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Current Leader: Hyperion
Current Members: Arcanna, Dr. Spectrum, Haywire, Power Princess, Shape, Skylark, Whizzer Past Members: Amphibian, Ape X, Black Archer, Blue Eagle, Dr. Decibel, Foxfire, Inertia, Lamprey, Moonglow, Nighthawk, Nuke, Quamire, Redstone, Skrullian Skymaster, Thermite, Tom Thumb Status: ACTIVE Location: Project: Pegasus, Upstate New York, United States of America Function: Superhuman champions who have banded together to safeguard their world |
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| History: The Squadron Supreme is an organization of superhuman champions who have banded together to safeguard their world, which is an extradimensional alternate Earth sometimes referred to as "Other-Earth" or "Earth-S". The Squadron was formed over a decade ago, and throughout its existence, it has been the only known team of superhuman beings assembled to battle the perpetrators of evil on its world. Whenever new costumed crimefighters have appeared and established their reputations, they have been invited to join the Squadron, and no one has ever refused the honor though there have never been more than fifteen active members at one time. The Squadron has always had close ties with its U.S. government. Upon its founding, the Squadron sought government sanctions permitting its various peacekeeping operations. The government granted the Squadron various powers and made the superhuman team a special branch of the U.S. military, answerable solely to the President and the National Security Council. This close connection with the government proved hazardous to national security twice, and the third time proved the Squadron's ultimate downfall. The Squadron originally met in the mansion of industrialist Kyle Richmond (secretly Squadron member Nighthawk) located in Cosmopolis, the Other-Earth counterpart to New York. Several years later, after Richmond took a leave of absence from the team to enter politics, the Squadron moved out of his mansion into a manned fixed orbit satellite called Rocket Central, designed by Squadron recruit Tom Thumb. The surveillance devices aboard the satellite enabled the Squadron to better keep watch over the planet. When the Squadron was under the influence of the alien Overmind, the satellite was damaged and accidentally pushed out of orbit by Hyperion. It eventually crashed into the sea. The Squadron set up a temporary headquarters in a cave in the state of Moreland (equivalent to Vermont), but began construction on Squadron City, a sprawling headquarters and living community with an elaborate air-base, located in the Great American Desert (equivalent to the state of Nevada). Squadron City employed almost a thousand technicians, maintenance people, medical specialists, and support personnel. The City was climate-controlled and was camouflaged to look like part of the desert due to an elaborate illusion-casting spell created by Squadron member Arcanna. At one point, the cosmic gamesman known as the Grandmaster had happened upon the Squadron Supreme's dimension and set up a tournament between himself and the time-traveler called the Scarlet Centurion. The Grandmaster used the Squadron as his pawns; the Centurion organized the Institute of Evil, a team of the Squadron's personal foes. Winning the contest, the Grandmaster resolved to create his own Squadron the next time he needed superhuman pawns, which led to the creation of the Squadron Sinister in the mainstream Earth. Later, four members of the hero team Avengers (Quicksilver, the Scarlet Witch, the Vision, and Hawkeye, then Goliath) accidentally materialized on Other-Earth while in transit from Polemachus, the dimensional world of Arkon, to their own Earth. The Avengers mistook Other-Earth for their own Earth, Richmond's mansion for Avengers Mansion, and the Squadron Supreme for the Squadron Sinister, whom they had previously battled on their own Earth. After a brief misunderstanding, the Avengers were able to return to their native dimension. Some time later, the government of the United States of Other-Earth came under its first covert assault. A huge industrial complex called the Serpent Cartel was actually the base of operations for the various human agents of the extradimensional serpent-god Set, who manifested itself in the Serpent Crown. The Serpent Cartel invited then-President of the United States Nelson W. Rockefeller to address its executives at a business luncheon, and used the opportunity to put the President under the domination of the Serpent Crown. Having made inroads into high government, the Crown was able to put more and more high-ranking politicians and officers under its domination. At the same time, on the Avengers' Earth, Hugh Jones, then president of the vast Roxxon Oil Company, was also made a slave to the Crown, and was attempting to mastermind a similar secret government takeover. The Avengers intervened and Jones asked Rockefeller for superhuman assistance in handling the problem. Rockefeller dispatched several of the Squadron Supreme, who were unaware of the Commander-in-Chief's new loyalties. Engaging in battle with the Squadron, the Avengers were teleported to Other-Earth, where they managed to seize Other-Earth's counterpart to the Serpent Crown and to convince the Squadron they were being misled by their President. The Squadron forced Rockefeller to resign and saw to the dismantling of the Serpent Cartel. At the next Presidential election, Nighthawk's alter-ego, Kyle Richmond, was elected by a landslide vote. Shortly after being elected to his second term, Richmond was mentally enthralled by the Overmind, a collective alien intelligence working in concert with Null the Living Darkness, a demonic entity. Unlike Set, the Overmind and Null wanted complete control over the Squadron's minds as well as the President's. Only Hyperion managed to escape the Overmind's mental onslaught, and he fled to the Avengers' Earth for aid, damaging the Squadron's satellite headquarters on the way. With the Squadron's help, the Overmind took over the mind of every major military, political, and industrial leader in the world. The Overmind then began to force the Squadron to build a vast nuclear arsenal on the moon with which he hoped to wage interstellar war