Monday, July 31, 2006

KINGDOM COME DC Comics, 1996


Kingdom Come was the comic book event of the mid-Nineties, a painted four-issue mini-series that proved that darn it, DC is just as good at killing everybody in an alternate reality as Marvel is.
Written by Mark Waid and painted by Alex Ross, Kingdom Come is a beautifully illustrated epic that occasionally veers off course into self-importance or becomes buried under obsessive detail and nostalgia, but for the most part, delivers the goods. The whole series builds up to an apocalyptic battle between two armies of superhumans, a radioactive Ragnarok that earns Kingdom Come a post during Alternate Reality Where Everybody Dies Week.

Here’s the story: several decades in the future a new generation of superhumans rampages across the planet, battling each other in petty disputes without heed to loss of life or property. They’re like damn punk kids who mess up your lawn, only in this case the lawn is Earth. Several members of The Old Order like Wonder Woman get pissed off at the lawless behavior of their descendents. Things come to a head when Kansas gets wiped off the map during a superhero battle. So that’s what happens if you crack open Captain Atom’s shell. That’s something to avoid - good safety tip.
The entire story is seen through the eyes of Norman McCray, a preacher who is having a crisis of faith. While he’s praying for guidance, the supernatural spirit of vengeance known as The Spectre appears to him, wearing nothing but a green cloak over his pearly skin. The Spectre plays Virgil to Norman's Dante, guiding him through the events leading up to a global crisis. In the end, Norman appears before Superman and urges him to stay his hand and not drop a ceiling on the United Nations. Man, good thing The Spectre didn’t pick a right-wing radio host to take along with him; those UN delegates would be dead.

Norman has to go through the entire series not looking at The Spectre's glowing crotch, which is particularly difficult given The Spectre's fondness of floating about two feet off the ground. I don't care if he is the Spirit of Vengeance, dude needs to put some shorts on.

This new breed of “hero” can be equated with the upstart Olympian gods who revolted against Cronus and the Titans, or compared with the violent and kewl comic book characters of the Nineties such as Cable, Ghost Rider, or many Image Comics characters. Ross went crazy with the character designs for the new heroes, many of whom are descendents of current heroes and villains. It’s fun in a geeky way to try to identify all the characters packed into Kingdom Come.

Sometimes Ross just went off into left field for some of the characters. I love the Human Cathedral guy pictured below, he’s fantastic:

After Kansas gets wiped out, Superman comes back from a self-imposed retirement. He leads a Neo Justice League, an army of recruits that includes Wonder Woman, The Flash, Green Lantern, Power Woman, and Your Mom. It’s true; Your Mom is on page 16 of the second issue, behind Captain Marvel, Jr. They start cleaning up town, only in this case town is Earth.

But once they have laid the global smack down, what do they do with hundreds of super powered prisoners? The League creates The Gulag, a supermax prison of the highest order. Who named it Gulag, though? They need to get a friendlier name, something like “Fiddler’s Green” or “The Smile Factory.” Maybe they should hire The Grandmaster, creator of the “life bombs” as a brand image consultant.

Of course, the shit hits the fan, only in this case the fan is Earth and we’re all going to get sprayed. (I’m going to stop doing that.) Somebody cranks up the Thin Lizzy and the super-prisoners break out of The Gulag. Wonder Woman leads a force of heroes to stop them, and things go from bad to oh, hell no!

Each member of DC’s “trinity” has a different reaction to the socio-political situation created by the new breed and the Gulag. Although Superman is arguably the focus of the book, he’s portrayed as sort of ineffectual and reactive, whereas Wonder Woman comes across as authoritarian and bloodthirsty. Batman holds himself aloof from such matters but is secretly working behind the scenes as a sort of third political party that Superman wants on his side.

At the climax of the book, Superman fights a creepy mind-controlled Captain Marvel, set against a tableau of super carnage. The government decides to cut their losses and drops a mega-nuke on the battlefield and… you guessed it, EVERYBODY DIES.

Well, not everybody. A few heroes make it. You didn’t think a mega-nuclear blast could take out Green Lantern, did you?

Superman survives, of course, and he is not happy. Here’s a great sequence (below) of The Man of Steel emerging from the radioactive gloom, hella-pissed off.

