The Upshot Universe of AWA Studios origin point might be The Resistance but where did that come from? As it turns out, it’s writer J. Michael Straczynski’s career starting with Rising Stars. From there, titles like Supreme Power and Protectors Inc. serve as the foundations of a new universe. How or even why? That’s what we’re here to find out.
An Upshot Universe: Rising Stars
In Straczynki’s first major comic series, Rising Stars, is a modern superhero context. Readers come across a post-mass empowering event world where the US government tries to contain them. Of course, with over one hundred kids with different backgrounds and personalities, they’re going to grow up with challenges. Not least of which is how the telepath of these ‘Specials’ develops an evil dissociative identity from trauma and abuse. But it’s the very tragedy that Critical Mass kickstarts that the specials develop into true blue superheroes. I think that has to do with the catastrophe effect.
Then there’s how the government tries to keep them all from getting influence. Because the only threat to them aren’t rival governments or terrorists, but forces that can change the world. If you have ever heard of instances where volunteers do better than the salaried officials, you know that there’s pushback. To these officials, the specials aren’t people but a nuclear arsenal, valuable to have and terrible to have against.
Superpowers Supreme
This brings us to Supreme Power, a title Straczynski works on during his last years on Rising Stars. It has pretty much the same background as the other title, just that the mass empowering event is a space virus. It’s almost like Supreme Power is an alternate Rising Stars devoid of executive meddling. Which is extremely ironic considering it’s published by Marvel, Image’s Top Cow just meddled with Rising Stars in other ways. Let’s just say the company has the right to license an IP, they don’t need the creator who owns it to be involved.
In any case, Supreme Power treats the coming of Superman in a post-Cold War manner. Rather than treat this with respect or learn how superheroes work, the US government instead tries to retrofit their ideals into figures. The best use is from a quote near the end of Straczynski’s run. One I have to paraphrase because some people might think the original’s racist:
What would the ‘Ancient Romans’ do if they found an F-16 in the war for Teutoburg Forest? They would make the wings into shields, use the guns as clubs, and they would put the wheels onto a chariot as a gift for the emperor.
Probably Straczynski’s feelings in regards to executive meddling.
It’s this lack of understanding and putting imaginary boundaries between people that prevent collaboration. As a result, many characters are stuck in a state of arrested development. For example the Batman stand-in Nighthawk is a black nationalist unable to cope with his parents’ shooting by white racists. Or how Aquaman pastiche Amphibian lacks social skills after her parents abandon her. Not Wonder Woman, Zarda, meanwhile is stuck living in her delusions after spending over a thousand years in worship and isolation.
Joe’s Protectors
Protectors Inc. unlike the previous two series feels like what Straczynski envisioned after superheroes acceptance. Despite the barriers being gone, everything is a competition especially for fame, money, and representation. Instead of superheroes fighting for their independence, the powers that be commodify them. Think of it like how emphasizing the importance of supporting a cause becomes an ego trip. The kind where they believe a collective’s karma protects them.
Upshot The Universe With The Resistance
Which finally brings us to The Resistance and the Upshot universe. The Resistance opens with elements from each series from before. From Supreme Power comes a mass-empowering through a virus, just much more deadly. Like Rising Stars or Protectors Inc. it features politicians and their financial supporters trying to hoard superpowers. How; by dehumanizing them of course. Again much like the above series, The Resistance makes the point of what superheroes as a whole mean. Because people with powers trying to do good for goodness sake is practically a foreign concept to ideologues.
Superheroes as a genre are meant to inspire hope in bleak times. Think of the sacrifice one character makes at the end of the first issue. Saving billions of lives is a thankless job and with the fallout of the pandemic, it’s up to the reader if this was the best course of action. I mean a fascistic president rises to power in the US among other politicians across the globe. But would it really be better to let all of the regular humans die so that the Reborns can inherit the Earth? That doesn’t sound heroic, that sounds like justifying social darwinism and eugenics.
Going Forward
With cells of Reborns popping up around the world to resist politicians wishing to control them, different takes come up. This new universe feels like a world is genuinely building itself up after a paradigm shift. With titles like the empathetic Moths, the youthful E-Ratic, and the empowering Knighted, there’s plenty to love; all by different creatives no less, kind of like Supreme Power before it went off the rails.
Although going forward I can’t help but feel like some things will show up. Note that I’m echoing Straczyski’s bibliography; from the above series, there’s a good chance there will be Reborns asserting their right to exist. Politicians and militaries will lose influence and corporations rise to commodify superheroes. At first it would be okay until superheroes become little more than mascots. Or trying to take on the world only for the conflicts to become too big to handle; bureaucracy has that way of demoralizing efforts. It would be easy to end it all with a superpowers/telepathic singularity like before. But it might be better to change course.
The ink’s not dry yet so maybe stick around. Thanks for coming to the end and as always remember to look between the panels.