Customer Reviews

The Kingdom

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Coming after the excellent "Kingdom Come", this must surely rank as the worst sequel ever written or published in the comics industry.

"The Kingdom" starts promisingly enough where "Kingdom Come" ended, a couple of decades in the future, with a very pregnant Wonder Woman about to give birth to the son of an older Superman on Paradise Island. The villain Gog appears, and after a brief battle with some of the younger surviving heroes from "Kingdom Come", manages to kidnap the newborn child, which he then brings back to the past (i.e. the present) for his own nefarious purposes. "As I am Gog, so you shall be my Magog". Will the baby boy become the very same Magog that precipitated the events in "Kingdom Come"?

Suffice to say, the rest of the story does not live up to the promise of that exciting first chapter. What follows is mostly author Mark Waid's personal rant against comic fans who insist on continuity in their favorite comic books as against comic fans who aren't opposed to reading "good" stories (i.e. the "kingdom of wonder" touted by "The Kingdom") regardless of whether such stories follow the established continuity of a comic book character's life.

The premise of "The Kingdom" is a good one, but the execution could have been much better. Plus, turning a story into a personal rebuke to a selected few in an audience who did not happen to concur with his views must have been the worst thing that an author could have done. And the art in the final chapter is really awful.

All in all, a very bad sequel that most fans of "Kingdom Come" must have wished had never seen the light of day. Alex Ross had minimal involvement, the blame is solely Mark Waid's.

As single issues, the comics that make up The Kingdom" were fairly good, some better than others. As a collection, they don't work very well together.

The storytelling is very patchy. The beginning gives a great set-up: the creation of Gog, the birth of Superman and Wonder Woman's child, the deaths of multiple Supermen, the appearance of the Linear Men, and the reappearance of many supporting characters from Kingdom Come. The middle of the book, however, breaks the flow by setting aside this storyline and focusing waaaaaaay too much on a select few supporting characters, even one who wasn't IN Kingdom Come. By the end of the book, when the original storyline resumes, you'll be hard-put to still be interested in what's happening, and the horrible art in the last chapter was an insult to Jerry Ordway's and Ariel Olivetti's beautiful work in the beginning.

Overall, I'd have to say I found the book to be an enjoyable read, but if you're expecting storytelling at the level of the original Kingdom Come novel, you'll be sorely disappointed. The initial setup for the creation of Gog and the multiple "deaths" of Superman are all well-handled.

Additionally, I feel that the middle stories were basically interesting and well-drawn. The characters were unique enough and infused with just enough mystery to keep me reading.

It was the final chapter of the book I found most disappointing. Mike Zeck's artwork was simply awful (a shame considering some of the work he turned in back in the '80s). And the story seemed to simply lose steam. I think Mark Waid got trapped by the "trying to accomplish too much" bug. Not to mention that this story effectively cancels out the entire Crisis on Infinite Earths storyline (which happens to be one of my favorite comic book stories ever).

Note that as mentioned previously, Alex Ross has nothing to do with this graphic novel. Don't expect to see any of his artwork contained within.

Was this mini-series needed? I thought "Kingdom Come" was fine all by itself. The two main Kingdom books were utterly ridiculous; some guy with a grudge travels back through time, killing each Superman he finds. I think the only reason this sequel was written was to introduce Hypertime, bring multiple realities back into the DCU. DC's Elseworlds line becomes real, kind of taking away the uniqueness of "Kingdom Come".

Fortunately, the filler books, focusing on Kingdom Come's heroic youth, are a good read, making this collection tolerable. Both "Offspring"(son of Plastic Man) and "Kid Flash"(daughter of the Flash, duh) are the best ones, focusing on fatherly love in different ways. Too bad you can't buy the five fillers in a seperate collection.

I'm a lapsed comic book fan. I've slowly been re-acquainting myself with several serials, and I found Waid's Kingdom Come to be really mesmerizing. Intelligent, emotional, and with a solid beginning and ending. So even though I read negative reviews about Kingdom, I figured I should still give it a shot. It can't be THAT bad, can it?

It can!

I'm not sure who the Mark Waid is who wrote this series of books, but it has none of the flair or drama that the first series had in spades. You can't even fault Alex Ross not being involved... much of book's failing are in the dialogue; wooden, forced, and yes... CAMPY! It takes at least a modicum of care to write comic book dialogue that *carefully* dodges the 'camp' bullet, and unfortunately this one convenienly lines itself right up for a headshot. The fact that the last 10 pages set us up for the supposed 'secret to end all secrets' of the DC Universe... when it's revealed as a pastiche of lame sci-fi time-travel gobbledy-[...] and Marvel Universe storyline conventions... blah! I literally dropped the book to the floor and never touched it again. Waid's writing is usually much much better, so my (unconfirmed) belief is that he was forced to write this by the corporate masters at DC to piggyback on the hype and sales that Kingdom Come generated.

Truly sad. :(

I thought this was a great tale. For anyone who's interested in physics and comics this will make you think. Time travel is a major part of this story. As you read Kingdom keep this question in the back of your mind, "If you went back in time and killed your own father or grandfather would you cease to exist?"

The figure of Gog and a religion based on Superman is a fascinating idea. In some ways I was remind of the worship of Marilyn Monroe in the rock opera "Tommy".

Kingdom was slow in parts, but generally speaking a good read.

Largely because here we are introduced to a concept caled Hyper-time. A new way for DC to bring back it;s alternate Earths which were destroyed in Crises.I don't know what DC was trying to do here. First they destroyed their universe in Zero Hour and now the Kingdom was a way of scattering the pieces.

Alex Ross had nothing to do with this. And it shows. This book is nothing like "Kingdom Come" It's just a sad attempt by DC to through as many of their characters into a book as possible. This was a thorougly unenjoyable read for me.

A little of a story about Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, and a child. Gog and Magog, and all that sort of thing. A lot of sidetracking to use some other characters and points of view. This is also partly a continuity fudging, apologist and essay about self contained stories versus the soap opera aspect of comics. He throws in the whole Hyper-Time thing to talk about this.

Mark Waid seems to have been torn between the will to tell a good story and the will to undo Crisis on Infinite Earths and bring back the multiple universe scenario. As a result he seems to spen the first several chapters telling a good story, and then in the final chapter, quickly rushes in the multiple universe thing in such a strained way that it reads more like a lecture. A major reason for this rush at the end is that the story is structured so that the main story is really told in the first, second and last chapters, and some offshoot stories are told for the rest of the time. As much as I like the offshoot stories, they don't really leave enough room for the main story.

The art varies dramatically in quality between the beautiful work of Frank Quitely in the Offrspring story and the substandard Mike Zeck (I think) work in the closing chapter.

This book just scrapes a 4 star rating out of me, up until the beginning of the last chapter it deserves it fully, and it does open up a lot of fun in the DC Universe for other writers to use - As Grant Morrison has already done in Earth 2.