What do you think of Kingdom Come? Both as a DCU story and a specifically Superman story?

Love it. Hey if Batman fans can still love Dark Knight Returns I don't feel bad about my enduring affection towards Kingdom Come.

It's a Biblical epic in every sense of the word, a story focused on the morality of the DCU, whether said morality makes sense and is worth preserving, whether the DC icons we've traditionally admired are as pure as we've thought them to be, and about Superman's role within the DCU. Both Waid and Ross have described it as a story about what happens when the superheroes lose their connection to humanity. People who point to Kingdom Come to support their claims that the DC heroes are gods desperately need reading glasses. Rejecting that exact premise is central to the story, with a firm rebuttal of that belief being the conclusion which Superman himself arrives at in the end. All of the problems in Kingdom Come can be traced to the heroes acting like they’re gods, and the human population having more or less accepted that belief also - whether willingly or not - and let the metahumans run wild. Superman slips up non-stop throughout the story because he's lost his connection to humanity, and it's only once he's re-embraced the Clark Kent side to himself once more that he's able to find his moral footing.

Alternatively it's a story about Waid and Ross ranting over those damn kids at Image Comics who won't get the hell off of their lawn, with their pouches and their newfangled lethal methods. Reactionary at it's core, Waid and Ross designing Magog to be the embodiment of everything they despised regarding the new breed of hero which seemed poised to overthrow the classic model, yet ending up liking him strikes me as being the perfect analogy to what the reception and impact of Kingdom Come was. Readers were presented with an alternate reality where everything had gone wrong, and multiple characters had been warped beyond recognition... but it was such a huge success that it ended up changing peoples view of what the core of these characters should be. Poster girl for this is Wonder Woman.

While the ending is all about Diana realizing she had totally lost her way, she's by far the weakest member of the Trinity character-wise. Waid himself has said he doesn't think he did right by her, and his characterization of the Amazons makes me agree. Kingdom Come portrays the Amazons and their culture as violent, "peace through strength" as Diana describes it to Kal. Wonder Woman was therefore a maverick for attempting to nurture mankind's better attributes at the start of her career, instead of just beating the hell out of everyone and killing or imprisoning those who won't submit. Positioning her new pro-lethal/authoritarian attitude as being in line with Amazon morality is a bad read on what the Amazons should stand for. Unfortunately the take that Wonder Woman is a "warrior" who kills to achieve her goals, as are the Amazons, is an idea that was seeded here and has only grown more widespread since.

Batman is a milder take on Frank Miller's Batman. He's old, just as authoritarian as Superman himself (which the story fails to take him to task for), and clearly harboring a grudge against Kal for quitting. I loved that he ended up becoming a doctor like his father, I thought that was a great idea for a "happy ending". Otherwise he's just regular old Batman, probably the flattest character in that he undergoes no arc or growth himself.

Superman himself is the focus and central character of the story. He's more of a mixed bag. Waid's narration of the pastor reacting to his return from retirement and Ross' art gives me chills every time I read it. I buy this incarnation as a Superman who is old and pissed off, the Big Blue Boy Scout who really is a well-intentioned but naïve idiot who doesn't understand how the world works. Choosing to cut himself off from the world and his humanity has left him stumbling around, unsure what the right route to take is. I adore how Kingdom Come is a story that focuses on two of Superman's biggest flaws: his need for public approval/appreciation, and his fear of being replaced. Joker killing Lois didn't break him (how refreshing), what broke him was seeing everyone reject his stance that Magog killing Joker was utterly unacceptable, and then seeing everyone say they'd rather have Magog protect them. Wrath as Superman's fatal flaw rears it's head again, as he ragequits on everyone for ten years, then almost lets his anger get the better of him in the end when he tries to bring down the UN building on top of everyone after they nuked the superhumans. He's especially vindictive towards Magog, taking petty jabs and sneering at him during their reunion in the atomic wasteland of Kansas, up until Magog shocks Superman with how remorseful he actually is over all the deaths he's responsible for.

