Customer Reviews

Kingdom Come

5 star:		(150)
4 star:		(21)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

I used to read a lot of comic books and have only just recently started reading them again. Right away, I heard about Kingdom Come as a great graphic novel, so of course I picked it up -- and was definitely blown away. The basic story revolves around the retirement of the older generation of superheroes and the rise of a new generation that doesn't have the same moral compass. Superman has retired to a farm after he becomes disillusioned with humans' supporting the flashier but less ethical metahumans, and now Wonder Woman has come to ask him to get involved again and help tame the ne'er-do-wells. At the same time, Batman and Superman renew an old animosity, and many many superheroes make appearances, especially in the climactic battle between the good guys and the bad. The story is very good, but it's Alex Ross's artwork that is the star here. His rendering of the older superheroes is brilliant (Superman looks awesome), and the color is bright and bold. (Personally, I don't like comics that are so dark that you can barely see what's going on -- I like the mood but I want to see the details too.) The font is clean and the panel configurations are creative. I liked the introduction by Elliot Maggin, who was writing the novelization of Kingdom Come at the time, and I especially enjoyed the follow-up material: sketches of major characters; id's of 105 (!) superheroes depicted in the novel; 2 pages about the development of a sequence, with facsimiles of the script, a photo reference, rough thumbnail sketches, pencil artwork and the finished art; and original artwork created for a t-shirt, comic covers, collection cards, books and posters. Alex Ross even identified a number of his friends and relatives who inspired various character depictions.

This is a gorgeous graphic novel with a very interesting premise and fun extras. I think this would appeal to young and old comic book fans, or anyone wanting to see a classic in the graphic novel format. Sweet.

"Kingdom Come" is a brilliant hybrid of top-notch writing from Mark Waid and unparalleled art work by Alex Ross. "Kingdom Come" is to comic books in the 1990s as "The Watchmen" and "The Dark Knight Returns" were to comics in the 1980s. The story focuses on how "old-school" heroes such as Superman, Wonder Woman, and Batman handle the problem of a new, more violent breed of super-heroes. The main story of "Kingdom Come" is an ages old struggle between generations that improves on the theme in several ways, but what really makes "Kingdom Come" stand out is the intricate details and subplots that Waid and Ross weave into the story and art. The creators of "Kingdom Come" give the readers many startling and imaginative insights into what has happened to our favorite heroes after several years in the trenches. Batman, for instance, lives with a battle-ravaged body that has suffered from fight after fight with his enemies. His body is supported, now, by an exo-skeleton. Superman and Wonder Woman have a brilliant conversation in the middle of the book during which they discuss their differing ideologies concerning the use of violence to control the violent new breed of heroes. It's as well written and important as any dialogue you might find in a "normal" book. Waid and Ross even throw in a older, drunkard version of "Marvin" from the old Super Friends cartoon and a Planet Hollywood type of restaurant whose servers all dress up as super-heroes. Perhaps the greatest moment in "Kingdom Come," and maybe all of comics, is the fight between Superman and Captain Marvel (Shazam) toward the end of the story. Check out the smile on Captain Marvel's face as he is about to lay a beating on Superman and the way the text describes Superman as Superman should truly be written. Comic books have routinely taken a beating in terms of their place as "literature." "Kingdom Come" is an amazing story, well-written with brilliantly defined characters that just happens to be accompanied by unbelievable paintings. Readers who want read something different, but still want to read something with high-quality writing, should not be so quick to dismiss the comic book form and what it can contribute to the world of literature. Any reading is good reading despite what some people would have you believe. It helps you establish what you like from what you don't. "Kingdom Come" does have pictures. It also has deeper characterization than most books today, fantastic settings, and a strong thematic structure woven throughout. "Kingdom Come" gets the highest possible recommendation.

Kingdom Come, through it's generation gap tale of Batman, Superman, and various other classic DC Super-Heroes fighting for humanity against the new breed of "Heros" that are indifferent to Human suffering, also functions as an allegory/wish fulfillment for creators Mark Waid & Alex Ross: Their hope that modern fans will stop embracing mindless walking-death-machine characters (Note the Liefeld-esque "Americommando", preceeding the Liefeld Captain America revamp by years, and the character of Magog, instigator of Kingdom Come's Kansas disaster, a thinly veiled jab at Marvel's Liefeld-created Cable.).

