Supreme vs Hyperion
The FORBIDDEN Death Battle Prediction Blog Episode 29
Original Fight 18
Table of Contents
Supreme vs Hyperion
You know what’s sad to me? How played out the evil Superman concept has gotten to be. Can we get a moratorium on it for a few years? No more Plutonians, Homelanders, Injustice Supermen, Brightburns, Superboy Primes, etc. I only want Captain Carrots and Captain Marvels–as in Shazam, not Carol.
But to be fair, there was a time when the concept wasn’t played out. At one point it was even novel.
Our two fighters come from that time.
Who Are These Guys? What’s The Theme Here?
They’re evil Supermen from a time when such a concept was rare. It goes deeper than that, though. They’re both evil Supermen that eventually got replaced and overshadowed by good Supermen that went on to star in critically acclaimed works. If you mention Supreme to someone, odds are they’re going to think about the Alan Moore Supreme, not the original Rob Liefeld Supreme. Likewise, if you mention Hyperion to someone, odds are they’re going to think about the one featured in Mark Gruenwald’s Squadron Supreme, not the original that led the Squadron Sinister in The Avengers. And both Supreme and Hyperion, though they were copies of Superman, spawned copies of their own. There are now several Hyperions throughout the Marvel multiverse, and Alan Moore of Watchmen fame gave Supreme an entire dimension filled with Supremes called the Supremacy.
The earliest evil Superman was Ultraman of Earth-3, created by the great Gardner Fox to lead an evil alternate universe version of the Justice League known as the Crime Syndicate in Justice League of America 29 all the way back in 1964. The next evil Superman would be Hyperion created by Roy Thomas in The Avengers 69 in 1969. Hyperion was a member of the Squadron Sinister, essentially the DC version of the Crime Syndicate, and was the first in a long line of Hyperions, some good, some evil. Marvel liked cloning Superman so much that they eventually had an entire collection of not-Supermen entirely separate from their Hyperion army–Sentry, Blue Marvel, Sungod, Wundarr the Aquarian, and now Carol Danvers since the infamous “Car-El” retcon.
The evil Superman concept then had a rest in pop culture until the 90’s. Rob Liefeld started populating the Image comics universe with stand-ins. Glory was Wonder Woman, Shaft was Arsenal, Die Hard was Captain America, and Supreme was Superman–a very edgy, mean Superman who proudly committed war crimes during WW2. Rob got a lot of flack for his rip-offs, but let’s be real. It’s not like Marvel and DC don’t rip-off each other all the time. A cocky, swashbuckling bowman armed with trick arrows, gee, I wonder where Marvel got that idea? Alan Moore would later send the original Supreme off to the Supremacy and replaced him with his own Supreme in one of the best Superman runs of all time. Have you ever wondered what it would be like if Alan Moore had an entire run on Superman, not just one-offs like Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow and For the Man Who Has Everything? Read Supreme, just so long as you start with issue 41.
Supreme
“You–all of you call yourselves gods! You hide out here in your Never-Never Land in your castles, feasting, drinking, talking about the good old days when you ran things! Those days are gone! You are long forgotten! My world considers you to be myths–fairy tales! I to once turned my back on the Earth, but I returned! And I intend to remake it in my own image!”
–Supreme, beating up Thor for the second time in issue 22
…You know how different superhero settings have different explanations for why the superheroes that were around in the 40’s didn’t just solve WW2 in an hour? Like DC had Hitler gain cosmic power through the spear of destiny. Any hero that came into occupied Axis territory was made into his mindslave, even if they were a heavy hitter like the Specter, Green Lantern, or Dr. Fate. The superheroes could beat up Nazi spies and saboteurs on Allied territory, but Axis territory had to be pushed back by normal men like Sgt. Rock.
Marvel’s reason was that their characters were of a lower power level. Human Torch and Submariner were their heavies, and while they were powerful it would take them time to go through combined forces of the Axis, especially when those forces are bolstered by sci-fi wunder waffen and their own super-soldiers like Master Man and Warrior Woman.
You know why the Image heroes didn’t beat Hitler in a second?
It’s because Supreme deliberately prolonged the war so he had justification to kill more Nazis (The Legend of Supreme 1).
Supreme is not a good guy. He doesn’t want to destroy the planet and he will step in to save a bus full of innocents from being destroyed by a space monster, but he is not a good guy.
