Written by Mark Gruenwald – Penciled by Paul Ryan – Inked by Sam De La Rosa & Keith Williams – Lettered by John Workman – Colored by Christie Scheele
Welcome to Squadron City
After the Institute of Evil’s attack last issue, the Squadron has taken steps to protect itself from anything similar happening again.
Their families are moved into the newly constructed Squadron City, an enormous headquarters that Arcanna makes invisible to the outside world.
On the surface, it’s a completely logical solution. Their enemies have already demonstrated that the Squadron’s families can be used against them. Bringing everyone together gives them protection. But that protection comes with complications.
We learn that Whizzer’s marriage is strained. After his actions last issue, he’s withdrawn from his wife Madeline. Now that she has been removed from her normal life and the people she might usually confide in, there aren’t many places for her to turn. The people around her are mostly members of the Squadron or their families, hardly an impartial group when her problems involve one of their own.
We also see that Amphibian is disgruntled about their new base. Squadron City is located hours from a major body of water, leaving him separated from the environment where he feels most comfortable and where his powers are most useful.
Even Dr. Spectrum seems suspicious of the team’s attempts to help him. When Hyperion asks how he’s doing, Spectrum wonders whether the concern is genuine or simply an attempt to get him ready for combat again. That suspicion extends to the therapists at headquarters. Are they there to help him, or to get him back into fighting shape?
Squadron City is designed to be a sanctuary. But bringing everyone together doesn’t necessarily bring them closer.
Madeline has been cut off from the people she trusts. Amphibian has been removed from the environment where he feels at home. Spectrum has people available to help him, but he questions whether they have his best interests at heart.
They’re all living together in the safest place the Squadron could build, yet each of them is isolated in a different way.
Model Citizens
Tom Thumb has been given his own research facility, along with a new partner: Ape-X.
She’s also our first real opportunity to spend time with one of the Institute of Evil members after behavior modification. The change is striking.
The former villains aren’t simply less violent. They’re agreeable. Helpful. Enthusiastic. They seem eager for approval.
Ape-X praises Tom’s work, and despite his initial jealousy over the attention she receives, he immediately perks up when she directs that praise toward him.
As the issue continues, we meet more of the reformed Institute members, and the same pattern begins to emerge.
They’re productive. They’re cooperative. They’re committed to the Utopia Program. They seem willing to go along with whatever is asked of them.
They’re everything the Squadron increasingly isn’t.
The actual members of the Squadron are exhausted, distracted and increasingly divided. They have personal lives and responsibilities outside the Utopia Program. They disagree over policy and question the direction the team is heading.
The former Institute members don’t seem to have any of those problems.
At first glance, behavior modification appears to be working perfectly. That’s what makes it so disturbing.
Hyperion
For most of the series, Gruenwald has kept Hyperion at something of a distance.
We’ve seen him lead meetings and have some one-on-one conversations, but he’s mostly functioned as a coach and cheerleader. He’s the manager giving out “attaboys” and keeping everyone focused on the mission. But we haven’t really been allowed inside his head.
Hyperion recognizes that the nonstop demands of the Utopia Program are taking a toll on his teammates. Spectrum has lost his confidence. Amphibian is increasingly unhappy. Something is clearly wrong with Whizzer. Lady Lark and Golden Archer have been behaving strangely.
Hyperion isn’t oblivious to the problems around him. But he increasingly approaches them like a corporate middle manager trying to keep his team productive and focused.
When Foxfire has to cover Lady Lark’s assignment because Lark can’t stay away from Archer for more than an hour, Hyperion begins wondering whether disciplinary action might be necessary.
He’s clearly paying attention to what’s happening around him. The question is whether he’s seeing his teammates as people first, or as members of an organization he needs to keep functioning.
The Illusion of Choice
So far, the Squadron has avoided one of the most troubling questions surrounding the Behavior Modification Program by relying on volunteers and only using the machine on convicted criminals.
The program has been running fairly smoothly, but that changes when a prison warden refuses to allow the machine to be used on his inmates because he believes behavior modification is immoral.
Instead of using this as an opportunity to question the morality of Behavior Modification, or even acknowledging that they may have to respect those who refuse the program, Hyperion’s response is that they need to convince the warden otherwise.
Amphibian immediately recognizes the problem. What happens if the warden can’t be convinced? Do they modify him? What happens if the media turns against the program? Do they eventually modify them too?
Spectrum insists that participation is still voluntary, but Amphibian questions how meaningful that choice really is if they’re unwilling to accept no as an answer.
His frustration is no longer limited to Behavior Modification. Amphibian is also beginning to question the way the Squadron makes its decisions.
When he raises his concerns, Spectrum reminds him that they already voted on Behavior Modification and Amphibian lost. As far as Spectrum is concerned, that should end the argument.
But Amphibian doesn’t see morality as something that can simply be settled by majority vote. He makes one more passionate appeal, telling his teammates that he knows in their hearts they understand that changing another person’s mind is wrong.