on other worlds in the Squadron's dimension. Fortunately, Hyperion returned with a large battalion of superhuman champions from the Avengers' Earth, the Defenders, who managed to free the Squadron and, with them, to vanquish the Overmind and Null. Other-Earth had been left in shambles in the aftermath of this alien takeover, and the Squadron was forced to cope with a world in total political, economic, and technological collapse. Although he was blameless for what had happened, Kyle Richmond resigned the presidency as had Rockefeller before him, and returned to his role of Nighthawk full time. The Squadron explained to the people how they were also blameless in what had happened and declared a state of martial law, ultimately deciding to implement the Utopia Program, a plan for social reform designed to turn the United States from the shambles it was in to an ideal free state, the like of which the Earth had never seen. The Utopia Program was designed to address all social problems afflicting societies since civilization began, including poverty, economic instability, war, crime, pollution, and even disease and death. The Squadron seized complete authority over the federal government, as well as control over the military and police. They then disarmed both the militia and the police, giving them "pacifier pistols," non-lethal devices capable of subduing perpetrators by overwhelming their pleasure centers. In exchange for their guns, the citizens were given "personal protection belts," devices generating small force-fields providing protection against all penetration wounds. Both of these devices were the work of Squadron member Tom Thumb, the former in conjunction with Ape X. The Squadron also embarked upon their "decriminilization program," using Tom Thumb's behavior modification, a device that programs the human brain to be incapable of whatever actions are specified. Behavior-modified convicts had their criminal records eradicated and were provided jobs in the various nation-wide restoration projects. Tackling the problem of death, Tom Thumb invented the hibernaculum, a suspended animation capsule able to prolong life indefinitely through cryogenics. Citizens would be provided free "life-watches," devices to monitor their vital signs. If a remote sensor detecting a life-failure, a team of hibermedics, which were planned to become as common as firemen, would rush to that person's side and put him or her into an emergency hibernaculum. Eventually the death-arrested persons would be transferred to huge Hibernacies, cathedral-like buildings where hibernacula would be stored. When medical science finally cured the ailment to which the hibernaculum-user succumbed, he or she would be revived. The first person to use the hibernaculum was Tom Thumb himself, who died of cancer shortly after creating the tube. Both the behavior modification machine and hibernaculum were met with active resistance from certain segments of the population. Kyle Richmond, as Nighthawk, opposed the Squadron's Utopia Program and resigned from the group when they elected to implement it. He spent the year the Squadron put the Utopia Program into effect trying to organize a counter-force powerful enough to oppose the Squadron. He managed to recruit three of his one-time personal foes, Pinball, Remnant, and the Mink; one expelled Squadron member, Golden Archer (banished from the Squadron for misusing the behavior-modification machine); three of the Squadron's new recruits culled from the ranks of the Institute of Evil, Lamprey, the Shape, and Foxfire; and five superhuman beings who had hitherto not gone public with their abilities- Inertia, Thermite, Haywire, Redstone, and Moonglow. This aggregation of superhuman beings was informally called the Redeemers. Nighthawk was also aided by Professor Imam, Earth's Wizard Supreme and a former member of the Golden Agency, and Master Menace, Hyperion's greatest foe as well as one of the few people on Other-Earth who could match Tom Thumb's genius. Imam gave Nighthawk the means to locate his Redeemers, while Menace provided him with an anti-behavior modification device, able to counteract Tom Thumb's programming. On the day of the Squadron's announcement that they had met the goals they had defined a year ago, Nighthawk's Redeemers entered Squadron City and declared their opposition to all of the things the Squadron had done. Violence erupted, and the vastly outnumbered Squadron managed to hold their own for a time. Casualties in the war were numerous, with Thermite, Blue Eagle, Pinball, Golden Archer, Lamprey, Foxfire, and Nighthawk dying in battle. The war came to an abrupt end when Foxfire, hoping to prove her loyalty to Dr. Spectrum, killed Nighthawk. Hyperion formally surrendered. Before he died, Nighthawk had convinced Hyperion that the main problems with the Squadron's Utopia Program was that they had used basically ignoble, human rights-violating means to achieve noble ends, and the only reason why these ignoble means were not abused more than they were was that the Squadron is basically a benevolent group of individuals. The system they had devised, argued Nighthawk, required persons as noble and benevolent as them to oversee it. Since the Squadron is not immortal, they could not ensure that future generations would not be tyrannized by the utopian technologies they created. Hyperion was convinced to assist in the dismantling of the Utopia Program. A week later the Squadron Supreme disbanded for the betterment of mankind. A cosmic entity then appeared threatening to consume the Squadron's universe. With the help of a villain called the Master Menace, the SS created a dimensional aperture that would trap the entity. They boarded his ship and placed the pieces of the generator around the sun to trap it. This failed and they were consumed. Back on Earth, Arcanna's newborn son, Thomas, was passed the mantle of Earth's Wizard Supreme after the previous wizard died trying to communicate with the entity. Thomas managed to exchange places with the entity and "un-absorb" the space it had consumed. The Squadron's Earth was saved, but they had been shunted into the Marvel Universe proper. While searching for a way home, they became allies of Quasar and residents of the research facility Project: Pegasus. | |
