Warning! Spoilers ahead for Heroes Reborn #4!
Marvel Comics’ Heroes Reborn event has managed to avoid one of the major problems that comes with parodying Superman. The comic event, which depicts a universe where the Avengers don’t exist and have been replaced by the Squadron Supreme, showcases a world where Marvel’s version of the Justice League are the most dominant heroes on the planet. And unlike other parodies of the Justice League in media, Heroes Reborn fixes one of the biggest tropes associated with writing an evil Superman.
Each issue of Heroes Reborn so far has followed the adventures of a specific Squadron Supreme member, and Heroes Reborn #4 by Jason Aaron and James Stokoe is all about Doctor Spectrum, the Marvel version of Green Lantern. In the comic Doctor Spectrum is shown battling a villainous version of Rocket Raccoon in outer space, using his power prism to bend reality to his whim and defeat Rocket. The fight between these two is certainly impressive to read, and it also helps illustrate a major problem that other superhero parodies of the Justice League succumb to which Heroes Reborn has thankfully avoided: in this universe, the Superman analogue isn’t the only hero that matters.
Many superhero shows that parody the Justice League such as The Boys or Invincible tend to focus the bulk of their attention on the whichever character is meant to represent Superman. This makes sense because Superman is the default leader of the Justice League, but doing so usually comes at the expense of the other superhero characters. Contrary to what one might think, Superman is not always the most powerful member of the Justice League, and so unlike Homelander or Omni-Man he isn’t capable of overpowering the rest of the heroes whenever he wants to. Heroes Reborn#4 completely averts this problem by depicting Doctor Spectrum as an incredibly powerful fighter—one who can easily kill a Celestial and is even capable of defeating Thanos singlehandedly in combat. So far Heroes Reborn has given the entire Squadron Supreme plenty of love and depicted each of them as being powerful characters in their own right, which is not only more accurate to the characters they are meant to parody but it also helps avoid making the Superman pastiche the center of the comics universe.
The leader of the Squadron Supreme in Heroes Reborn is Hyperion, who is both one of the strongest characters in this newly created timeline and an obvious stand-in for Superman. But what’s significant about Heroes Reborn is that Hyperion isn’t the only superpowered hero that the readers need to look out for. Simply defeating Hyperion won’t stop the rest of the Squadron for example, and his teammates all have different personalities and unique superpowers that set them apart from one another. The contrast between the individual members of the Squadron Supreme is what makes the world of Heroes Reborn more engaging than the average “Evil Superman” story where every other superpowered character plays second fiddle to the Man of Steel.
The concept of an evil Justice League like the Squadron Supreme taking over the world is frightening to think about, and Heroes Reborn takes advantage of this idea in a way few superhero stories have in the past. Superman may be the most visible member of the Justice League, but comics like Heroes Reborn show how the rest of the League can be just as scary if they turn evil as well.
