by The Masked Bookwyrm
In this series, familiar superheroes like Superman have retired, and things are left to a younger, less moral generation, who stage pitched battles in the middle of busy city streets, unconcerned with the damage to life and limb their conflicts inflict. Essentially, it is the world that the legislators in The Watchmen and Batman: The Dark Knight were trying to avoid, a world where exploding numbers of superheroes are, quite literally, out of control.
A simple parson has visions that these super-battles are building to the Apocalypse and, with the aid of the ghostly Spectre, observes events unfold as Superman returns from retirement, gathering some of his old comrades around him, and tries to impose morality and order on the super-powered upstarts.
Like the previous series, Kingdom Come is less about heroes and villains, than heroes and heroes. Here, though, it's established from the beginning as opposed to arising in the climatic conflict. Sure, a gang of baddies crops up (led by Lex Luthor), but the real conflict is ideological, not just between the old guard and the new, but even amongst the old guard themselves as Superman, Wonder Woman and Batman disagree as how best to bring the newcomers under control.
Kingdom Come is the only one of the three to take a (slightly) more global perspective -- the action takes place in America, with American heroes, but the representative of political authority here is the Secretary General of the U.N., as opposed to the U.S. president. Kingdom Come also is the only one to employ the mystic and supernatural: characters have prophetic visions and the ghostly, quasi-hero the Spectre is a featured player, and the title itself evokes religious symbolism.
Whereas the similarities between The Watchmen and Batman: The Dark Knight have gone largely unremarked upon, Kingdom Come doesn't avoid the comparison, and makes subtle nods toward its predecessors. From The Watchmen we have visual in-jokes like Hollis Mason's autobiography in a store window, or Rorschach (not really a part of this reality) appearing in a bar. Homages to Batman: The Dark Knight include Batman running an army of operatives from beneath his wrecked mansion, including Green Arrow (like in Batman: The Dark Knight, returned to his flippant, anarchist persona of the '70s) or a waitress in a superhero-themed restaurant with short, red hair and dressed as Robin.
While Batman: The Dark Knight was dark and gritty and The Watchmen a cynical deconstruction of the superhero myth, Kingdom Come, though foreboding, tries for a more grand mood, a celebration of heroism -- true heroism. If The Watchmen was an attack on superheroes, Kingdom Come is a criticism of the new age of "heroes" (ironically, an age encouraged by the works of Frank Miller and Alan Moore), in both comics and the movies. It's a criticism of violence and nihilism.
Though the drama, and tragedy, of Kingdom Come may stem from the fact that Superman makes mistakes in his attempts to make things better, he is still, fundamentally, a moral man trying to behave in a moral way. Ironically, comparisons have been made between Kingdom Come and a never written mini-series proposed by Alan Moore called Twilight of the Superheroes. Based on the synopsis I read (which may have distorted Moore's intent), the differences are glaring. While Kingdom Come , as noted, is all about morality, the proposed Twilight of the Superheroes reads like a violent, nihilistic rejection of any conventional morality in which most of the DC heroes end up killing each other off.
A weakness with Kingdom Come is that, though it features scores of familiar DC heroes, it's only really about four or five. Many of the rest don't even have lines, and their motivation goes unexplored. As such, in trying to present the big issues, sometimes the simple human drama gets lost. And in the series' more tragic scenes (not to give too much away, but there are fatalities), there's a feeling Waid is too concerned with the Big Picture, neglecting to show the individual repercussions for the surviving characters. Which is ironic. The series is about the dangers of superheroes becoming too aloof from humanity, losing their ability to see the trees for the forest, and yet that's precisely what Waid & Ross have done. Constructed a story heavy on the super, sometimes to the exclusion of the human.
All of which brings up an interesting point. In the collected edition, there are a couple of added scenes not included in the original series...including an eight page epilogue. This epilogue doesn't change much. It doesn't make the series end happier, or sadder, nothing happens that alters the previous four chapters. It's just about three of the heroes getting together for lunch. Simple, unexciting...and extremely, powerfully, human. Without the epilogue (as most fans would have originally read it) Kingdom Come is still very good, but with it, it's just that much better...and moving (hint: it features a reconciliation and a confirmation of a romance that was only suggested in the body of the series). The epilogue even allows the series to end with a kind of artistic Ouroborous -- it begins with the death of Wesley Dodds, the Sandman...and his costume, and the idea of dreams, is re-evoked in the final page.
But isn't that kind of cheating? No doubt Alan Moore or Frank Miller might have liked a second go at their works, polishing up any rough spots. I can't regard Kingdom Come without the epilogue (I don't want to), but I still question the rightness of it -- particularly when many original readers don't have the money to indulge in buying the trade paperback if they've already collected the original (that's a lot of money for just 12 pages).
