Written by Mark Gruenwald – Pencils by Paul Ryan – Inks by Sam De La Rosa – Lettered by Janice Chiang – Colored by Max Scheele

Principles vs. Pragmatism 

The resistance still isn’t a unified coalition. They’re united by their opposition to the Squadron, but they don’t necessarily agree on why they’re fighting or how they should win.

Master Menace and Nighthawk are the clearest examples.

Menace isn’t interested in Nighthawk’s idealism. He doesn’t believe they can defeat the Squadron without fighting, and he certainly doesn’t believe they can do it while refusing to use Behavior Modification.

Nighthawk still sees the machine as fundamentally wrong. It takes away free will and liberty, which is exactly what he’s been fighting against.

There’s an obvious problem with Nighthawk’s position, though.

Last issue, he agreed to use the Behavior Modification Machine on Blue Eagle because they needed to protect the resistance while they reversed the machine on everyone else. Now we see the consequence of that decision. It’s been about a week, and they’re still working their way through the former Institute members.

Nighthawk has already compromised his principles once because he believed the circumstances demanded it.

Menace doesn’t have that problem. He’s willing to do whatever he thinks is necessary to win. And he understands that revolutions are bloody.

Nighthawk still believes there has to be a way to defeat the Squadron without it becoming violent. Menace feels his idealism could be the end of the revolution.

That philosophical difference illustrates just how precarious Nighthawk’s plan is. He’s trying to lead a resistance made up of people who don’t necessarily agree on what they’re willing to do to win.

The Scrambled Egg Paradox

The reversal of Behavior Modification doesn’t mean everyone simply goes back to being the person they were before.

Foxfire is the last former Institute of Evil member to have her Behavior Modification reversed, but she has been living as a different person for almost a year.

She’s been dating Dr. Spectrum. She’s developed relationships with people who were once her enemies. And she now has a sense of civic responsibility.

When she and Lamprey are flying back toward Squad City, they pass a police shootout. Foxfire wants to stop and help.

Lamprey doesn’t.

Foxfire relents, but she’s left unsettled by the incident.

Was that part of the Behavior Modification? Was it something that was already inside her? Or did the time she spent living this new life actually change her?

Shape is dealing with something similar.

He’s confused about what he’s supposed to do now. He’s discovered that he likes the way people treat him. Kids like him. People accept him. He doesn’t necessarily want to go back to the person he was.

He goes looking for Ape-X because he wants answers, but she’s catatonic. Eventually, Moonglow uses an illusion to trick him into committing to his role in the resistance.

But these two moments add another complication to what Gruenwald is doing with this story.

Behavior Modification is bad. Free will is good.

But that doesn’t mean everything becomes simple once the machine is reversed.

These people have experiences now that they didn’t have before. They have relationships. They have emotions. They’ve changed.

Gruenwald isn’t giving us a clean reset.

A Team of Silos

The Squadron mirrors Nighthawk’s resistance in how out of sync the members of the team are.

Arcanna is close to giving birth, and yet she’s hidden her pregnancy from most of the team. Haywire and Inertia are a couple, but they’re not completely on the same page about betraying the Squadron.

Redstone is suspicious of Blue Eagle reaching out to him. He wonders if there’s a trick involved, while Blue Eagle is suspicious of his loyalty.

Dr. Spectrum is concerned about his relationship with Foxfire, which is distracting him from his responsibilities to the team.

Everyone has their own concerns, relationships and motivations competing with their responsibilities to the Squadron.

And that leaves the Squadron just as unprepared for Nighthawk’s assault as Nighthawk’s resistance is for what comes next.

A Praetorian Safeguard

Hyperion and Power Princess are at the White House, coordinating with the President and his cabinet as they return some of the governing power back to the United States government.

The catch is that the Squadron will still handle national security, law enforcement and the technology they’ve developed.

This shows that the Squadron isn’t simply trying to take over the world, but it still complicates the relationship between the government, the citizens and the Squadron.

By holding military power, they effectively have a very powerful veto over anything that happens in America. The paperwork of governing has been handed over, but the power remains in the Squadron’s hands.

The Squadron truly believes they’ve made the world a better place, and there’s no malice in their motivations. But they still seem unwilling to allow the people of America full autonomy.

And when they address a huge crowd at the Capitol, they have a pretty convincing list of accomplishments.

Unemployment is practically gone. Poverty has been eradicated. There’s no more hunger. Crime has been eliminated. Nuclear weapons have been disarmed. There’s peace.

Despite all of these accomplishments, there are still protesters. People who do not want these super-powered overseers of their democracy.

They want liberty.

And while the Squadron can point to tangible results, their opponents can point to the fact that those results came with restrictions on people’s freedom.

And that’s what makes this whole thing so much more complicated than simply looking at the results of the Utopia Program.

The Impending Reckoning

 

Nighthawk’s resistance confronts the Squadron Supreme inside Squad City.

As the Squadron prepares to defend themselves, we see that everyone is having their own doubts about their desire to fight.

Foxfire still isn’t sure what to make of her feelings for Spectrum. Shape prefers the more peaceful existence he has enjoyed since joining the Squadron. Whizzer fights the urge to run away and protect his family. Spectrum hasn’t really been in a fight since Nuke died and is unsure if he can. Arcanna could go into labor at any moment.

