Kingdom Come (comic)

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Kingdom Come is a miniseries released by DC Comics in 1996 . The draftsman and main idea generator was Alex Ross , he was supported by the author Mark Waid . The story is one of the Elseworlds and thus takes place outside of the usual DC continuity. It describes a battle between superheroes that ends in a catastrophe ( apocalypse ). Kingdom Come received high critical acclaim for the dark, socially critical story and the photorealistic drawings .

background

The US comic book industry of the 90s was gripped by a trend of replacing classic superheroes with shady antiheroes . One of the trendsetters was comic book author and illustrator Rob Liefeld , who was responsible for the X-Men series X-Force . The characters Cable and Shatterstar play the leading roles in this series . Cable was a heavily armed, one-eyed, violent mercenary, and Shatterstar was a genetically engineered gladiator with a distinctive helmet. Ross came up with a story in which the world would rather see violent antiheroes than honorable superheroes (such as Superman).

The main antihero named Magog was inspired by Cable and Shatterstar, he had the weapons, the robotic implants and the missing eye from Cable, and the helmet from Shatterstar. Eventually Ross Magog painted in gold and equipped him with horns , which is a reference to the biblical golden calf .

As the series took shape, Ross chose Mark Waid as his partner. Waid was considered a very good connoisseur of the DC universe, developed a complete, coherent plot and sprinkled many insider references to DC history in the story. To underline the epic impact of the Armageddon story, Ross and Waid introduced many symbols and quotes from the Last Judgment . Accordingly, the story is not told by a superhero, but by a preacher named Norman McCay. McCay is inspired by Ross' own father.

Kingdom Come was originally intended to be a metaphor for the comic book bubble that Image Comics had fanned. So Ross wanted to end the project in winter 1995. But when it took a few months longer, it was already clear that the "[Image Comics] system was failing". In retrospect, Ross finds that his comic book "commented on" rather than "foreseeing" the rise and fall of Image Comics.

action

Note: The chapter names of Panini Comics are given. The Carlsen Verlag easily used different names in Eaglemoss the chapters have no title.

Chapter 1: Strange Visitor

The whole plot is told by Norman McCay, who from the mystical incarnation of God's wrath, the Specter , omnipresence gets awarded. McCay suffers from half-empty churches, the nihilism of society and has given up inwardly.

In a near future, the classic superheroes (like the Justice League with Superman , Batman , Wonder Woman , Green Lantern, and The Flash ) have retired from the world. Superman lost his conviction after Magog killed the Joker and was nevertheless acquitted. Batman's identity has been revealed and he rules Gotham City with an army of robots. Wonder Woman has been demoted from her fellow amazons . The three leave the fight against crime to the new generation, led by the brutal Magog. The new antiheroes kill their opponents and accept the death of innocents. People hate and fear these new superheroes.

When Magog is responsible for the death of Captain Atom , which largely destroys and radioactively contaminates the US state of Kansas , Superman returns from his exile in the Fortress of Solitude .

Chapter 2: Truth and Justice

Superman defeats Magog and reunites the Justice League. But people remain deeply suspicious. Batman refuses to cooperate as he sees Superman's ideas as naive. He apparently betrays him and seeks contact with the Human Liberation Front under Superman's archenemy Lex Luthor . He has a brainwashed Captain Marvel (one of the few DC characters who can be dangerous for Superman) as his assistant. They plan to play the superheroes and antiheroes against each other in an Armageddon in order to save humanity.

Chapter 3: Up in the Sky

Since the antiheroes do not recognize Superman, the old generation of superheroes is forced to capture them and lock them in a maximum security prison ( gulag ). When this is full and a riot breaks out, Luthor frees the antiheroes. The superheroes now face the antiheroes, Armageddon takes place. Batman, however, betrays Luthor and reveals that he was a double agent . He just wanted to get to Captain Marvel and break his will by re-brainwashing. Marvel meets Superman at the Gulag, and many other heroes fight there.

