Supreme

Supreme
Real Name	Ethan Crane
First Appearance	Youngblood (vol. 1) #3, (August 1992)
Creator	Rob Liefeld
Team Affliations	Brigade, Heavy Mettle, Allied Supermen of America, The Allies, The Supremacy
Aliases	Doctor Dark, Kid Supreme, Supreme-Mite
Base of Operations	Omega City
Powers	Superhuman strength, speed, stamina, durability, breath, and vision Molecular adaptation to any threat Flight
Skills and Abilities	Talented Comics Writer/Artist, Fighting Experience
Tools and Weapons	None

Supreme (Ethan Crane) is a legendary superhero in the Image comic superhero universe.

Origin

The First Reality

The subject of an experiment that gave him superpowers, Ethan Crane accidentally killed an innocent, causing him to fight for America to pay for his sins as Supreme.

The Second Reality

After being exposed to the element Supremium as a boy (which he would later learn was created by a time paradox), Ethan Crane gained superpowers as the Teen Supreme and eventually just Supreme.

Biography

The First Reality

In 1937, a man named Ethan Crane took revenge for the rape of a young girl by murdering her assailants.  After being shot down by the police, Supreme was taken to prison on a life sentence.  While incarcerated, Crane was given an opportunity to take part in a government experiment that could either kill him or give him super-powers.  Crane died like the previous subjects, but, after his body was disposed of, he returned to life.  Due to his ressurection, Crane was not only physically reborn, but mentally and spiritually as well, seeing the world as a strange, new place.  He then met the priest Father Beam who gave him a place to live as Crane discovered that the experiment succeeded in giving him amazing new powers.

He took on the name Supreme and became a hero.  Eventually he decided to do good by helping the allies in World War II.  Upon returning home, Supreme learned that he may not have the control that he once thought he did when he accidentally killed Father Beam with his powers.  Celebrated across the Earth as a hero, he decided to leave the Earth claiming that it was because his "work was done", but in actuality was filled with shame and fear over what he was capable of.

For decades, Supreme fought countless alien threats in space, assisting the alien race known as the Kalyptans and trying to forget the mistakes he made on Earth.  Once he finally returned to Earth in 1992, he found himself on a greatly changed world, where super-humans were far more numerous, with entire super-teams such as Heavy Mettle and Youngblood.  After his return, he also made several references to being a god, though it is not sure whether this was a metaphor or if he truly believed he was an ancient god.  For a time, Supreme was the leader of Heavy Mettle, but after defeating the villain Khrome, he moved on.

On his own, Supreme fought the Norse God Thor over the possession of his magic hammer Mjolnir, which Supreme later acquired.  After many battles, Supreme became an important member of the superhero community, before seemingly being killed by the villain named Lord Chapel during his attack on humanity.  In fact, Supreme actually was transported to an alternate reality and found himself unable to return.

Meanwhile, a figure named Enigma had cloned Supreme some years before so that he could release him to protect the Earth in the event that Supreme died.  Enigma left him in another dimension until Supreme's seeming death and acted in his place until the original Supreme could return to his Earth.  When Supreme returned, he was without his powers and had to face the clone Supreme, who had become much more dangerous.  During the fight, the two switched bodies and Supreme's powers were returned to him.

Soon after, Supreme teamed with a number of other superheroes to defeat the Norse god Loki, who had been threatening reality itself and they were victorious, leaving Supreme triumphant.

The Next Reality

Supreme would return to Earth only to arrive in a strange place called the Supremacy.  The learned that the Supremacy was a city where everyone was an alternate reality version of himself, many representing different genres and styles of superheroes.  There he is informed that when he returns to Earth, reality for him will have changed, bearing little resemblance to his past life.  He was then thrown into his new reality, where he quickly regained the memories that came with his life as it happened in this new reality.

In this universe, his past and origins proved to be radically different.  As a child Ethan Crane was adopted by Joe and Joanna Crane in the small town of Littlehaven and grew up learning the values of the Crane while living on their farm.  One day, the young Ethan discovered and was exposed to a strange mineral that would be later known as Supremium.  The encounter gave the young lad powers (as well as powers to his dog, Radar) and he decided to use them to do good for the world.  What he would learn much later was the Supremium that he encountered was in fact one of Ethan's future enemies who was transformed into a creature of Supremium who fell backwards through time was rendered into an lump of inanimate cosmic material.

Taking the name Teen Supreme, Ethan fought crime and threats to humanity alongside Radar and his sister, who went by the superheroine name Suprema.  Teen Supreme was recognized as a legendary hero, even joining the League of Infinity, a team of superheroes assembled from across time.  As Crane grew older, he changed the Teen Supreme identity to simply Supreme and in his civilian identity became an accomplished comic book writer and artist.  He created a character named Omniman for Dazzling Comics, who became quite popular.  Supreme became friends with other superheroes such as Professor Midnight and helped form the superhero team The Allied Supermen of America.

Supreme also gained a foe in the criminal super-genius Darius Dax, who resented Supreme for his power and was determined to prove himself the better man. Dax attempted to defeat Supreme through much of their shared lives but eventually Dax died after overexposure of Supremium radiation.