Ten Years of TPM: The Supershadow Saga

In the months leading up to TPM’s May 1999 release, everyone near a computer terminal was posting rumors and speculation about the movie. TheForce.net, Jedinet, and other news sites tried to be on the up-and-up although an awful lot of what they reported was false or inaccurate.

But one internet fixture took it to a whole new level: a fan with the alias “Supershadow.” Later revealed to be a North Carolina resident named Mickey Suttle, “Supershadow” claimed to be a close friend of George Lucas and therefore had access to info nobody else had. At first he even claimed to be an ILM employee! Since the buzz around TPM drew in a lot of new fans, a lot of folks did not know better and bought a lot of what Supershadow was selling. Aside from mostly phony news and info, he also ran phony interviews with Lucas and many of the film’s stars.

The fact he was since exposed as a fraud and his “predictions” were wrong didn’t stop Supershadow. He kept on posting with AOTC, ROTS, and even to this day his site Supershadow.com is active! God knows who keeps sending this guy questions (if they’re not made up by the guy himself) or how he came up with his Sith ranking system, but there it is. A determined faker, media prankster, or deluded fanboy? You decide.