Now isn’t that cooler than him sinking to his knees and throwing his head back and screaming “WHYYYY??!!” or “FAAATHERRR!!!”
When Superman’s eyes glow like that, it means he’s pissed and you shouldn’t talk to him and you should go in the other room and read and let Superman have some frickin’ peace and quiet, damn it!
Kingdom Come is a perfect example of the Alternate Reality Where Everybody Dies sub-genre, infused with enough gravitas that it feels like something important is happening, that these events actually matter. Sometimes it gets weighed down with portents and allegory, and often the art has a cluttered quality that comes from packing too many characters into a panel. Flaws aside, Kingdom Come deserves its status as one of the major comic publishing events of the Nineties.

69 comments:

Anonymous said...

That looks nothing like my mom, Dave.

Worse still, I can't believe you made me look.

High Power Rocketry said...

I love the formats here!

Anonymous said...

I've been marking your blog for weeks now, the old-fashioned way, by pissing on my computer screen.

Anonymous said...

I demand another week of Alternate Week Where everybody Dies...week. Do the Hembeck issue! You know you want to. See? Si? See? Sai!

Phil Looney said...

>>occasionally veers off course into self-importance or becomes buried under obsessive detail and nostalgia

And by "occasionally" you mean "all the time." Kingdom Come is so trite.

Good review, though Dave.

Matt Chaput said...

Like we're going to listen to someone with the last name "Looney."

Go back to your Wolverine issues, fan boi.

Dweeze said...

Can we get the Neo Justice League to chase Stacey off the lawn?

Anonymous said...

That last image is of spammers after Superman gets done not offing the UN, right?

Anonymous said...

I've always wondered if Ross used Gregory Peck as the inspiration for Batman.

Now I realize he just modeled him after Stacey's aged husband.

Great review of a great series. From now on tho, whenever I read KC, I will forever hear "Jailbreak" in my head.

Anonymous said...

Kingdom Come should be required reading for anyone wanting to read comics. Anyone who can make Captain Marvel interesting is at the least a borderline genius.

Anonymous said...

Cough.

Alan Moore.

Cough.

Twilight of the Superheroes.

Cough.

Anonymous said...

Well, I recall Mark Waid admitting having read Alan Moore's notes from his "Twilight of the Superheroes" proposal, prior to his writing "Kingdom Come".

I would prefer to have read the Moore project.

-todd

Anonymous said...

"Norman plays Dante to The Spectre’s Virgil, guiding him unseen through the events leading up to a global crisis."

Um?

Anonymous said...

In my defense I never said Waid WAS a genuis. Still that's the only Captain Marvel that's the least bit interesting. (*That I've read)

Anonymous said...

Looks good!

Zen Wizard said...

Great stuff; keep it coming!

Anonymous said...

Twilight of the Heroes is the greatest John Constantine story Never Made.

Anonymous said...

" Anonymous said...

"Norman plays Dante to The Spectre’s Virgil, guiding him unseen through the events leading up to a global crisis."

Um?"


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divine_Comedy

Bully said...

"I was sad when everybody died."

Anonymous said...

How about "Mainstream Universe where all spammers DIE!!!!!"

That should be month-long.

Jon the Intergalactic Gladiator said...

So howcome all of these future stories feature Captain Marvel either being a brainwashed clown or a jealous jerkenheimer? Surely these writers can find something better to do than fighting a gray haired Superman?

Anonymous said...

My memories of Kingdom Come may be tinged with dreaded nostalgia, but I seem to recall it having a fair amount of "FUCK YEAH" moments.

My favorite was probably when while eavesdropping on a Justice League meeting from another dimension, Norman gets spotted by Flash who due to decades of increasing power levels began to fashion himself after Hermes/Mercury. Flash then snatches him out of the other dimension and into the one where the Justice League is. Bad. Ass.

Anonymous said...

I bought all those issues and I can't remember a thing. I still have them laying around. Think I'll read The Secret Society of Super-villains or Jusrice League Detroit instead.

Anonymous said...

Kingdom Come deserves a place in superhero mythology along side year one, hard travelin' heroes and for all seasons.

Anonymous said...

I remember getting super-excited about Kingdom Come back when it came out, and then feeling totally left down by the time it finished. Maybe I'm missing something, maybe I ought to go back and reread it, but it really never seemed to stack up to the various other "comic apocalypse" projects. I think people saw the art, and felt a cathartic thrill to see someone slamming the Image characters in such a prominent project, who'd had it coming for such a long time before.