Even Hyperion is still haunted by the last time he unleashed his full power and killed someone.

And finally there’s Nighthawk, still holding out hope for a peaceful surrender.

It seems no one really wants to fight.

Which makes this feel very different from a normal superhero showdown.

The two sides aren’t standing across from each other, eager to start throwing punches. They’re still trying to argue about the ideas behind everything that’s happened.

But both sides are dug in.

And now the only question is whether they can actually resolve that disagreement without killing each other.

Charlie Foxtrot

Before either side can reach a resolution, Spectrum makes the first move. He uses his power prism to incapacitate Nighthawk and his team so the Squadron can subdue them without anyone getting seriously hurt.

It doesn’t work out that way.

The fight is messy from the beginning. People hesitate. They run into each other. They attack people they don’t actually want to hurt. They try to protect people on the other side.

In superhero comics, we’re used to fights being almost perfectly executed. Teams train together, coordinate their attacks and know exactly how to use their powers.

That’s not what’s happening here.

These people have spent the entire series arguing over what they believe is right, and now they’re being forced to fight people they know and, in some cases, care about. But there are also people who genuinely hate each other. The former Institute members want revenge. Blue Eagle doesn’t trust the people around him. There are jealousies, old grudges and fears mixed in with the relationships that have developed over the past year.

Their emotions are getting in the way, but not always in the same direction.

And with this much power flying around, that makes everything more dangerous.

Foxfire knows Arcanna is pregnant and tries to protect her, but Arcanna doesn’t know that and attacks her anyway. Then Arcanna goes into labor.

Inertia redirects Hyperion’s punches toward Power Princess, nearly killing her. Spectrum tries to stop her, only to find himself facing Wyatt, his friend. He can’t bring himself to use his full power against him because of what happened to Nuke.

Wyatt destroys Spectrum’s power prism, leaving Spectrum’s entire body white as the prism is somehow absorbed into him. Wyatt immediately feels guilty and catches Spectrum when he falls.

Blue Eagle sees this and decides Wyatt has betrayed them. He attacks him from behind.

Shape is fighting Moonglow while trying to protect Arcanna, eventually getting her away from the battle.

Lamprey, meanwhile, is simply looking for people to hurt.

The fight has stopped being two teams fighting against each other. Everyone is making their own decisions based on their own relationships, fears, loyalties and grudges.

People who are supposed to be enemies are protecting each other.

People who are supposed to be on the same side are hurting each other.

Nobody is a monolith.

And that’s what makes this fight so deadly.

Enlightenment By Way of Ruin

While all of this is happening, Nighthawk gets another chance to talk to an incapacitated Hyperion. He explains exactly why he believes he needs to tear down the Squadron’s utopian society.

This world is unsustainable.

The only reason the Utopia Program works is because the Squadron is there to enforce the new world order.

But what happens when they’re gone?

The Squadron hasn’t created a utopia through the consent of the people living in it. They’ve created one by imposing it on them.

And Nighthawk’s argument finally gets through to Hyperion. Not because Nighthawk has proven that the world would be better off going back to the way it was, but because Hyperion finally understands that the Squadron’s version can’t last forever.

Unfortunately, this hard-won concession comes too late.

While Nighthawk and Hyperion are having their final conversation, Foxfire decides that the only way to stop the rebellion is to kill Nighthawk. She weakens his heart with her powers, ending his life and effectively ending the resistance.

When the dust finally clears, the body count is enormous.

The Squadron agrees to disband. The Utopia Program will be abandoned.

But the price of finally understanding is high.

Final Thoughts

Gruenwald never turns the Squadron into villains just so we can feel comfortable opposing them.

Because the Squadron isn’t evil.

They aren’t secretly sociopaths. They aren’t trying to conquer the world because they enjoy having power. They genuinely believe they’ve found a way to make people’s lives better, and in many ways, they have.

Gruenwald doesn’t need to turn Hyperion into a monster to show us the danger of giving someone that much power. He lets Hyperion remain Hyperion: a fundamentally decent person who wants to do the right thing and believes he has the power to make that happen.

The same is true of the rest of the Squadron.

They aren’t monsters who need to be defeated.

They’re people who believe they know what’s best. They just want to make the world a better place.

But at what point does making the world better become deciding what kind of world everyone else is allowed to live in?

Squadron Supreme ends without giving us any easy answers.

Instead, Gruenwald lets Hyperion and Nighthawk make their arguments, lets us see the consequences, and leaves us to decide whether the price was worth paying.

There are bodies in the morgue. The Squadron is disbanding. The Utopia Program is ending. The world is about to become uncertain again.

But the final image doesn’t focus on the tragedy or the world. Instead, it’s Arcanna giving birth.

The series ends by reminding us that life continues regardless of who is in power, what government exists, or whether humanity has finally figured out how to build the perfect society.

People will keep living.

They’ll keep making choices.

They’ll keep making mistakes.

They’ll keep trying to make things better.

And maybe that’s the closest thing Squadron Supreme has to an answer.

You can’t create a perfect world for people.

You can only give people the freedom to try to create a better one themselves.

Squadron Supreme Entry #14