Review: Kingdom Come, by Mark Waid, Alex Ross

Yeah, we know all about how great Kingdom Come is. But have you read it though? And should you?

Kingdom Come
Story: Mark Waid
Art: Alex Ross
Publisher: DC
Published: 1996

Get it here: Amazon

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The first thing you notice about this book is the art. So many things to unpack when one looks at the book that would at first glance confuse the would-be reader. Superman is older than is generally depicted, the muscles on the dudes are not grotesquely huge to a point where the regular comics reader would feel a little underwhelmed (such has been our conditioning). Then at a closer look you realize that the art is not line drawn at all, but painted. You know, the style that adorns museums. Not a lot of comics was done this way, before or since, compared to the usual comics art style, and for good reason - everything was done by one guy. You can’t draw the lines and hand it off to the inker and then passing that along to a colourist. Ross did everything here. The amount of effort it took to do this book must have been eye-wateringly huge.

This is not even the first time Alex Ross had done this. A couple of years earlier he released Marvels, a mini-series that looked at the exploits of superheroes from the perspective of the citizen bystander, and it remains arguably the most original and seminal work that Marvel has ever released. That book was a mind-bender for me (story for another time), and it brought Ross right to the forefront of greats. I had thought Marvels must have been the pinnacle of comics excellence, but almost unbelievably Kingdom Come trotted up alongside it, and they gave each other a friendly pat on the back as they raced far ahead leaving the rest of their cohort in their wake.

Ok, in case it wasn’t obvious, since I was gushing at the effort rather than the aesthetics, the art is wonderful. It’s just amazing to look at. Ross has won truckloads of awards, and it’s clear why.

But the art itself is not the only reason for Kingdom Come’s reverential status. Kingdom Comes tells a tale of an alternate DC universe where the mainstay superheroes have aged and a new generation has taken over. Superman has dropped out of the public eye, Batman is supported with an exoskeleton and prowls the streets of Gotham by proxy with his Bat-robots, and Wonder Woman… I don’t know what she’s doing at this time actually.

This new generation of superheroes are unlike the legends - they are more violent, less concerned with the public, property or lives, and have taken to fighting each other instead of crimes. There’s a reason for this, and the story gets into how the situation got to where it is now. Eventually humans, seeing that superheroes are increasingly dangerous, takes steps to level the playing field, and this brings superheroes, new and old, and the humans to an apocalyptic showdown.

Mark Waid at the time hasn’t yet done some of his more famous works, but his wealth of knowledge from working in DC as an editor at that point served him well with this story. There’s a village of characters here, and the way he juggles that with the plot is masterful. The power imbalance here from the human perspective is made clear, and the potential to take this as a political allegory here is rife - I mean, the human villains call themselves the Mankind Liberation Front, how on the nose is that?

Centering the story on the Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman, he weaves the conflicts and dilemmas that pushes the plot forward in a way that’s almost inevitable - if each of their ideologies are pushed to their limits this would definitely be where they would end up - Kingdom Come is a possible future in DC. I loved how everything came together in the end - as a reader you constantly want to know what happens next.

The epilogue is a thing of beauty. So many little touches here - Waid purposely withheld some of the dialogue, letting Ross show meaning through the art. The Shazam cup. The shot of Diana’s hair. Clark heating Bruce’s steak. Waid didn’t let Ross run away with the show, no. Two sequences I absolutely loved. First was Diana quoting back what Bruce said several pages earlier about folks “being raised by an isolated society of zealots” (I almost clapped here). In the second sequence, Diana (again!) remarked how “some of us can always use a little more humility”, and right then a fellow diner in the restaurant tapped Bruce in the back and asked, “Excuse me, are you…”

“Yes?”

“… using the ketchup? We’ve run out.”

And to bring it home, in just these eight pages, we’re served with two surprises to boot. My goodness, taken together, you almost want to french kiss the book. If ever there was a more finely produced epilogue in all of comicdom, I’ve yet to find it.

So read this book. Let your eye caress the art, and then let yourself appreciate the herculean effort Ross undertook to bring this to the world. Relive the finely crafted story, noting at the same time the nuances of the personalities brought to the fore with such skill as only one with intimate love of the characters and medium can do.

This is a book to be admired, treasured, clutched while sleeping. It’s meant to be read and reread, again and again.

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