Hyperion responds by moving on to the next item on the agenda.
There’s something increasingly hollow about the Squadron’s decision-making process. Amphibian can object, but once the vote is taken, his objections become something to brush aside rather than something worth continuing to wrestle with.
For a team trying to build a better world, they’re becoming surprisingly uncomfortable with one of the messiest parts of free will: dissent.
An Imperfect Reckoning
At the meeting Blue Eagle accuses Golden Archer of using the Behavior Modification Machine on Lady Lark. Tom Thumb admits that he had the same suspicion, which is why he altered the machine to prevent it from being used on Squadron members.
Golden Archer is brought before the team and confesses. The conversation quickly becomes about what should happen to Archer. Blue Eagle and Arcanna want him expelled. Whizzer believes his remorse matters and argues for forgiveness. Dr. Spectrum, one of Archer’s closest friends, becomes increasingly aggressive in his defense.
Arcanna is the one who seems most focused on what was actually done to Lady Lark. Archer didn’t simply break a team rule. He violated her in an incredibly personal way.
There’s an uncomfortable imbalance in that, particularly reading the story today. A woman has had her autonomy violated, and now a roomful of powerful people are debating whether the man who did it should face any punishment at all.
It becomes even more troubling when Tom Thumb admits that he can’t restore Lark to the way she was before. Archer can apologize, accept whatever punishment the Squadron gives him, and eventually move on with his life. Lark doesn’t have that option. What was done to her can’t simply be undone.
The Boiling Point
During the debate over Golden Archer, Power Princess suggests another possible solution: use Behavior Modification to remove the impulses that led him to violate Lady Lark.
For Amphibian, it’s the final straw. After everything that has happened, the Squadron is still looking to the machine for answers.
Amphibian has spent the entire issue trying to convince his teammates that they’re heading down the wrong path. He finally seems to realize that he isn’t going to change their minds.
He goes to the facility where additional Behavior Modification Machines are being manufactured and destroys them.
Ape-X discovers him, and Amphibian orders her to delete all the files related to the machine. She questions whether they should be doing this, but ultimately cannot disobey an order from a member of the Squadron Supreme.
To prove how dangerous the machine is, Amphibian takes advantage of exactly what it has done to Ape-X.
The behavior-modified members of the Institute have spent the issue appearing to be ideal additions to the Squadron. They’re cooperative, productive and eager to make the world better. And now we understand why. They can question what they’re being asked to do, but they can’t refuse.
Amphibian knows destroying the machines won’t stop the program forever. Tom Thumb can rebuild them. At best, he’s bought some time.
The act is largely symbolic, one final act of defiance before Amphibian walks away from the Squadron.
Not A Prestige Comic
Issue #6 brings an almost entirely different visual team, with Paul Ryan replacing Bob Hall on pencils, Keith Williams joining Sam De La Rosa on inks, and John Workman taking over the lettering.
The art team also does a great job selling the transformation of the Institute of Evil. Gone are the arched eyebrows, sinister smiles and exaggerated expressions that immediately marked them as villains. Now they look almost docile and friendly.
That visual change makes their behavior seem harmless at first, which makes the eventual realization that they can’t refuse the Squadron even more unsettling.
Rotating the art team reinforces the notion that Squadron Supreme was a landmark series hiding in plain sight. For all the ambitious ideas Gruenwald is exploring, the book doesn’t present itself like a prestige project. There isn’t one carefully preserved visual identity across twelve issues. Artists and letterers change. The book looks and feels like a regular monthly Marvel comic.
Even the ending points readers toward a crossover in Captain America. For all the weight we might give the series today, at the time it was still being published as part of the regular machinery of Marvel Comics.
Final Thoughts
Issue #6 feels like the point where the problems inside the Squadron finally break through to the surface.
Nighthawk is gone. Nuke is dead. Golden Archer has been expelled, Lady Lark leaves with him, and Amphibian has gone from questioning the Utopia Program to actively sabotaging it.
Meanwhile, six former members of the Institute of Evil have joined the Squadron. They’re productive, enthusiastic and completely committed to the cause.
There’s a strange irony in what the team is becoming. The people who still have their free will are messy and unreliable. They argue. They make terrible decisions. They hold grudges, question authority and sometimes walk away entirely.
The behavior-modified members don’t cause those problems because they can’t truly dissent.
That becomes especially troubling now that they’ve been accepted as members of the Squadron. The team may have gained six reliable new members, but it has also potentially complicated a decision-making process that Amphibian already believes is failing.
Outside the Squadron, resistance to the Utopia Program is also beginning to grow. And for the first time since the opening issue, Gruenwald brings Nighthawk back into the story. The man who first rejected the Utopia Program appears to be preparing to do something about it.
At the halfway point, Squadron Supreme is beginning to show us what happens when the messiness of free will gets in the way of building a perfect world.
Squadron Supreme Entry #7
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