Ultimately, despite the apocalyptic premise, Kingdom Come is a very hopeful and optimistic tale, with good prevailing over evil, and Waid and Ross get their point across quite well: Do we REALLY want heroes to act less-than-heroic? Would you rather entrust your life to Superman or Wolverine?

Ross' art is lovely, and Waid does a fine job on the script, maybe his best ever. The only problem was, unlike other "Iconic" graphic Novels, like Batman: The Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen, I think a strong knowledge of the DC Universe and it's denizens is a must for understanding the story. Thinking back, I don't think there were any expository captions in the book at all, and the cross-generational connections can be very overwhelming, even to a comic-geek like me.

Overall, I think fans will be in heaven, and newcomers will at least get taken on a great thrill ride.

Times change.

Have you ever had a grief that is so deadly, so weighty, so heavy on your shoulders that you just want to retire from the world into a remote cabin in the mountains? You just want to bury yourself under the ground, crawl down into sweet dark deep oblivion, sleep for two hundred years---or two thousand?

In Alex Ross's and Mark Waid's "Kingdom Come", Superman has done just that. The World's 'oldest Boy Scout' has doffed his mantle as Metropolis's protector, and retired to his arctic Fortress of Solitude. There he uses technology to conjure up the pasturefields and corn as high as an elephant's eye of his "boyhood" Kansas. Where he can idle his time away, concentrate on the things that matter. Like Routine. Like Sanity.

Superman hasn't changed, but the world around him has. Jaded, faded, and pierced, it wants its superhero protectors more ruthless, more brutal, more exciting than the spit-curled shiny-locked Code Against Killing batch of the naïve fifties: it wants super-warriors trained and ready to slaughter those who threaten society.

Mankind gets its wish in spades.

The new superheroes---referred to as "Metahumans", shades of X-Men--- kill without conviction, without code; kill with glee. They battle each other for style, for props, for kudos, for chatter on talk shows and the evening news.

When "Kingdom Come" opens, Pastor Norman McKay consoles his long-time friend Wesley Dodds (and, unbeknownst to McKay, the erstwhile Sandman), now raving about the Apocalypse on his deathbead; we pan out the hospital window, to a cityscape---a ravaged cityscape, the tops of the skyscrapers gutted, torn asunder, oddly truncated, girded with scaffolding. The world of tomorrow belongs to the new Metahumans, and is no longer so much their protectorate as their playground.

While the world languishes under titans less interested in fighting evil than in scoring airtime on "Springer", the original JLA languishes in retirement: Wonder Woman is stripped of her title and exiled from Paradise Island; Green Lantern broods above Earth in his gleaming emerald space station, a sentinel against alien threats; Batman, body now feeble and hair gone white and thin, has Gotham in a grip of law, order, and terror, policing the city through computer wonks and manipulating his army of robotic drones below the decrepit ruins of Wayne Manor.

Destruction and madness tends to the extremes: a little superpowered barfight between new-fangled hypgerpowered superhero Magog's vigilantes and a supervillain (?) named Parasite gets out of hand, obliterating Kansas in a nuclear apocalypse and irradiating the American heartland.

Now, in any world where Superman and Wonder Woman have anything to say, NOBODY is gonna irradiate the heartland without payback. So Supes comes back, augured as "The Second Coming of Superman", makes a speech before the UN (backed up by the classic DC heroes: Green Lantern, Hawkman, Wonder Woman, Red Robin) to set things right---and heads off to Kansas to throw the worst super-offenders in a specially constructed gulag.

For the uninitiated: Alex Ross, who scored his sergeant's stripes with "Mythology", tears out jaw-dropping panel after jaw-dropping panel here, capturing the iconic glory of the DC pantheon of superheroes---Superman, Green Lantern, WonderWoman, Hawkman, Red Robin, Aquaman, Batman---at the very Twilight of the Gods. Of course, the Gulag doesn't hold.

Of course, Lex Luthor is crawling around the halls of the United Nations, introducing Billy Batson (aka "Captain Marvel") to the literati and jet set, and brewing up plans---and perhaps even cementing an alliance with Batman?

The story aside, you're in for a lavish feast in terms of Ross's artwork: outside of "Mythology", DC's pantheon has never looked this good, been captured in such lavish high style. The word "photorealistic" has been bandied around in reviews.

But `photorealism' captures the world in, at best, two dimensions: "Kingdom Come"'s magic lies in the way it stakes out the superhero on canvas, and then plumbs down into that 2D illustration for the core truth, the ambition, the drive, the motivation, behind such a God among mortals. Alex Ross has given us the Gods made flesh: Mark Waid has scripted the device to put the Gods into motion.

