man #1
- ↑ Prophet #1
- ↑ Berzerkers Vol 1 1
- ↑ Supreme #29
- ↑ Prophet (Volume 2) #4
- ↑ 14.0 14.1 Youngblood #2
- ↑ Legend of Supreme #1-Legend of Supreme #3
- ↑ Glory #9
- ↑ Glory #0
- ↑ 18.0 18.1 18.2 18.3 18.4 Youngblood Strikefile #1
- ↑ 19.0 19.1 Supreme: Glory Days #1
- ↑ 20.0 20.1 Supreme Annual #1
- ↑ Supreme #0
- ↑ Brigade (Volume 2) #5
- ↑ Supreme #9
- ↑ Legend of Supreme #3
- ↑ Team Youngblood #7
- ↑ New Men #20
- ↑ Extreme Sacrifice #1
- ↑ Vogue #1
- ↑ Youngblood #3
- ↑ Youngblood Strikefile #3
- ↑ Youngblood Trading Cards, 1992: #51 - Tailored.
- ↑ Youngblood #0
- ↑ Extreme Destroyer Prologue #1
- ↑ Youngblood Trading Cards, 1992: #22 - Bedrock
- ↑ Team Youngblood #18
- ↑ Bloodpool #1
- ↑ Operation: Knightstrike #1
- ↑ King Spawn #5
- ↑ Spawn #61
- ↑ Bloodstrike #1
- ↑ Brigade (Volume 2) #0
- ↑ Youngblood #0
- ↑ Youngblood #1
- ↑ Brigade #
- ↑ Team Youngblood #6
- ↑ Brigade (Volume 2) #8
- ↑ 47.0 47.1 47.2 Supreme #40
- ↑ Supreme #20
- ↑ Crypt #2
- ↑ Avengelyne #0
- ↑ Darker Image #1
- ↑ Image Zero #0
- ↑ Team Youngblood #9
- ↑ Team Youngblood #1
- ↑ Extreme Sacrifice #1
- ↑ New Man #1
- ↑ Youngblood (Volume 2) #10
- ↑ Maximage #1
- ↑ Extreme Prejudice
- ↑ Bloodstrike #17
- ↑ Extreme Sacrifice
- ↑ Supreme #23
- ↑ Supreme #33
- ↑ Supreme Apocalypse
- ↑ Brigade (Volume 2) #14
- ↑ Brigade (Volume 2) #16
- ↑ Extreme Destroyer
- ↑ Supreme #41
- ↑ Shattered Image #4
- ↑ Supreme #64