Waid's dialogue is good. If he's not in Miller's league as far as either naturalism, or the clever turn-of-phrase, neither is he quite as obvious as Moore can be. And there are indeed some clever bits. In fact, I came to appreciate the dialogue more after listening to the full cast audio production of Kingdom Come -- hearing actors say the lines brought home just how well-written much of it was.
As for Ross...what can one say? Ross doesn't draw, like Miller or Gibbons, he paints (and used models). His almost 3-D figures live, breathe and practically stand up off the page. He also has a good sense of composition (when to use big panels, close-ups, etc.). Miller's work is still the more raw, viscerally dynamic, but Ross' is, well, awe-inspiring and literally breathtaking. His heroes are majestic, his heroines sexy.
But that may be another weakness in Kingdom Come -- a conflict of vision. Waid's script is all about a grim, violent future, a future Superman turned his back on as the public themselves eagerly embraced more ruthless heroes to battle more blood-thirsty villains. Yet Ross' art is all epic majesty, clean streets and warm sunny days. Waid was writing a dystopia, and Ross paints a Utopia.
The ideas and philosophies get kind of muddled, too. Kingdom Come tries hard to be a thinking man's story, with characters having various conversations over ideology and right and wrong. But when the, more-or-less hopeful end comes, it's not all that clear how they arrived at it, or why.
This may also be because, like The Watchmen, Kingdom Come seems too literal. It deals seriously and sombrely with what happens when superheroes, good and bad, grow aloof from humanity -- but what does that mean, really? What is the story an allegory for...if anything? Early sequences, claiming that the old guard were driven away by a public clamouring for darker, more violent heroes -- essentially, rejecting the Lone Ranger for Arnold Schwarzenegger -- seem forgotten later. In the end, the public -- and, therefore, the reader -- is largely absolved of all responsibility.
Perhaps it's appropriate that Elliott S! Maggin was tagged to write the novel version of Kingdom Come -- because Maggin's semi-classic Superman story, "Must There Be a Superman?" suffers, I think, from similar literalism.
Kingdom Come is good, with an interesting story, fleshed out with plot twists and shifting alliances, but probably should have been longer, to give more depth to its characters. And one can't escape the feeling that Alex Ross' art is a major selling point -- that's not wrong, but it smacks a little of watching a movie for its special f/x. As an example, this was originally released as an "Elseworlds" tale (that is, not conforming to "real" comic book reality) but has since been adopted, I believe, as official DC continuity (severely restricting, I would've thought, the work of all other writers and artists in DC's stable) and a follow up mini-series was released called The Kingdom -- written by Waid, but without Ross. And I haven't bothered to pick it up.
A mention should be made of the character of parson Norman McCay, the character through whom much of Kingdom Come is seen. Apparently Ross' father was both the physical and spiritual inspiration for this gentle, compassionate character and, what can be said? He works.
Like The Watchmen, Kingdom Come has inspired fans to compile (on-line) notes on the text. But whereas The Watchmen annotations generally deal with recurring motifs and clues, Kingdom Come annotations often just dissect the incredible detail of Waid's and Ross' work. Everything from a who's who of figures in the background to the subtle glances two characters might exchange in a non-verbal bit of characterization.
The emphasis (among fans) on things like exchanged glances, and subtle character stuff, is in contrast to The Watchmen, where fans are more interested in symbolism and semiotics. In which direction ones interest lies might decide which of them one prefers.
Ross and Waid have an incredible knowledge of comic history and Kingdom Come is ripe with references and in-jokes -- this doesn't make it better than the self-contained The Watchmen, but, for a comic buff, it makes it more fun.
Not only does Ross people his background with host of "joke" cameos from the DC pantheon -- Swamp Thing in a trenchcoat in a bar, Bat-Mite on a monitor screen, Mr. Tawny, also in the bar scene, etc.; but characters outside DC's legal purview -- Spider-Man and other Marvel characters outside the gulag near the end of chapter three; and outside comic books entirely -- John Steed (a.k.a. Patrick Mcnee) sitting at the bar, the sitcom stars/rock band the Monkees in superhero costumes as part of the Justice League (I assume that's a reference to a specific episode), and many others.
All this cleverness, though, is problematic. Not only does it help to have a working knowledge of DC characters, but Waid & Ross have created characters specifically for the story, with significant relationships within the story that are never explained! The TPB contains an appendum listing the characters, explaining some bits better (like that the dark-haired, green-eyed woman is Dick Grayson's daughter) -- but I don't know if this list was included in the original version.
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