JSG

KINGDOM COME is a graphic novel set against the backdrop of a world in which the supers aren't all that super anymore. Superman when into self-exile years ago after the murder of his beloved Lois at the hands of the Joker. The Joker was later killed by the superhero, Magog, who leads a new band of superheroes. Magog and his crew act not only as both judge and jury, but in some cases as executioner as well; something in which Superman and his gang did everything they possibly could to stay away from. In a scene reminiscent of how WWI began, Magog and company continually become more and more aggressive in their campaign against evil doers until one day Magog wipes out almost the entire state of Kansas. After that, Wonder Woman comes knocking on Superman's door at the Fotress of Solitude and convinces him to return. He does and gathers together most of the members of the Justice League of America. The group declares an ultimatum to the new, younger superheroes (or metahumans as they are now called) that it's time the either shape up or be shipped out. A new prison is built to hold those who won't obey and soon order seems to be established upon the chaos.

Meanwhile, an elderly pastor, named Norman McCay, is having a crisis of faith when he is visited by Spectre. Spectre warns McCay of a coming crisis that will destroy not only the world, but the universe. Spectre guides McCay through the events to come, but a twist of action causes McCay to not only witness what is to occur, but actually become a crucial part of it as well.

Back with Superman. Previous to the all-out war that breaks loose after the metahuman prison is cracked open, Bruce Wayne and Lex Luthor make an agreement and become partners in what appears to be the formation of a New World Order. Meanwhile, Superman is busy trying to keep things under control while struggling with the growing love and passion he feels towards Wonder Woman. You know something big has to happen.

KINGDOME COME is one of the most beautiful graphic comics I have seen. The story and illustrations truly go together and though one could exist without the other, neither is whole unless they are together. There are tons of allusions made to D.C. history, not too mention all the cultural, religious, and mythological references. Plus the book ends on a very promising proposition and one that deserves to be explored more thoroughly.

It is rather ironic that "Kingdom Come" was artist Alex Ross's first major work for DC because he had been developing the idea of an epic, apocalyptic super hero story which would re-examine what the DC characters meant and how their role in the world they were protecting would change for over a decade. The idea of an older generation of warriors forced out of retirement to face down a more violent new generation is not exactly news, but what Ross and writer Mark Waid brought to this project was an acute sense of the why the mythos of Superman, Batman, and the others DC characters have become a part of American popular culture. But there is also something more than the mere act of reaffirmation being played out here, especially given that this is not a battle, but a war, with a high casualty count that gives the narrative its necessary weight.

We begin with Superman in retirement, having lived in seclusion for a decade in his Fortress of Solitude. We learn in time that the Joker murdered Lois Lane and was then killed himself by Magog, a new meta-human who personifies the new generation of super heroes who act as judge and jury, and who have replaced the Justice League. But then Wonder Woman shows up to convince Superman to come out of retirement after Magog destroys Kansas in an effort to get the Parasite. Superman brings the Justice League back together and issues an ultimatum to the younger meta-humans to do things the right way or suffer the consequences of their actions. While all the super heroes choose sides the United Nations works on a way to destroy all of the meta-humans, Lex Luthor has Captain Marvel under his control, and Bruce Wayne (outted as Batman long ago) recruits his own army because he does not trust Superman, especially now that Dick Grayson has become Red Robin and the Man of Steel's side kick.

It is in the character of Norman McCay that we get the best insights into how Ross wants us to consider the story of "Kingdom Come." McCay is a minister in the big bad city who is visited by the Spectre, who warns of a coming catastrophe that has to be prevented. I find it interesting that Ross would take the Superman mythos in the direction of its more religious elements by going back to "The Divine Comedy" and have the Spectre play Virgil and lead the Dante-like McCay around the levels of the story. But there is a significant difference in that McCay is not merely an observer, but a pivotal actor in the drama. There was a time when it would have been a young kid saying the right thing at the right time, but the ideas here require an older voice and someone whose vocation is given to ethical judgments. The pivotal speech does have an element of pomposity, but when you are trying to do a modern American comic book version of the Twilight of the Gods I think it is inevitable you will fall a bit short of the mark. But you have to admire the aim and audacity.