Waid and Ross balanced each other out well here. Ross wanted a darker story where all the superhumans except Superman died, with Superman himself being much more flawed and human. Waid didn't want Superman making any mistakes at all, and wanted everyone to survive the nuke. Result is a book that manages to walk the line fairly well between both visions, with a flawed Superman and a high death toll, but ending on an uplifting note that avoids total genocide of the superhumans. There's one aspects I gotta call out though. Much like Wonder Woman being a warrior, this story seems to be the origin of "Lois Lane is what tethers Superman to humanity". I had forgotten that the Spectre outright says this in the story, and I have to say I was surprised to see Waid/Ross of all people being the origin of that notion. Regardless it's an idea I hate, one that has led to Lois being fridged as an easy way to make Superman evil, and it's an idea the story itself only briefly mentions and then seems to contradict in the end. Lois stays dead but Superman manages to find his humanity again, so clearly she wasn't the sole tether he had to people.

Given my fondness for both, I feel confident in making an observation that struck me upon rereading this story, one which really got me thinking about Superman's trajectory as a character. Kingdom Come is the bizarro version of All-Star Superman: both are telling Superman's "final story", but All-Star Superman is a story that's trying to point to what the future of storytelling for Superman could be, while Kingdom Come is a story that's focused on critiquing the storytelling of the past with regards to Superman and the DCU. Yet All-Star Superman got written off as a "retro" story that "modernized" the Silver Age, while Kingdom Come was the blueprint for Superman's future, despite being the story that actually did that. An authoritarian Superman who's kissing an even more hardcore WW, feuding with Batman, trying to fend off would be successors who completely reject his values, and has abandoned the Clark Kent identity to just be Superman 24/7 are all concepts that can be found in prominent media adaptions. Injustice, the DCEU, the New 52 post-Morrison, the planned 5G reboot under Didio, all of these draw obvious parallels to the tropes that Kingdom Come popularized.

Ironically Kingdom Come helped popularize a lot of the darkness within the DCU which it was trying to push back against. Ideas that the story attacked - superheroes as gods, the world needing tougher and crueler "heroes" without pesky no-kill rules, etc - resulted in later works using Kingdom Come as a blueprint for applying that very darkness to heroes like Superman and Wonder Woman where before it was the domain of Batman and his ilk. Much like Alan Moore and Grant Morrison, Waid & Ross acquired fans who totally missed the point but rather enjoyed the edge. Waid has said he's not sure if it deserves the status it maintains, I don't know myself, but I enjoy it regardless. Far as dark Superman stories go, it's still in the top 10 if not the top 3.

What do you think of Kingdom Come? Both as a DCU story and a specifically Superman story?

Love it. Hey if Batman fans can still love Dark Knight Returns I don't feel bad about my enduring affection towards Kingdom Come.

It's a Biblical epic in every sense of the word, a story focused on the morality of the DCU, whether said morality makes sense and is worth preserving, whether the DC icons we've traditionally admired are as pure as we've thought them to be, and about Superman's role within the DCU. Both Waid and Ross have described it as a story about what happens when the superheroes lose their connection to humanity. People who point to Kingdom Come to support their claims that the DC heroes are gods desperately need reading glasses. Rejecting that exact premise is central to the story, with a firm rebuttal of that belief being the conclusion which Superman himself arrives at in the end. All of the problems in Kingdom Come can be traced to the heroes acting like they’re gods, and the human population having more or less accepted that belief also - whether willingly or not - and let the metahumans run wild. Superman slips up non-stop throughout the story because he's lost his connection to humanity, and it's only once he's re-embraced the Clark Kent side to himself once more that he's able to find his moral footing.

Alternatively it's a story about Waid and Ross ranting over those damn kids at Image Comics who won't get the hell off of their lawn, with their pouches and their newfangled lethal methods. Reactionary at it's core, Waid and Ross designing Magog to be the embodiment of everything they despised regarding the new breed of hero which seemed poised to overthrow the classic model, yet ending up liking him strikes me as being the perfect analogy to what the reception and impact of Kingdom Come was. Readers were presented with an alternate reality where everything had gone wrong, and multiple characters had been warped beyond recognition... but it was such a huge success that it ended up changing peoples view of what the core of these characters should be. Poster girl for this is Wonder Woman.

While the ending is all about Diana realizing she had totally lost her way, she's by far the weakest member of the Trinity character-wise. Waid himself has said he doesn't think he did right by her, and his characterization of the Amazons makes me agree. Kingdom Come portrays the Amazons and their culture as violent, "peace through strength" as Diana describes it to Kal. Wonder Woman was therefore a maverick for attempting to nurture mankind's better attributes at the start of her career, instead of just beating the hell out of everyone and killing or imprisoning those who won't submit. Positioning her new pro-lethal/authoritarian attitude as being in line with Amazon morality is a bad read on what the Amazons should stand for. Unfortunately the take that Wonder Woman is a "warrior" who kills to achieve her goals, as are the Amazons, is an idea that was seeded here and has only grown more widespread since.

