Hyperion (Supreme Power)
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Hyperion (Mark Milton) is a fictional character appearing in the comic books published by Marvel Comics. Based on an earlier character of the same name (which was in turn created as a Marvel Comics analogue to the DC Comics character Superman), this version of Hyperion first appeared in Supreme Power, which was published under the mature-readers imprint MAX Comics.
The character of Hyperion was created by J. Michael Straczynski and artist Gary Frank, based on the previous version created by Roy Thomas.
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[edit] Publication history
Supreme Power: Hyperion is a five-issue limited series (written by J. Michael Straczynski and illustrated by Dan Jurgens and Klaus Janson). The series takes place after issue #18 of Supreme Power in continuity, and before Supreme Power restarts its run under the Marvel Knights imprint.
The limited series deals with the growing tension between Hyperion and the United States government.
[edit] Fictional character biography
[edit] Supreme Power
Hyperion is an alien sent to Earth as a baby and raised by agents of the United States government in a secret government compound by a pseudo-family, under the auspices of a normal childhood, with the name Mark Milton. His powers begin developing early. He, and the scientists observing him, discover that he has superhuman strength, resistance to injury, and speed. At the age of five, his "flash vision" manifests (similar to Superman's heat vision). Later, he discovers that through intense concentration, he can see through solid objects, that his senses are hundreds of times more acute than that of an ordinary human, and he can fly at faster than escape velocity. Government agents begin to manipulate him into becoming a weapon for the U.S. government, regardless of his own desires. As a young man, in lieu of a Washington Herald reporter's investigation into strange stories involving military operations, he is revealed to humanity by the government as a hero and government operative, dubbed Hyperion.
As Mark begins to question his role, the government fakes the death of his foster parents to increase Mark's dependence on the government. Soon, Hyperion is blamed for acts of pro-American violence. Seeking to clear his name, he tracks down the culprit, who turns out to be Colonel Joe Ledger, better known as Doctor Spectrum. The two fight a long and devastating battle in which Mark accidentally touches Spectrum's power crystal, which came from Mark's ship. As a result, he receives memories of his journey to Earth.
Mark begins to seek out proof of his origin hidden by the government. He confronts the commander of the project that raised him, and he learns about his life. The project manager detonates a self-destruct sequence that activates an immense shockwave provided by 20 "daisy-cutter" bombs. Hyperion barely survives and is saved by the insane Princess Zarda, who heals him and explains they were of the same origin and had been sent to Earth to dominate it.
Hyperion re-emerges, and along with other superheroes Nighthawk and the Blur, they capture a serial killer created by the government from a strand of mutagenic DNA found on the spaceship that brought Mark to Earth. As a result of the government's actions in the creation of the serial killer and in his upbringing, Mark decides he is outside the system. General Alexander, who is in charge of the government's superhumans, asks Hyperion to work with them again, but Mark refuses.
The government retaliates by revealing to the media that Hyperion is an extraterrestrial. The American people, who had once embraced Hyperion as a hero, become terrified of him. Feared by what he used to believe was his fellow man and disgusted with the government's actions, Mark sends Alexander an ultimatum, punctuated by an extraordinary show of force (namely, him flying up into space and then descending upon one of the Earth's Ice Caps at high speed, resulting in a multi-megaton shockwave that registered around the world): stop interfering with him—America and the human race are to now play by his rules. If the government would not fix the damage they had done to his reputation, then there would be consequences for the government and the people of Earth.
[edit] Supreme Power: Hyperion
The Justice Department starts investigating other superhumans with similar abilities and grants those individuals amnesty if they identify themselves and agree to work for the government. As a result, four superhumans are recruited and revealed to the public: Arcanna Jones, a physicist with the ability to see quantum possibilities and use them to alter reality; Dr. Emil Burbank, a self-assured man with no physical abilities but an extremely high intelligence; Raleigh Lund, also known as Shape, an immense man seemingly impervious to bodily harm; and Al Gaines, also known as Nuke, a man with flight and invulnerability powers who exudes destructive radiation. Despite Hyperion's warning, General Alexander sends the four to apprehend or destroy Hyperion.
Upon arriving, Emil engages in brief conversation with Hyperion before directing Shape, Nuke, and Arcanna to attack him. A combination of Hyperion's eye-beams, Nuke's radiation blast, and Arcanna's quantum alterations creates a brief and unexplainable skip in reality in which the four lose track of Hyperion. When they return to America, they discover a huge crater in the middle of a metropolitan area. Hovering above the city is a group of superhumans, including Hyperion (wearing a different uniform), Doctor Spectrum, Zarda, Amphibian, Tom Thumb, and several others that have not been seen in the "Supremeverse" before. An old man informs the four that they are "the kings of the world," who dominated humanity and fought amongst themselves, destroying America's major cities in the process. He then points out a wounded Nighthawk, telling the four that he is one of the last people who fights the superhumans and is currently being hunted by them.