Chapter 4: Eternal Battle

Their fight is seen as a threat and the UN decides to drop an atomic bomb on the Gulag. The pre-emptive strike is intended to destroy metahumans and save humanity. Just before the bomb hits, Marvel is brainwashed. He pushes Superman aside, and detonates the bomb prematurely. Still, many heroes die, and an angry Superman attacks the UN. But McCay appears to him and shows that with a mass murder he would become exactly what he had always hated and fought against. The atom bomb was not the UN's fault, but that of the heroes; just as the antiheroes preferred to kill the guilty rather than protect the innocent, so the old heroes were too cowardly to stop them.

Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman (and also Magog, who is facing a lawsuit) are rehabilitated. While Lex Luthor and his Human Liberation Front end up behind bars, Superman devotes himself to rebuilding. At the end, McCay can be seen preaching words of forgiveness in a crowded church.

Epilogue: One year later ...

In the Collected Edition of the series, twelve additional pages appeared, including an eight-page epilogue. Wonder Woman and Superman engage Batman in small talk, with Batman discovering that Wonder Woman is carrying Superman's child. The two superheroes ask him to take over the sponsorship for the unborn child, which he accepts.

Continuation: The Kingdom

In 1999, a sequel was released under the title The Kingdom, also by Mark Waid, for the drawings were various partners responsible, Ross was no longer involved. This eight-part sequel takes place a few years after the events of Kingdom Come .

The Kingdom is about William, a survivor of the Kansas disaster, who receives all-encompassing power from Quintessence (consisting of the magician Shazam , the guardian Ganthet , the father of the gods Zeus , the highfather and the Phantom Stranger ) to undo the apocalypse. However, as Gog, he now kills Superman time and time again by traveling back in time. Eventually he is stopped by Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman (in their old and young versions). At the end, all different timelines and possible realities are explained as variations of the course of the story within the DC universe , since all stories are connected as parallel worlds via the so-called hypertime .

Award

Kingdom Come won the 1997 Eisner Award in the Limited Series category .

German-language editions

Kingdom Come

  • Mark Waid , Alex Ross : Kingdom Come - Die Apokalypse , Carlsen Verlag , 1997, ISBN 3-551-72625-6 (softcover; translator: Uwe Anton )
  • Mark Waid, Alex Ross: Kingdom Come - Ultimate Edition (= Ultimate Edition # 1), Panini Comics , 2005, ISBN 3-89921-972-4 (with extra pages, hardcover; translator: Christian Heiß)
  • Mark Waid, Alex Ross: Kingdom Come (= DC Paperback # 61), Panini Comics, 2013, ISBN 978-3-86201-706-5 (with extra pages, softcover; translator: Christian Heiß)
  • Mark Waid, Alex Ross: Kingdom Come (parts 1 and 2; = DC Comics Graphic Novel Collection # 90 and 91), Eaglemoss , 2016 (with extra pages and one comic each from the Golden Age , hardcover; translator: Christian Heiß)

The Kingdom

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Alex Ross , original quote : “I hated it [Cable]. I felt like it looked like they just threw up everything on the character - the scars, the thing going on with his eye, the arm, and what's with all the guns? But the thing is, when I put those elements together with the helmet of Shatterstar - I think that was his name - well, the ram horns and the gold, suddenly it held together as one of the designs that I felt happiest with in the entire series. "
  2. ↑ Alex Ross , original quote : "I really wanted that thing out by the end of '95 because I thought it would still be catching a moment in time of the post-Image explosion where comics were selling like crazy and seemingly had thousands of new characters erupted on the scene from all the new upstart companies. What happened in '96 was the bubble had burst and it was becoming very clear that the system was falling. So, instead of it being prophetic of the future - which is what I had envisioned back in '93 when I started to write my first outline for it - it wound up really being more of a commentary upon the state of things as opposed to looking into the future and where things were going to go. "
  3. ↑ Beatty Scott et al. a .: The DC Comics Encyclopedia . Panini Verlags GmbH , Stuttgart March 2005, 1st edition, pp. 282–283 (Specter)