Supreme believes he’s a god. When he rescues a person, he’s not doing it out of empathy. He’s doing it to protect his property.
Throughout his series, Supreme mentions that he’s got plans to remake the world in his image. He never elaborates on what exactly he means, but odds are his intentions weren’t good.
Supreme is what happens when Captain America goes horribly, horribly wrong. During the 1940’s, Ethan Crane was subjected to supersoldier experimentation by Dr. Wells (who was also responsible for Image hero Prophet). After a battery of exercise and drugs, Ethan started bulking up and his strength increased by five-fold. Then Dr. Wells hooked Ethan up to computers–big, bulky tape reel computers. This somehow accelerated Ethan’s development as a superhuman. He got stronger…and stronger…and stronger…and then he got smarter.
Props to Liefeld for remembering that super intelligence is part of the classic Superman package. A lot of people overlook that one.
In his intelligence, or perhaps his madness, he concluded that he was smarter than his creators…and that they weren’t entitled to figure out what exactly made him so incredibly powerful. He destroyed his monitoring equipment so that there would never be another like him. He alone would be supreme.
Donning a costume and calling himself Supreme, Ethan went about murdering Nazis. Note that I didn’t say fighting Nazis. Murdering. We’re talking war crimes. Supreme loved to face down platoons of soldiers that had no way of hurting him and gleefully cutting them down with his beta-vision.
He ignored their screams for mercy.
The war crimes didn’t end there. Supreme was responsible for dropping both nukes on Japan. He flew over Hiroshima and Nagasaki and tossed fatman and little boy at the cities like a flying Liberty Prime. He also dropped bombs indiscriminately on a German city implied to be Dresden earning a civilian killcount as well as a soldier killcount.
He celebrated by kissing a horrified Glory (the Liefeld version of Wonder Woman) in the smoking ruins.
Hey guys! I figured out why Man of Steel sucked so hard. Zack Snyder thought he was making a Supreme film, not a Superman film. It all makes sense now!
Glory would later become his girlfriend.
Man, nothing ruins your faith in women like hybristophilia…
Returning home to rest after the war, Ethan ran into his old preacher Father Beat who got onto him about the whole “Thou shalt not kill” thing. Father Beat was one of the few humans on Earth Ethan respected–he might have even been the only one he respected.
Angered at Father Beat’s rebuke, Ethan lashed out in rage and accidentally hit Father Beat. Shocked at what he had done, Ethan fled to the stars. His mental state, already abnormal, was warped further by his isolation. He began to think of himself as a god and started quoting scripture–with himself replacing God almighty.
During his time in space, he would team up with an alien warlord named Khrome to destroy another alien warlord, encounter a Nazi from his past that developed shapeshifting and telepathic powers, and run into the Shi’ar from Marvel and have a fight with Gladiator after he threatened to genocide some aliens for making idols of him.
Yes, normally gods like it when you make idols of them. But Supreme is crazy.
Sometime in the 90’s, Supreme returned to Earth and had a brief skirmish with Youngblood. He then has a long and decompressed fight with his old friend Khrome for several issues. He also beats up the thunder god Thor and takes his hammer as a trophy.
Take that, Marvel! Image is in the house!
Then in Supreme 11, Supreme loses his innate powers after a fight with a character called Quantum and is forced to rely on Thor’s hammer to have any powers at all.
…You know, I think Rob broke copyright here. Mjolnir giving you the power of Thor is a Marvel thing. It’s not from mythology…
Then things get crazy.
Plotlines are introduced and dropped, characters show up and then never again, and the whole comic feels like a Superman themed fever dream. There’s a threat from the future that Supreme’s version of the Legion of Superheroes travels back in time to give him cryptic hints about, an evil Japanese corporation, a Loki that was doing reality altering illusions and shit for no reason, a Lex Luthor that killed Supreme’s old friends while he was away, and there were clones.
Of course. We can’t reach peak 90’s cheese without clones now, can we?
There were so, so many clones of Supreme.
Oh god, there were so many Supremes…
There was a female Supreme from the future named Probe. There was a male Supreme from the future that didn’t have a name or I just forgot it, I don’t care. There was an evil(er) clone of Supreme that came out of a tube. There was a Kid Supreme who had powers so long as he was near Supreme. There was an old, retired Kid Supreme from the 40’s. There was a younger version of Supreme with amnesia who turned out to be Probe sent back into the past and given a sex change. There was a Supreme from an alternate universe that was mind controlled by a villain named Simple Simon…
And they all kept fighting each other!
It’s like Rob Liefeld looked at The Death and Return of Superman and thought “Only four Supermen? You pussies!”
The series was, in the words of Alan Moore, “not very good.” Unless you really want some vintage 90’s cheese, I don’t recommend it.
I do however highly recommend Alan Moore’s run of Supreme which started with Supreme 41. Alan Moore completely threw out everything that came before and turned Supreme into a love letter to silver age Superman. Moore’s Supreme was an entirely different character who replaced LIefeld’s Supreme. Moore’s Supreme is a kind, heroic Supreme.
But that’s another Supreme, for another time, and another battle.
Supreme’s Powers
In Supreme 1, Supreme is called a “level 10 hyperbeing.” Does anyone know if this was a thing outside this comic? Did any other Image comic use hyperbeing levels?
I wonder what level Spawn was…
Supreme is one of those Superman clones who has a few of Clark’s powers mixed with powers he doesn’t have to keep things interesting. He’s got supreme strength, supreme speed, supreme durability (and it’s such a shame that it wasn’t until Moore that these got nifty names like speed supreme) and heat vision through “beta-vision” which, and I’m just guessing here based on the name, works by shooting extremely high-energy electrons or positrons through Supreme’s eyes.
Supreme does not appear to have any sort of telescopic vision, superhearing, microscopic vision, or X-ray vision. These powers were probably too subtle for the kind of stories Rob Liefeld wanted to tell.
As for powers he doesn’t share with Superman, Supreme can detect, scan, control, and channel energy and possesses a very weird molecular structure.
You can think of Supreme as being kind of like a living version of the suits of unstable molecules the Fantastic Four wear. His molecular structure is stated to be in a constant state of flux with his weight, mass, and density constantly changing. This also gives Supreme a sort of healing factor. In Supreme 4, his molecular structure allowed him to not only survive a multi-dimensional shield that scrambled his molecules across 26 dimensions but to power through the shield.
His energy powers first showed up in Supreme 2 where he scans throw-away character Skyraker, isolates his biological energy network, and shuts it down with a blast of beta-vision. Later, in Supreme 6, Supreme scans across the electromagnetic spectrum to discover that his enemy Khrome (sort of like his Brainiac) is being powered by a gamma carrier wave from his spaceship. Supreme chased this carrier wave back to an energy envelope around the core of Khrome’s ship and redirected this envelope so that the core imploded.
In Supreme 25, the Supreme of another universe absorbs and redirects lightning from mjolnir. Given his previous feats, it’s likely the standard Supreme could do this as well.
For all his might and ego, Supreme is not without his weaknesses. He has a weakness to particle based powers and lost his innate powers after a fight with a supervillain named Quantum (guess what his powers are). His powers would eventually return, but for months after his fight with Quantum Supreme had to rely on Thor’s hammer for superpowers (Supreme 11).
Supreme is also supremely arrogant–perhaps even superhumanly so. In Supreme Annual 1, Supreme fights a shapeshifting mind-reading Nazi from his past who decided to combine his two powers to turn into the one thing Supreme knows can destroy him, whatever that might be.
He turned into nothing, as in he faded away and his existence ended.
He turned into nothing because Supreme truly, in his heart-of-hearts, believes that nothing can destroy him.
Supreme’s Strength
–Blew up a spaceship with a blast of beta-vision (Supreme Annual 1)
–Fought evenly with Gladiator (yes, the Shi’ar Gladiator from Marvel Comics) (Supreme/Gladiator)
Their fight took them from the surface of a planet to a Shi’ar cruiser in space that put their shields up at maximum power. They fought on the shield and the force of their struggle destroyed the ship. We know from Uncanny X-Men 164 that Shi’ar ships require the energy of a star to function, so taking one down is no easy feat.
Gladiator eventually tricked Supreme into leaving the fight by pretending to die. Supreme felt no pulse and assumed he was dead, not realizing that Shi’ar don’t have pulses (go figure). Gladiator stated that if their fight had continued worlds would have been destroyed.
–Clashed with…okay, let me check on which Youngblood toothpaste colored Deadpool is…Diehard, in outer space and created an explosion that was seen from Earth as a complete whiteout of the sky. This explosion was later said to equal to a 500 megaton explosion–that’s 10 times the power of the tsar bomba, the most powerful nuke ever activated in real life (Supreme 1).
–Beat up the god Thor and took his hammer as a trophy (Supreme 9).
Supreme’s Durability
–Was totally unphased by a 500 megaton explosion (Supreme 1).
–Survived having his molecules scrambled across 16 dimensions by a multi-dimensional shield and then powered through it (Supreme 4).
–Survived radiation that was “off the scale.” (Supreme 6).
–Was forced by an electric body hijacking shapeshifter to fly into the heart of the sun. He flew out of the sun unharmed (Supreme Annual 1).
Supreme’s Speed
–Spent 50 years in space where he mapped out more of a galaxy than two native space-faring races (Supreme 2).
–In his weakened form, circles all of Asgard in three hours (21).
–After killing his clone (well, one of his clones…) he flies the corpse to the sun and tosses it in (Legend of Supreme 4).
Hyperion
“My name, which Titans have had cause to fear, is Hyperion!”
–The first ever words spoken by Hyperion on page, from The Avengers 69
“…Zarda. Zat you? I’m sorry for all the trouble I’ve caused. It’s true…I–I did kill your Howard. I’d have done anything to have…to keep…your love. Please…forgive me…I luuuuuhhhgk.”
–Hyperion’s last words, from Squadron Supreme 8
To restore the life of his beloved Ravanna, temporal warlord and Avengers baddie Kang the Conqueror bet his life on a game against the Grandmaster. This game was to be the Grandmaster’s favorite–action figures vs action figures.
Kang chose the Avengers having learned to respect them for all the times they kicked his butt. The Grandmaster chose a team consisting of the last son of an alien world, a speedster, a man powered by a light emitting accessory, and an acrobatic prowler of the shadows.
Sound familiar?
Hyperion, The Whizzer, Dr. Spectrum, and Nighthawk made the first Squadron Sinister. All of them were Earthmen granted powers and abilities by the Grandmaster, all of them save Hyperion who told Thor that he was the lone survivor of a subatomic planet that got destroyed by a particle accelerator. Through a quirk of destiny, Hyperion somehow survived and floated in the subatomic void until the Grandmaster found him, enlarged him, and gave him superpowers. His origin meant that Hyperion had a special hatred for Earth as he blamed mankind for the death of his world. Think Superman crossed with Namor during one of his “Damn you surface-dwellers, you nuked Atlantis!” phases.
Now, if you know how the microverse works in the Marvel multiverse, Hyperion’s origin story should already be raising red flags. Universes within the microverse aren’t actually tiny universes, they’re parallel universes with different planck lengths. By shrinking past the Planck length, your native universe 404’s on your existence and you fall into a universe with a Planck length that can accomodate you.
Go read What if 23, it’ll explain everything. That’s how the microverse works in Marvel assuming some jackass like Hickman hasn’t gone and retconned the rules.
Because he wanted to explain this discrepancy, because he wanted there to be a reason for why the Grandmaster created JLA stand-ins to fight the Avengers, and because he was a good writer that cared about separate elements of the Marvel setting coalescing into a whole, Mark Gruenwald retconned Hyperion into being a clone the Grandmaster created ex nihilo based on the Squadron Supreme Hyperion of Earth-712, Marvel’s DC pastiche Earth. This Hyperion was the second Hyperion in real life but the first Hyperion in the continuity of the comics.
Grandmaster turned out to be a bit of a DC fan. Who knew? Kurt Busiek even had the JLA fight for him in JLA/Avengers, likely as a nod to The Avengers 69.
Are the Elders of the Universe just Maltusians that ditched DC’s multiverse so they could better express their individuality? I’d like to think so.
After Thor shrank Hyperion and put him in a glass orb (Thor used to have some serious ranks in spellcasting before later writers nerfed him) he and the rest of the Squadron Sinister were forcibly recruited by space monster Nebulon to construct a giant laser that would melt the polar ice caps and doom the world (Defenders 13). Hyperion was more okay with this than his other Squadron Sinister members due to wanting the Earth to die anyway. They were thwarted by the Defenders with Hyperion being personally bested by the Hulk. The Squadron Sinister would try and take revenge on the Defenders and ex-teammate Nighthawk (he joined the Defenders and became a long-time member) and Hyperion would get clapped by the Hulk again–literally clapped as he was subdued by Hulk’s famous thunderclap move (Giant-Sized Defenders 5).