However, the more immediate inherent problem in reading "Kingdom Come" in that you need a rather encyclopedic knowledge of the DC universe, not to mention the company's legal battle with Fawcett over the Captain Marvel character, to really appreciate everything that is going on or the particular tensions that exist between specific sets of characters. Besides, I can make the argument that it is Marvel, rather than Superman, that is the more interesting character here, unable to accept the hyper violence of the contemporary world because he has been trapped in a time bubble. You will find other tantalizing elements of this futuristic DC universe, such as Knightstar, the progeny of Nightwing and Starfire. If there is a comic book graphic novel that would benefit from an annotated edition, "Kingdom Come" would be it, and absent of that you can find friends and discussion boards who can help glean additional insights into the mythological density of the work.

Kingdom Come is judged by many (including myself) to be one of the best comic books ever written. There's simply no words for the magnifigence conveyed in this book. The sublime text and awe-inspiring pictures meld perfectly. There are also touching human moments, through the human character of Norman McCay. The plot, which is wonderful in itself, goes like this: in an unspecified future, that atually looks pretty much like today, superheroes (or "metahumans") have run amok. The superheros of yesteryear has been replaced with innumerable others that are more cold, ruthless, irresponsible, and have less regard for human life. A preacher, Norman McCay, starts to visions about Armaggedon, which is apparently coming pretty soon. Norman is selected by The Specter, an agent of a higher power, to "judge". He is then taken to see the events that will lead up to the coming battle. He watches as Superman, long gone, comes out of retirement to start a new Justice League to combat the newer breed of mankind's "protecters". The characterizations in this book are extremely powerful. All the major superheroes return, including Batman, Wonder Woman, and of course Superman. We get to go inside of these characters and see who they really are and why they are doing things. It shows everybody in a surprisingly human light, where nobody is entirely good or evil. The art is nothing short of earth-shattering. The beautiful fully painted illustrations can convey human emotion as well as the incredible power of superheroes. The central issues of the comic book are very interesting. As Norman McCay walks down a street filled with superheroes fighting another battle, he wonders if humanity gave up it's drive and ambition by allowing superheroes to solve all our problems for us. The climax, the best combination of pictures and text I've ever seen, hits you like a punch in the gut. The conclusion is one of the most inspiring moments in comics. Unless you read this, you are missing something.

Similar to what was done in Frank Miller's stunning Dark Knight Returns, Kingdom Come depicts a dark future for the DC Universe characters. Batman is crippled, Superman has retired, Green Arrow is an amputee and Captain Marvel seems to have gone nuts, etc.
In addition to all their personal problems, the older generation of heroes now has to condend with a new, more violent breed of superhero which threatens the very people its supposed to protect.
What follows is a clash of ideologies between the Superman group and the Batman group who can't agree how to handle the situation. This results in some very interesting alliances and battles. Without giving anything away, the story ends in a climactic showdown and an outcome that truly took me by surprise.
Alex Ross's art is stunning and will have the hairs on your arms standing at some moments. Truly breathtaking artwork.

Kingdom Come is an extraordinary work of illustrated fiction, and I call it this because the term "comic book" doesn't do this masterpiece justice. The story, scripted by Mark Waid is a complete original (interpreting the Book of Revelations as a war between metahumans) and the artwork by Alex Ross is absolutely breathtaking. He paints (and redesigns for the future) nearly every DC character you can think of exactly as they would appear in the real world. The result is awesome. Probably his best work in a career that has produced nothing but greatness. The story is by no means a happy and pleasant tale, but it starts down a dark path and culminates in an incredible climax, yet despite the apocalyptic tone of the story, it ends on kind of a high note. Everyone picking up the pieces of a devestating battle and looking ahead towards a better tomorrow. Writing this powerful has seldom been equaled in a comic before (except maybe Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns) and there has never been a comic book artist with the talent of Alex Ross.

Where do I start?....This is the best thing I have read since Scar Tissue by Anthony Kiedis AND THAT WAS ALL A TRUE STORY!! This is the best thing that has happened to Comics since the Dark knight Returns just every page is incredible from the amazing art to the awesome story-line I have been a huge DC fan for awhile now but I never really thought much for superman untill I read this masterpiece. if you like comic books and you dont have this graphic novel you are a liar you dont like comics at all I would give this book a 5 if it didnt have any words just the art is soooo good but they added an awesome story to it so a 5 just isnt saying enough the only thing I was dissapointed in just a little bit was not enough Batman but Its not really his story so cant say much