After finding a safe place, Nighthawk tells the three how Mark and the U.S. government began using super-humans like Blue Eagle, Skylark and Black Archer to fight for America. Nighthawk had asked the Blur to keep an eye on things: one year later, Blur sees Hyperion use behavior modification technology on Blue Eagle, tries to escape undetected, but is caught by Hyperion.
Meanwhile, Hyperion has encountered his counterpart, who leads him to the site of the behavior modifying device, apparently just a small part of a starship buried in the Arctic. The "other" Hyperion explains that this is another ship created by Hyperion's race, one which crashed in the Arctic and then built itself into an entire complex over time by drawing raw materials from the surrounding area. The "other" asserts that only by obtaining complete control over the entire Earth can Hyperion use his powers to make the world the better place he knows it could be.
When Hyperion expresses his doubts, in essence asking how the "other" is sure things will happen the same way in Hyperion's reality as they did in the "other"'s, his counterpart presents Hyperion with a handwritten note stored in a wall of the spaceship, which contains the same question in precisely the same way that Hyperion had just stated it--implying that they are not in a different reality, but in Hyperion's home reality, at an unspecified time in the future.
The future Hyperion then explains to his past self precisely how he went about establishing his control over Earth, then sends the past Hyperion off, presumably to find Arcanna and the others and return to the point in time from which he left, while the future Hyperion checks in on the Blur, who is revealed to have been imprisoned in the spaceship/complex since his capture. The future Hyperion confesses that he did not reveal the details of the Blur's capture to his past self because the knowledge that he had to imprison the man who was his only real friend might prevent the past Hyperion from making some of the difficult choices necessary in taking control of the world.
Meanwhile, the strike team are looking for Hyperion, who eventually finds them. To the team's surprise, Mark agres to help them return home and work with the government again. After arriving back in their home time, Arcanna muses that the team were in an alternate reality. But Hyperion and Emil are the only ones who know that they were really four years in the future.
[edit] Squadron Supreme
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Mark informs Jason Scott of the project and gives him a list of the super-humans working for the government. After the Squadron is outed to the public, Mark is asked to sign a non-disclosure form, but as he is working outside of the government's control, he writes "Walking to and fro up in the earth, and up and down in it" on it. Afterwards, the Squadron are sent to the region of Uganda to take out an African general named John M'Butu who calls himself The Voice. After Zarda manages to free Doctor Spectrum by calling to the voice within the Power Prism, who in turn, in an unconscious state, freeing him. Five unnamed African super-humans kill John M'Butu and tell the Squadron to leave, stating that "Africa is now off-limits".
A new mission called "Long Walk". Mark and the Squadron are ordered to take down insurgents in Ilam Province in Iran. During the mission, Stanley Stewart wonders if the team is doing the right thing, Mark gives him answers aftrer used his X-ray vision and seeing dead bodies under the ground. After the mission called "Long Walk," Mark Milton gives an interview to the press about the mission. At the interview, Michael Redstone reveals himself after being disguised as a reporter, and a fight starts.
Hyperion attempts to suffocate Redstone by submerging him in a swimming pool. Redstone evaporates the water in the pool with his flash vision, boiling several swimmers in the process. Hyperion then flies Redstone into orbit in another attempt to suffocate the villain. As they reach the stratosphere, Redstone tells Hyperion he has hidden a nuclear weapon (retreived from a Russian submarine that had sunk in the Norwegian Sea) in the interview area (Los Angeles,) and that it is set to explode if it does not receive a signal (in the form of a whistle,) from Redstone every 5 minutes. Redstone demands Hyperion let himself be beaten to death, or the bomb will be triggered. After brein flown back to Los Angeles, Redstone then blinds Hyperion with his flash vision and incinerates many citizens while Hyperion helplessly listens. Zarda arrives to save Hyperion, but he insists she leave him and dispose of the bomb. She flies the bomb into space, barely clearing the atomoshpere before it detonates, possibly killing her. Finally Blur arrives with the forcibly recruited Nighthawk to aid in the battle. The three heroes confront Redstone, with Nighthawk telling him that the three are going to "kick his sorry white ass." The story is to be continued.
[edit] Trivia
- In this retrospective one-shot named Saga of the Squadron Supreme, which reprinted art from Supreme Power and its various connected limited series along with text recounting the events presented thus far, it was confirmed that the reality visited in the Hyperion limited series was the future of the same reality in which the Supreme Power stories take place. (This revelation presented in Saga of the Squadron Supreme was essentially a spoiler for readers of the Hyperion limited series, as due to delays in that series' release, Saga was published and shipped before the last two issues of Hyperion.)