Hyperion then split with the Squadron Sinister. Whizzer would rename himself Speed Demon (three guesses why) and become a low-level flunkie villain in the Marvel universe. His most recent appearance was in Superior Foes of Spider-Man as part of a new Sinister Six. Dr. Spectrum’s power prism would change hands a few times before finally being destroyed. And Hyperion would retire from supervillainy and become a worker at a health spa in Queens under the name “Mr. Kant.” (Avengers Annual 8)
I see what you did there, Marvel.
The Avengers eventually find him and have a brief tussle before deciding to leave him alone. They felt bad over his sob story of his homeworld dying in a particle accelerator and he promised to be good from now on.
Oh they bought it! Oh they’re so stupid!
Come on Avengers! The dude tried to destroy all life on Earth. You can’t just let him go because he has feelings! You guys aren’t the X-men, what are you doing?
Hyperion would drop the charade in Thor 280. At this time, the existence of Earth-712 was known and the Avengers already had an adventure freeing Earth-712 from the influence of the Serpent Crown. But people still thought that Hyperion came from a subatomic world, not that he was a copy of Earth-712’s Hyperion created by the Grandmaster.
Squadron Supreme Hyperion took a portal to Earth-616 to ask Thor to star in a movie his world was making about the Avengers saving Earth-712, because back then superhero comics were written to be fun, crazy adventure stories, not like now where they’re therapy tools for ex-CIA goons named Tom. Hyperion happened to eavesdrop on the meeting and, feeling curious, snuck through Squadron Supreme Hyperion’s dimension portal. Finding himself in the Squadron Supreme’s satellite headquarters (of course it would be a satellite headquarters), he saw that Earth-712 was much like Earth-616 and decided to destroy it as a practice run because it was similar enough.
Jeeze, that’s some hatred!
He blindsided Squadron Supreme Hyperion and tied him up with his own cape. He teamed up with Emil Burbank (Hyperion’s Lex Luthor) and infiltrated the film shoot disguised as Squadron Supreme Hyperion (easiest disguise ever). He used his cover to get the drop on Thor, but Squadron Supreme Hyperion came to the rescue after he was rescued by Dr. Spectrum teleporting all members of the Squadron Supreme to him for a meeting (Hal Jordan did this a few times during the silver age).
Squadron Supreme Hyperion quickly subdued Hyperion remarking that he had an edge on Hyperion because he trained his powers while Hyperion just coasted by on them. That’s another nod to Superman. Superman actually had to train and develop his powers, even though the modern stereotype is that he got everything handed to him on a platter.
Did you know that was why Superman was on the Super Friends alongside Wonder Woman, Batman, and Aquaman? The Super Friends were created to train a new generation of super heroes, and those were the members of the Justice League of America that had to work hard to develop their powers.
Alright, enough about DC. Let’s get back to not-DC.
Squadron Supreme Hyperion locks Hyperion up in an energy-draining cell like he’s a new exhibit in his alien zoo, but Roxxon sprung Hyperion with a dimensional probe gun and brought him back to 616 (Marvel Two-In-One 64).
Roxxon is evil(er) Exxon. On the surface, they’re an oil company, but they’re really a clandestine global criminal network armed with supertechnology. It’s like Hydra and AIM and the Committee and the Secret Empire and the Brand Corporation…I think if people organize in groups greater than 20 they’re compelled to become outlandish comic book villains dedicated to taking over the world. It’s just a thing in 616. Radioactive spider bites give you superpowers, organizing in groups greater than 20 makes you evil.
Roxxon, technically Roxxon’s Nth Project subdivision, offered Hyperion a deal. They would use their multiverse technology to return him to his subatomic world which actually wasn’t destroyed (a lie on several levels) and in exchange he would steal some tech from Project Pegasus, an energy research institute commonly featured in stories by Mark Gruenwald across Quasar and Marvel Two-In-One, and kidnap Thundra, a superstrong parody of feminism from Earth-715, also known as Femizonia (which eventually became Earth-7412, long story).
Thundra loves violence and hates men unless they’re strong men capable of kicking her ass. Thundra is basically what the Death Battle writers (and some modern DC writers) think Wonder Woman is.
One might question the wisdom of recruiting a superhuman with genocidal intentions just to pull a smash and grab and kidnap third wave feminist Wonder Woman, especially when your bribe is a lie and he already wants to blow up your planet…
Unfortunately for Roxxon, Hyperion falls in love with Thundra. He bonds with Thundra over being a fellow multiverse exile and discovers he’s got a thing for tough tomboys. “Lady, I like a challenge, and you’re it!”