The body count is actually pretty light for an "everybody dies" story, at least when you take into account that almost all the main characters we follow throughout the series end up surviving.

And "Twilight of the Superheroes" would've been awful. The outline is more clever than it is interesting or smart, and indulges Moore's bitter 80s cape-hating ways to excess (a midget Billy Batson turning up dead in a bordello? Even Warren Ellis would blush at that). Like any unfinished or unwritten Alan Moore project, though, there's a ton of mystique attached to it, which has resulted in a lot of people thinking it's got to be brilliant.

K.Fox, Jr. said...

Y'know, this blog just keeps getting better and better. Y'know what you should do, seeing as how Alternate Universe Where Everybody Wins Week is longer than an actual week (what two weeks, maybe three), you should include th eDays of Future Past and/or Age of Apocalypse, if you own either series. Except, not EVERYONE dies in AoA, just a lot of people. And a lot of people switch sides. Hmmm...You should still review it. And Superman looked like a bit of a punk before he got the red eyes.

Anonymous said...

pee pee, poo poo

BionicBuddha said...

Will Captain Marvel ever be made into a movie? If it is done properly with the right script, actors, and SFX it could definitely be worth seeing!


www.bionicbuddha.com

captain koma said...

what only 32 comments. Not too many DC readers of Daveslongbox.

Whoops mine makes 33

Dan said...

I just wish that every artist out there would stop trying to do the "Make Superman look Badass By Giving Him Glowing Red Heat Vision Eyes" thing - it didn't take very long for that to veer into cliche territory.

Ross did it well, Dave Gibbons did it dead-solid perfectly in "For the Man Who Has Everything," which is without a doubt the ultimate, all-time best Superman "F*%& YEAH!" moment.

Chris Sims said...

I really, really liked Kingdom Come when it was coming out, but the further away I get from it, the more it just seems like another overblown 90s event book, and I've gotten to the point where I actually kinda hate it.

jblackstone said...

"Man, good thing The Spectre didn’t pick a right-wing radio host to take along with him; those UN delegates would be dead."

Actually, the delegates dying would be the good thing.

jblackstone said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
LaRue said...

Alternate Reality Where Everyone Dies (including the Monkees). They were in a few of the backgrounds, and we can assume that they, and Your Mom, didn't survive the explosion.

LaRue said...

Dammit, I just remembered, right after I'd posted my first comment on this one...

...I live in Kansas. Screw the Monkees, this was an alternate reality where I die.

Anonymous said...

For me, the robotic Sgt. Pepper's-era Beatles atone for much of this book's faux-portentiousness.

S Bates said...

Aw, come on! Kingdom Come was f*%&ing Airwolf! The old, true heroes come back and kick the new, Image-like heroes in the butt. What's not to like?

Sure the art is full of nostalgia trips but that, to me, is a good thing.

Actually, I remember when this came out that I bought the first issue not realising that it was a 4 issue series. I just thought it was a single issue thing. The "end" didn't really make sense.

It wasn't until a couple of months later that I realised it was continuing for another 3 issues! D'oh!

Oh and congratulations for achieving some blogger thing and gaining a whole load of spammers! (And, hopefully, a few extra, genuinely interested readers)

Anonymous said...

mto bom

running42k said...

Greek mythology, Dante's Inferno all to the backdrop of Tonight there's going to be a jailbreak.

Kick ass post.

Bully said...

Screw the Monkees, this was an alternate reality where I die.

I was visiting (not living) in Pittsburgh the day the New Universe comic The Pitt came out. Weird, eerie, uncanny uncomfortable feeling knowing you're treading on ground that doesn't exist anymore in an alternate universe.

Anonymous said...

"Tonight there's gonna be a jailbreak, somewhere in this town.."

Yeah Phil. Probably somewhere near the freakin' jail, huh?

Anonymous said...

Lots of spammers. Has Dave's Long Box become a victim of its own success?

I guess the big deal about Kingdom Come at the time was that after the success of Marvels, it was Ross getting to play with the DCU. However, whereas Busiek came up with a great hook for Ross's art with the newspaper photographer gimmick in Marvels, KC was more of a traditional comics story and I think it exposed a lot of Ross's weaknesses as an artist. His figures are really stiff and posed and the action scenes in KC are actually kind of embarrassing.

Tony said...

That's funny, I just re-read this comic the other day.

Kingdom Come is right on the borderline between awesome and pretentious -- but most awesome things are. For me, it stays on the right side of the line. It holds up well.

Does anyone remember the follow-up, The Kingdom? I remember that one being hella lame.

Anonymous said...

Also, I just went and read the "Twilight of the Superheroes" proposal that many said KC ripped off.

Huh? It's nothing similar! (Other than Twilight could also fit in Alternate Universe Where Everyone Dies Week.) The generational conflict at the heart of KC doesn't exist, the framing story is totally different, and basically saying one is a ripoff of the other is like saying Star Wars is a ripoff of Star Trek.

Edward Liu said...

nimbus said: "Actually, I remember when this came out that I bought the first issue not realising that it was a 4 issue series. I just thought it was a single issue thing. The "end" didn't really make sense.

Now that nimbus has admitted it, I don't feel so bad coming out and saying the exact same thing happened to me. In fact, I don't think I knew KC was a 4-issue mini-series until around issue 3 or 4 came out.

re: the assorted Moore comments. Any Moore fan or critic ought to read Superfolks by Robert Mayer. It influenced nearly every comic that Moore did, along with a bunch by Grant Morrison and Kurt Busiek. Fans will see the prototypes for stuff like Miracleman and Watchmen, and critics will have more ammunition for their "Moore is an unoriginal hack" arguments.

Word confirmation is "qybzaurs," which are dinosaurs in Mr. Mxyzptlk's 5th dimension.

Anonymous said...

I just re-read Kingdom Come less than a month ago and it is still great. I understand some people not liking it and that's their right, but most of the negatives don't matter enough (to me) to note. And yeah The Kingdom sucked. A lot.

Anonymous said...

Any Captain Marvel movie with CM as a kid would suck. I see NO way around it. CM keeps getting brainwashed because there's no way to make Billy Batson interesting. As much as I hate that Joss Whedon teen-angst crap, Billy Batson needs to grow. He was boring in the 30's (I'm guessing) and he's boring now.

Anonymous said...

I don't remember the Monkees in it but I do remember the Village People in the bar scene. & by the way, that was My Mom, not Your Mom on page 16.

Matthew E said...

I never read Kingdom Come, the comic, but I did read Kingdom Come, the Maggin novelization. The one moment I liked most from it was when Mr. Miracle tells Barda and their daughter that they have to make like a hockey team and get the puck out of there. "He always knows."

Anonymous said...

" Anonymous said...

"Norman plays Dante to The Spectre’s Virgil, guiding him unseen through the events leading up to a global crisis."

Um?"


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divine_Comedy

My point was that the roles are reversed in that sentence--Virgil was the guide, Dante the tourist. I know, very picky--and very touchy, for someone posting anonymously.

David Campbell said...

No worries, Anonymous, I knew what you meant - the sentence was awkwardly constructed, so I went back and corrected it, so it now reads:

"The Spectre plays Virgil to Norman's Dante, guiding him through the events leading up to a global crisis."

Reader input is always welcome here at DLB - except for you goddamn spammers. I hex you, spammers!

mika said...

i just like comic books. oh, and i wanted to be your 58th commenter. when i grow up i want to be you, man.

Anonymous said...

If Ross used Gregory Peck as his Batman model, he wasn't the first. Mazzuchelli in Batman Year One did it too, I believe.

I loved Kingdom Come. Bloated? Sure. Convoluted? Possibly. Chock full of F*&% Yeah! moments? F*&% Yeah! Although it was distracting that "Norman" looked a lot like "Phil Sheldon" from Marvels.

I agree, though, with a few others that the follow up, The Kingdom was a half-assed money grab (or a half-moneyed ass grab). Did I buy it? Yep.

Sigh.

FashionWhore said...

Superman's like me when I haven't had enough sleep.
As many people will testify who have been hurt.
And check out that stupid gambling spammer. HELLO, WE'RE NOT GOING TO VISIT YOU, SPAMMER century has just begun.

Anonymous said...

"Any Captain Marvel movie with CM as a kid would suck."

But Captain Marvel IS a kid. That's the entire point. Otherwise all you've got is a Superman clone. If you don't like the kid-turns-into-a-superhero aspect, why read Captain Marvel at all? It's sort of like saying, "Gee, I'd like Spider-Man, if only he were less of a put-upon everyman with troubles similar to my own, and more of a rockstar loved and adored by everyone."

