Dedicated To…

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Another addition to SUPERMANIA’s series of recommended comic reading for fans of the Superman Movie series is this epic graphic novel published by Titan Books in 1997.  Collecting the Elseworlds run originally published by DC comics and written by Mark Waid, Kingdom Come is a grand, ambitious project permitting creatives to indulge themselves with the characters of the DC Universe without consequence as outlined below –

“In Elseworlds, heroes are taken from their usual settings and put into strange times and places – some that have existed  or might have existed, and others that can’t, couldn’t or shouldn’t exist.” 

Ironically, besides the awesome and touching dedication to Christopher Reeve on page 1, there is little content thereafter reminiscent of anything seen on the big screen.  Despite Kingdom’s astonishing hand painted art by the unparalleled Alex Ross, every panel may well be suitable for framing but purposefully portrays alternate versions of all the DC frontrunners -some more convincingly than others.

In fact, Kingdom is a heavy going, sometimes exhausting read, just as the definition above precludes.  Its an epic tale crammed tightly into a format that can’t really accommodate it and therefore does it little justice.  The dialogue is sharper than the premise and in a similar vein to Alan Moore’s Watchmen, you realise from the outset this is a doom-laden morality tale.  Kudos, however should be given to the characterisations of Batman and Wonder Woman and the notion of making Captain Marvel an atomic version of Lenny from Of Mice And Men…