I approve. I guess even genocidal madmen have their redeeming qualities.
Thundra, after a series of hijinks and betrayals and “No Thundra actually I was going to pretend to betray you so I could betray Roxxon,” Thundra returns Hyperion’s feelings…even though she knows he’s tried to destroy the world…
Man, nothing ruins your faith in women like hybristophilia…
In Marvel Two-In-One 67, Thundra gets her hands on Roxxon’s dimensional portal gun and uses it to create a portal back to Femizonia. Hyperion quickly follows, but instead of going to Femizonia he finds himself in a misty void between realities (Squadron Supreme 7).
It turns out that you have to enter Roxxon’s portals extremely fast, otherwise you end up trapped between worlds.
You’d think they’d put a warning label on the side of the gun, or at the very least a timer with a bell…
Pulled out of the mists by his old pal Emil Burbank, Hyperion finds himself back in Earth-712. Emil offers Hyperion a deal–if he helps him destroy his world’s Hyperion and the Squadron Supreme, he’ll find a way to get him back to Thundra.
Emil pulls a meteor to Earth, Squadron Supreme Hyperion does what all Supermen do when a big rock is about to crash into Earth, Emil makes Squadron Supreme Hyperion vanish with a dimension gun, and Hyperion surreptitiously takes Squadron Supreme Hyperion’s place and is instructed to act like the meteor had some mysterious element inside it that not only knocked him out but gave him amnesia.
Boom. Instant mole inside the Squadron Supreme.
Zarda Shelton, aka Power Princess, has experience taking care of her geriatic husband and so volunteers to handle Hyperion’s rehab. She’s the Squadron’s Wonder Woman, and the twist to her is that she’s immortal and her husband isn’t. It’s basically “Diana and Steve Trevor, fifty years later.”
Hyperion falls for her, and after some internal debate picks her over Thundra because Thundra’s an angry bitch while Zarda has sweetness and softness to her.
Good call, Hyperion. Heroic, gentle Wonder Woman is infinitely more preferable to warrior bitch Wonder Woman. You chose the superior tomboy.
…You know, I don’t think Thundra ever found out that Hyperion died or that Zarda made her a cuckquean. I don’t think Thundra ever met Zarda.
Missed opportunity, Marvel writers.
Picking Zarda over Thundra meant Hyperion had two things to do–break up with Emil and get rid of the old man.
The old man was easy. Hyperion just sucked the air out of his lungs and breathed it back in to induce a heart attack.
Genocidal maniac, remember?
I wonder if that’s how Superman is going to kill Goku in Superman vs Goku III?
Emil was a little harder. He had power armor like every good Lex clone should, but Hyperion overpowered him and forced him to make an emergency jump through a dimensional portal.
Hyperion quietly slid into the role of Squadron Supreme Hyperion. Life seemed good. He even seemed to enjoy pretending to be a hero. Not bad for a guy that originally wanted to destroy Earth-712 as a test run.
But Emil came across Squadron Supreme Hyperion in the void between realities and with his help they both escaped (Squadron Supreme 9).
Squadron Supreme Hyperion, having seen everything that happened Phantom Zone style, immediately attacks Hyperion.
The two Hyperions destroy Mount Rushmore as they brawl. Though Hyperion did better in his second fight against Squadron Supreme Hyperion than he did when they first fought, he loses a heat vision tug-of-war with Squadron Supreme Hyperion and degrades back into protoplasm. He still managed to blind Squadron Supreme Hyperion who was forced to wear green Dr. Mid-Nite goggles in order to see created for him by Ape X–think a reformed Gorilla Grodd that’s also female. Hyperion would have liked that he managed to wound his rival on his way out of existence.
Hyperion dies in Zarda’s arms, never knowing that he was a clone from a world that never existed.
But wait, there’s more!
Hyperion briefly came back to life as part of the Grandmaster’s Legion of the Unliving (Avengers Annual 16).
After running a complicated scheme which resulted in him enslaving Death herself and stealing her powers, the Grandmaster decided to play a game with the Avengers (and Silver Surfer) for shits and giggles. He created bombs each with the power to blow up a fifth of the universe and challenged Earth’s heroes to deactivate them. Each would be guarded by members of the Legion of the Unlinging, dead characters the Grandmaster brought back to fight for him.
Of course, being Marvel, a good chunk of these characters eventually got over being dead. Norman Osborne was part of the Legion of the Unliving, for instance (and he kicked Moon Knight’s ass in the annual, by the way).
Hyperion was part of a team consisting of himself, Nazi vampire Baron Blood, and Bucky (see what I mean about how a chunk of the Legion got over being dead?) and fought Wasp, Wonder Man, and Captain America on an ice planet.
Hyperion fought Wonder Man and pulled off a pretty awesome feat by the standards of Bronze Age Marvel by plowing Wonder Man through the planet and into its sun, but this ended up killing him as well. Even if he had survived, he would have returned to being dead like the rest of Legion of the Unliving after the Grandmaster lost a final gamble against Hawkeye.
I highly recommend checking out Avengers Annual 16 and other stories involving the Grandmaster making heroes fight. JLA/Avengers, Contest of Champions (1982), when Grandmaster shows up it’s always fun.
He knows how to book fights, unlike Death Battle.
Grandmaster wouldn’t have settled for Spider-Gwen vs Batgirl, I can tell you that much.
After the Legion of the Unliving, Hyperion was well and truly done.
…Well, there was Earth-X, which is officially Earth-9997 and featured a plot that was meant to involve the entire multiverse but due to retcons it’s more like a sub-multiverse inside the larger Marvel-multiverse the same way Earth-199999 (the MCU) is a sub-multiverse.
Earth-X had a version of Earth-712 where Zarda and Squadron Supreme Hyperion hook up, but when everyone found themselves in a new afterlife created by Captain Marvel (longggg story) Zarda cucked Squadron Supreme Hyperion with Hyperion.
Man, nothing ruins your faith in women like hybristophilia…
Hyperion would be survived by several different Hyperions:
Hyperion’s Legacy
Hyperion’s legacy includes, but is not limited to:
His rival, Hyperion of Earth-712
The insane King Hyperion of Earth-4023
The Hyperion of the doomed universe of Earth-13034, which presumably came back along with all the other universes Hickman killed off, but don’t expect Marvel to give Hyperion–or any character for that matter–closure and a happy ending.
The suicidal Hyperion of Earth-1121, a Kingdom Come pastiche where humanity nuked the Squadron Supreme.
The Hyperion of Earth-5764…who just kind of exists because they wanted Squadron Supreme Hyperion to team up with another Hyperion to beat up King Hyperion in Exiles. I don’t know why they decided to create a Hyperion just to do this when they already had a lot to pick from.
The young, edgy Hyperion of the Supreme Power universe of Earth-31916.
The zombified Hyperion of an unknown reality that started Marvel Zombies.
And don’t forget the Hyperion of Earth-616. Yes, that’s right, the main Marvel universe has its own Hyperion now! His name is Zhib-Ran and it turns out that the Grandmaster based Hyperion on Zhib-Ran and not Squadron Supreme Hyperion. Zhib-Ran comes from a subatomic world called Yttrium which was destroyed when–
Wait.
What?
Ah son of a bitch! They did retcon how the microverse works!
Hyperion’s Powers
Naturally, Hyperion has a lot of Superman’s powers. He’s got flight, superstrength, superspeed, superdurability, and heat vision via “atomic vision.” I think just about every Superman clone has those powers.
Hyperion’s atomic vision is interesting in that he can use it either as a heat-based weapon or as a way to look through walls (MTIO 67). This is likely a reference to how Superman’s heat vision used to be the same power as his x-ray vision just cranked up so that it melted things. Props to you, Mark Gruenwald.
His atomic vision is stronger than his physical might. We know this because when he had Squadron Supreme Hyperion knocked out, he remarked that his uniform was made of invincible fabric just like his own (it used to be part of Superman lore that his costume was just as invincible as his body). He tied up Squadron Supreme Hyperion by cutting his cape with his atomic vision to make strips to tie his hands behind his back (Thor 280).
Hyperion stated that since his hands were tied behind his back he wouldn’t be able to free himself since super stretching wasn’t part of their powersets.
Hyperion has superhearing, though it was only shown in one issue (MTIO 67). He does not appear to have telescopic or microscopic vision.
Hyperion has superbreath and he’s very skilled in using it. He can make it powerful enough to batter around the Thing (MTIO 67) or precise enough to stealthily kill a man by breathing the air out of his lungs and breathing it back in (Squadron Supreme 7).
After the Hulk used his famous thunderclap move on Hyperion (Giant-Sized Defenders 5), Hyperion learned how to do it himself and used it against the Thing (MTIO 67).
Never underestimate superbreath.
Hyperion’s Strength
–His fight with Hulk had “geologists countless miles away looking at their seismographs in disbelief.” He gave Hulk a good fight, but was eventually defeated (Defenders 13).
–Knocked out Valkyrie with a hug (Giant-Size Defenders 4).
–Defeated the Thing (MTIO 67).
–Hit Wonder Man so hard he flew into orbit for twenty miles and made the planet they were fighting on shake (Avengers Annual 16).
–Tackled Wonder Man through the planet they were fighting on and into its sun (Avengers Annual 16). This caused a solar flare that Captain America, back on the planet’s surface, feared would incinerate him.
Hyperion’s Durability
–Took Thor’s signature hammer throw move to the chest and just smiled (Avengers 70).
–Bragged that a nuke couldn’t hurt him (Giant-Size Defenders 4).
–Fought evenly with Squadron Supreme Hyperion until his durability started to give out. His shoulder broke and he started to decay back into the protoplasm the Grandmaster created him out of. This indicates that Hyperion’s key weakness is in his endurance (Squadron Supreme 7).
–As impressive as his Wonder Man feat was…he died doing it. We know he died because otherwise he would have flown back to the planet and stop Cap from deactivating the Grandmaster’s bomb (Avengers Annual 16).
Hyperion’s Speed
–Bragged about being faster than a speeding bullet (I see what you did there, Marvel) (MTIO 67).
–Moved faster than Thundra could see and dodged blasts from a dimensional teleporter gun (MTIO 67).
–Can stop on a dime while he’s flying and did so to fling the Thing off him through momentum (MTIO 67).
–Tackled Wonder Man from a planet into its sun (Avengers Annual 16).
So Who Wins?
Supreme stands Supreme.
Yeesh. This ended up being a slaughter. They can’t all be close matches, but I think I’ve found a fight to surpass the Electra Woman vs Isis curbstomp.
Going into this, I thought it would be a lot closer. In fact, there was a moment when I thought Hyperion had a shot at winning. But no. Supreme is so out of Hyperion’s league he could probably beat him and the Squadron Supreme Hyperion at the same time.
There’s just nothing Hyperion has on Supreme. Hyperion’s best move was when he tackled Wonder Man into a sun and it resulted in them both dying. Supreme was forced by a body jacker to dive into the sun and was completely fine.
That alone is enough to call the fight, but Supreme has even more advantages.
Supreme has that “unstable molecular structure” power that Hyperion doesn’t. That gives Supreme a healing factor, meaning endurance wise he holds up better than Hyperion as the fight goes on. And what was it that made Hyperion lose against Squadron Supreme Hyperion? His lack of endurance.
Supreme also has more experience fighting others on his level and a better track record to boot. He beat his universe’s Thor twice. Hyperion lost to his universe’s Thor. Supreme beat a clone of himself. Hyperion lost to the “original” Hyperion. Every time Hyperion went up against someone like Supreme, someone like Hulk or Thor or the Squadron Supreme Hyperion, he got creamed.
Poor Hyperion. His hope for survival is as nonexistent as his homeworld.
The fight would go like this: Supreme gets pissed someone is committing blasphemy by dressing up like him and flirting with Glory and starts the fight. Hyperion matches him in ego boosting as the planet they’re on starts to shake. Hyperion pulls his shoulder (a reference to Squadron Supreme) and Supreme gets cocky now that he’s taken the advantage. Hyperion gets pissed and goes all out, tackling Supreme into the heart of the sun (a reference to the Legion of the Unliving). Hyperion is barely alive and showing signs that he’s degrading when Supreme walks out of the sun quoting scripture while on fire (a reference to Supreme Annual). They lock heat vision and Hyperion gets his eyes blown out (a reference both to Squadron Supreme and Legend of Supreme). Then Supreme quotes Revelation 20:10 and throws Hyperion into the sun.
Sun god dies in the sun.
Music Track Name Ideas
C Rank: Supremely Hyper
B Rank: The Other Supermen
A Rank: Savage Supermen
S Rank: Original Copies
So you’re considering using Moore supreme?
How about Miracle man vs Supreme?