McGone said...

My Mom had an awesome fight with Ambush Bug in issue 3. She totally rocked his fucking socks off.

I remember after Kingdom Come took off (and Ross' ego I guess) I was at the Wizard World convention in Chicago and he was there with his dad, the model for Norman. It was pretty bizarre to see this guy walking around. Especially when I saw him standing near artist Jill Thompson, Ross' model for the "Joker's Daughter" character.

Anonymous said...

I don't read Captain Marvel. Much.
I keep hoping. I like the concept and I want to like CM. Kingdom Come shows that he has the potential to be more than a Superman clone. Make the child persona a bit more realistic. This "Leave it to Beaver" stuff just kills me.

Anonymous said...

The problem is, you need someone who's good at writing realistic kids. And there's so very few of those in the comics industry today. (Heck, in the entertainment industry in general.) Maybe we could convince Brian K. Vaughn to come over from Marvel...

Evan Waters said...

I think this is the best company-wide crossover ever published. The fact that it's out-of-continuity helps a lot- they didn't have to worry about setting up new series or select deaths from a "we're not using these characters now" list.

Phillip said...

ill cas- "Flash ...began to fashion himself after Hermes/Mercury"
That's Jay Garrick, the Golden Age Flash. He always dresses like that.

Enargy said...

Elliott said...
I don't read Captain Marvel. Much.
I keep hoping. I like the concept and I want to like CM. Kingdom Come shows that he has the potential to be more than a Superman clone. Make the child persona a bit more realistic. This "Leave it to Beaver" stuff just kills me.


I can agree to that. Still, for some reason Mary Marvel as a naieve character experiencing a modern culture amuses me in Giffen and DeMatteis' Formerly Known As Justice League series.

Phillip said...
ill cas- "Flash ...began to fashion himself after Hermes/Mercury"
That's Jay Garrick, the Golden Age Flash. He always dresses like that.


Actually, according to various supplemental materials (like the trading card set seen together in the TPB), KC's Flash is supposed to be an amaglamation of mostly all the previous 'Flashes', who have become one with the speed force. This is why he can fly like Johnny Quick, wears a modified Jay helmet to emphasize the Mercury allusion, but still hangs out with the former Teen Titans and JLA. Usually at the same time, as seen in some panels before the previously mentioned scene where Flash reveals Norman McCay.

David C said...

Kingdom Come has what I think might be my favorite characterization of Batman - he's a pain in the ass, still obsessed and all that, but he's also having *fun* at the same time!

"Shazam." :)

Anonymous said...

"Maybe we could convince Brian K. Vaughn to come over from Marvel..."

Dear God, no. "Runaways" may be entertaining, but not because the kids are "realistic." They're caricatures of children from a thirty-something writer trying to remember what childhood is like.

Anonymous said...

Eh, I disagree. Yeah, there's the whole overuse-of-slang thing, but as far as characterization goes, he scores closer to the mark than most.

Hoka-shay-honaqut said...

Kingdom Come was agreat read and a great visual treat. My graphic-novel reading is sparse, but this worked.

Anonymous said...

wow, I like this style.

Anonymous said...

Captain Marvel was the most popular comic book for a long ass time back in the day.

He outsold Super-Man like crazy. He's a great character, with a good supporting cast and awesome villians. The problem is, it's hard to modernise the guy and make it good.

The closest anyone has come is with Prime, and that was only good for a short while.


Anyway, I loved this series.

Hawkman becoming Hawkgod was the shit.

And The Flash constantly moving because he'd become one with the Speed force was brilliant.

The Super-Herp themed resteraunt was cool, too.

It was like Rick Jones' museum except not as morbid.

Matt said...

"Kingdom Come was the comic book event of the mid-Nineties, a painted four-issue mini-series that proved that darn it, DC is just as good at killing everybody in an alternate reality as Marvel is."

Hmm. I'd say Marvel's just more prolific.

After all, DC killed everybody in all their alternate realities in Evan Dorkin's "World's Funnest."

Anonymous said...

You can always tell Supes had a bad day when he walks out of radioactive cloud, with his eyes uncounciously glowing demonicly and his hair is mussed. If it isn`t a result of an intense session with Lois you know he is ready to go kill someone, maybe everyone.