Second Month and Still Coming

Last month's column, "First Month, Second Coming," recapped the highlight of the of the now infamous Kingdom Come Elseworlds story. I got to tell you, I was really excited going into this last month, when I came up with the two working titles playing off of each other, but now after reading the more recent Kingdom stories I really feel let down. I almost called this "The Kingdom Crumbles". But, still proceeding as planned though, I'm picking up where I left off, regrettably with much less enthusiasm.

KINGDOM COME (The Novel)

The Mini-series was so well received that not only did it come out in trade paperback format but as a novel written by Elliot S. Maggin as well. Overall the book was well written. It started off a little slow with parts added that weren't even in the regular story, but slowly steamrolled into a good read. One of two of the more notable parts of the book that wasn't in the regular series was at the end where Bruce Wayne finally shows some emotion towards Dick Grayson throwing their arms around each other and shedding some tears, happy that each other still lives. The other, more predominate part of the book, is where Clark, Diana and Bruce are eating at the Planet Krypton and Clark and Diana announce to Bruce that they are going to have a baby and ask him to be the godfather. This part bridges the gap between the Kingdom Come Mini-series and the new Kingdom mini-series.

GOG #1

Part of the New Years Evil villain books that came out last year, Gog prevailed as one of the more predominate issues. In this book Superman finds a boy wandering in the wastelands of Kansas and saves him. The boy grows up to worship Superman as a god. Later, Clark flies in to visit the sole survivor of the Kansas massacre, who is now a minister in the House of Superman. Clark explains to the minister that he isn't a god and the incident in Kansas was his fault for not being there. This one time minister that though he was special, handpicked by Superman goes mad. Now, totally lost in the world, trying to find reason, he comes across the Phantom Stranger who hands him the knowledge of the universe, courtesy of the powers that be in the DCU (Zeus, Ganthet, Highfather and Shazam). Too much knowledge and power fills the crackpot's head and he goes of the deep end to destroy a false god, Superman.

KINGDOM #1

Another Superman dies and meets Deadman. Deadman takes him to meet the other dead Supermen where we find out that Gog has such a hatred for Superman that killing him once wasn't enough, he is now traveling backward through time killing off more. After witnessing some of the barbaric deaths of Superman we see the Linear Men struggling to try and set things right in the space-time continuum. One of the Linear Men, Rip Hunter, has a plan and disappears to see it through. Over at Paradise Island we witness Wonder Woman giving birth to her and Clark's son, just after the healthily baby is born, Gog emerges in this time and tries to slay Superman. This is where he finds out Superman has a son, and kidnaps him. While holding the baby and about to kill Clark, the rest of the cavalry comes; the left-over superheroes of that time. Gog tries to flee into the timestream but can't, and we find out that Hunter has sealed the timestream on that day. Using the Superbaby as a shield, Gog starts doing battle with the heroes. Gog then destroys the device that Rip Hunter used to maintain the time barrier and makes off with Superbaby. Superman wants to go after Gog and get his son back, but the Linear Men tell him that if he does, everything and everyone around him will cease to exist. (I'm not claiming to understand this whole time thing but that just doesn't sound believable). Anyway, Superman, Wonder Woman and Batman go back in time.

A BUNCH OF FILLER CRAP

Up until now the story was going well. This is where it turns from a good story to a marketing gimmick. I'm not going to waste too much time here talking about these fill-ins. We have five issues.

Son of the Bat: Featuring the son Batman had but never knew about. This story just isn't sound; think about it, Batman's the world's greatest detective and he didn't know he had a son? Come on, who are we kidding here?

Knightstar: Featuring the daughter of Nightwing and Starfire.

Offspring: Featuring the son of Plastic Man.

Kid Flash: Featuring the Daughter of the Flash.

Planet Krypton: Featuring a restaurant.

Enough said!

KINGDOM #2

This is where the Kingdom crumbles and everything gets hokey. Back in our present day, trouble's-a-brewing in Kansas. Present-Day-Superman finds Gog torturing Captain Atom in the Kent's farm field. Just when it looks like Present-Day-Superman is going to get walloped alone, the future Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman step in and get walloped with him. While doing battle, the heroes manage to save the Superbaby from the encasing of kryptonite just in time to see him disappear because the timeline is fading, so they battle some more. Rip Hunter shows up to bring the heroes to a restaurant. No, not to eat, but to do battle at Planet Krypton which turns out to be more than just bad food but an arsenal too. Enter Gog again, and with him comes more battling. This time the good guys do the walloping and Present-Day-Superman gets knocked into the lamest idea this side of Crisis...(I'm embarrassed to write it) hyper-time. Everything that I ever liked about the DCU just got flushed down the toilet in just a few short pages. We learn that our DCU is just one of the many parallel time-lines which all compromise reality. In other words, this is all a bunch of crap. Then the grownup version of Superbaby brings his infant self back into his mother's arms...see what I mean by hokey.

-Wallace "Wally" Frost

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