Batman is a milder take on Frank Miller's Batman. He's old, just as authoritarian as Superman himself (which the story fails to take him to task for), and clearly harboring a grudge against Kal for quitting. I loved that he ended up becoming a doctor like his father, I thought that was a great idea for a "happy ending". Otherwise he's just regular old Batman, probably the flattest character in that he undergoes no arc or growth himself.

Superman himself is the focus and central character of the story. He's more of a mixed bag. Waid's narration of the pastor reacting to his return from retirement and Ross' art gives me chills every time I read it. I buy this incarnation as a Superman who is old and pissed off, the Big Blue Boy Scout who really is a well-intentioned but naïve idiot who doesn't understand how the world works. Choosing to cut himself off from the world and his humanity has left him stumbling around, unsure what the right route to take is. I adore how Kingdom Come is a story that focuses on two of Superman's biggest flaws: his need for public approval/appreciation, and his fear of being replaced. Joker killing Lois didn't break him (how refreshing), what broke him was seeing everyone reject his stance that Magog killing Joker was utterly unacceptable, and then seeing everyone say they'd rather have Magog protect them. Wrath as Superman's fatal flaw rears it's head again, as he ragequits on everyone for ten years, then almost lets his anger get the better of him in the end when he tries to bring down the UN building on top of everyone after they nuked the superhumans. He's especially vindictive towards Magog, taking petty jabs and sneering at him during their reunion in the atomic wasteland of Kansas, up until Magog shocks Superman with how remorseful he actually is over all the deaths he's responsible for.

Waid and Ross balanced each other out well here. Ross wanted a darker story where all the superhumans except Superman died, with Superman himself being much more flawed and human. Waid didn't want Superman making any mistakes at all, and wanted everyone to survive the nuke. Result is a book that manages to walk the line fairly well between both visions, with a flawed Superman and a high death toll, but ending on an uplifting note that avoids total genocide of the superhumans. There's one aspects I gotta call out though. Much like Wonder Woman being a warrior, this story seems to be the origin of "Lois Lane is what tethers Superman to humanity". I had forgotten that the Spectre outright says this in the story, and I have to say I was surprised to see Waid/Ross of all people being the origin of that notion. Regardless it's an idea I hate, one that has led to Lois being fridged as an easy way to make Superman evil, and it's an idea the story itself only briefly mentions and then seems to contradict in the end. Lois stays dead but Superman manages to find his humanity again, so clearly she wasn't the sole tether he had to people.

Given my fondness for both, I feel confident in making an observation that struck me upon rereading this story, one which really got me thinking about Superman's trajectory as a character. Kingdom Come is the bizarro version of All-Star Superman: both are telling Superman's "final story", but All-Star Superman is a story that's trying to point to what the future of storytelling for Superman could be, while Kingdom Come is a story that's focused on critiquing the storytelling of the past with regards to Superman and the DCU. Yet All-Star Superman got written off as a "retro" story that "modernized" the Silver Age, while Kingdom Come was the blueprint for Superman's future, despite being the story that actually did that. An authoritarian Superman who's kissing an even more hardcore WW, feuding with Batman, trying to fend off would be successors who completely reject his values, and has abandoned the Clark Kent identity to just be Superman 24/7 are all concepts that can be found in prominent media adaptions. Injustice, the DCEU, the New 52 post-Morrison, the planned 5G reboot under Didio, all of these draw obvious parallels to the tropes that Kingdom Come popularized.

Ironically Kingdom Come helped popularize a lot of the darkness within the DCU which it was trying to push back against. Ideas that the story attacked - superheroes as gods, the world needing tougher and crueler "heroes" without pesky no-kill rules, etc - resulted in later works using Kingdom Come as a blueprint for applying that very darkness to heroes like Superman and Wonder Woman where before it was the domain of Batman and his ilk. Much like Alan Moore and Grant Morrison, Waid & Ross acquired fans who totally missed the point but rather enjoyed the edge. Waid has said he's not sure if it deserves the status it maintains, I don't know myself, but I enjoy it regardless. Far as dark Superman stories go, it's still in the top 10 if not the top 3.