Jayaprakash Satyamurthy
Knivesout no more
Kingdom Come, a DC Elseworlds miniseries written by Mark Waid and illustrated (painted, really) by Alex Ross was one of the most hyped comic events of the late 90s. I read a stray issue at the time, and was less than overwhelmed, for a variety of reasons. Now I've got the whole thing in a tpb (including an epilogue that I believe was not part of the original run), and my feelings about it are still mixed.
The art is obviously very accomplished, and reaches David-esque levels of pageantry and spectacle at times. Ross' depictions of aged versions on the DC gang have a real presence and personality to them.
The story itself is nothing if not ambitious - it seeks to tell of the final confrontation between the classic DC superheroes and a new breed of more violent, extreme heroes who do not adhere to the same strict codes of conduct as the preceeding generation.
It's generation war, on a superhuman scale.
The story also attempts to examine the implications of superheroes - are they noble guardian angels, glorified, self-appointed police, totalitarian fascists or dangerous mavericks? Should the fate of humanity be handed over to them? Are they even human? And so on.
My problems with the story are several.
First of all, while the reign of the old-school superheroes is shown to not always be perfectly benign (Batman now rules Gotham with an iron fist - several, robotic iron fists, in fact, Superman, post-retirement pretty much tears around the countryside apprehending new-wave heroes like he and his followers are a law unto themselves, Wonder Woman develops a severe case of battle-lust) exactly how they seek to redress these issues after winning the confrontation with the new-school is never satisfactorily addressed. Captain Marvel is given a pivotal decision and sacrifice to make, as a supposed representative of 'mere humanity', and Superman uses this as a symbol of the fact that humanity should make its own decisions. But aren't the superheroes (except Superman and Wonder Woman) human too?
Then there's the supposed viewpoint character, a priest to whom the Spectre gives the task of passing judgement on all this. At some point it looks as if we had two stories here - a normal mortal's view of a superhuman conflict and a direct, ring-side view of the conflict between differing approaches to superheroics, further complicated by the machinations of your friends and mine - the supervillains. The two threads never quite interweave in a satisfactory manner, with the viewpoint character so vividly introduced in the beginning of the story fading to a mere obbligato by the end. This felt rather unbalanced to me, as if there was a struggle between the creators about what sort of story to tell, and each had half the book to do it their way, but had to retain the other one's story points too.
The apocalyptic imagery and narrative, with its quotations from Revelations seems way over the top, and needlessly ponderous at times. I just wish they'd left out the whole Biblical aspect - it's a cheap trick, an easy way to relegate your story to epic proportions.
I'm skeptical about the art itself at times. While Ross is great at that 'photorealism' thing, he doesn't bring the amount of vision, character and sheer design sense to the painted page that, say, Dave mcKean did in Black Orchid. Frankly, some of the layouts here are a mess with a plethora of brightly coloured costumes flashing by in indeterminate action. I thought the art was at its best in the more stark scenes involving the priest and the Spectre.
And finally, the story pulled its punches in the end, sacrificing a relatively peripheral character in the DC mythos, leaving the big players untouched and the big issues of whether their methods really are any better than those of the wilder vigilantes unanswered. It certainly addressed the growing trend at the time in comics of 'badass' heroes, all of whom acted like Wolverine or Miller's Dark Knight, and contrasted them with the core values of heroism and nobility, but I think it left larger issues unresolved.
Finally, it was less of a truly shaking statement about superheroes, or any of the moral or philosophical ideas they represent, than a very cool and much-needed riff on the basic superhero theme with some good art. It's on the same shelf in my collection, but I don't rank it with works like Watchmen, DKR, V For Vendetta or even Black Orchid.
What do you think? Discuss.
Last edited:
