I’m going to be honest with you and say that I walked out of the store with ‘Supreme: Blue Rose’ #1 completely on a whim. I had no idea what the comic was about and I was not familiar with Tula Lotay as an artist off the top of my head. My reasoning for picking it up? I’m such a sucker for Warren Ellis’ work, specifically on the recent ‘Moon Knight‘ and ‘Trees’ titles, that I had to know what he was going to be up to in the first issue of this new series.
I was pretty sure that it had to be related to the old 90s series ‘Supreme,’ which I’ll admit to not having read since the 90s. Past that, I was completely in the dark for what was coming. I took a deep breath and jumped into the deep end with this one and I’m glad I did.
For not being intimately familiar with ‘Supreme’ outside of Moore’s run and not even sure if it’s an ongoing series when I picked this up, I was pleasantly surprised to see a couple of familiar face in Darius Dax. I believe Diana Dane was introduced after I stopped reading so should be familiar to other readers.
There appears to be two tales going on here: the first was potentially a dream while the second appears real. Of course knowing Ellis, the lines between fantasy and reality can be quite blurred.
We start with Diana Dane who is a penniless investigative journalist who had a great career and just won an award before losing her job. She has a very out of touch dream that, above all else, tries to warn her to not trust Darius Dax. She hasn’t met Dax yet but does soon and he promises her the world financially in order to investigate big stories and report only to him.
She takes the offer and I’m sure the prophetic dream she had is going to kick in full time as Diana learns more and starts to give the information over to her new boss.
I can’t leave off without talking about Tula Lotay’s art on the issue. As I mentioned, I had never experienced any word by Lotay that I can recall. Now having read through the book, I’m pretty sure that this is a style which is completely new to me. It’s one that not only can I very easily enjoy but fits the almost dreamlike state that the comic takes place in. A perfect fit for the introduction of the book and beyond!
While I enjoyed the first book of the new run, I’m wondering when we’ll actually see Supreme tie into the story line short of a giant golden arch. I’m also curious as to if we’ll be given any mentions of previous Supremes or if this will be a completely fresh new take. Personally, I’m kind of hoping for full on originality and no real referencing of what has happened before.
SUPREME: BLUE ROSE #1
Writer: Warren Ellis
Artist: Tula Lotay
