Rating:  -
Coming off of Marvels, everyone wondered how or even if Alex Ross could top himslef. Kingdom Come answered that with a resounding yes. The art is superb here, and the whole thing screams epic. Waid and Ross clearly take the subject mater seriously, and some of the characters, Captain Marvel in particular are treated with more respect than they have been in decades. This is a must read for any fan of DC Comics or the genre
Rating:  -
Every time I read Kingdom Come, the divide between the art and the script becomes more and more painfully apparent. There's just nothing good about the plot of Kingdom Come. It took the idea of 'superpowers go out of control' and set it back fifteen years. Every hero in it (and there's quite the list) is portrayed in a singularly unremarkable way.
If it weren't for the Biblical-looking Todd Klein lettering, I'd suggest ignoring the words entirely. No barriers are even gently pushed - much less broken.
Alex Ross, however, saves the story from someone's dumpster by painting every panel with the sort of reverence and luxurious detail that is normally reserved for chapel ceilings. Although Ross (deservedly) gets most of the credit for Kingdom Come, somehow Mark Waid has managed to parlay this into a career of doing REALLY EPIC THINGS.
Rating: -
Kingdom Come recalls the Marvels series with Kurt Busiek mainly because of Alex Ross's art, but also because of its alternate reality concept. To brand it an imitator however, would be unfair.
Mark Waid does a nice job helming this Elseworlds take on the future of DC heroes. Under Alex Ross though, the superhuman world truly takes on epic dimensions of Armageddon. Ross's work is so unique and dramatic that it's hard to imagine other artists bringing this to life. It's the way we would want to imagine our heroes to be - lifelike yet larger than life. Ross's style recalls Classic artists of the Renaissance, and by doing so, reminds us about the classic nature of our heroes; and the pathos and angst that they experience.
Combined with Waid's storytelling and we get a visionary, groundbreaking book that dropped an atom bomb on the DC universe. Reading it again now, I almost wished it could have been twice the length, such is the depth and potential of the story. Regardless, though it came out over 10 years ago, this book belongs on any comic book shelf, and being in paperback - there really isn't any reason why you shouldn't get a copy.
Rating: -
If you love Elseworld plots, tons of characters new and old, end of the world stories, Justice League, and the Superman vs Captain Marvel battle, this novel is one of the finest ever written. Each page is a work of art, the story is geared towards older readers, set in a near future anti-utopian world. I was pretty much done with comics after college, so I shifted to graphic novels thanks to Miller's Dark Knight Returns, read tons of G-Novels, and then started to put them down for good. Picked up Kingdom Come and now I'm back in love with DC...this is one of my top G-Novels of all times! Thanks and keep dreaming. John Dae
Rating: -
First off, the art is wonderful. It is gorgeous consistently throughout, even if at times a bit confusing packed with as many superheroes as it is. However, the writing has some annoying conventions that I wish I would have known about prior to purchasing.
Namely, the heavy biblical narrative trying to convince the reader that no, really, this time it's the end of everything! Invoking the book of Revelations virtually non-stop by a preacher that does indeed preach throughout the book, was both gimmicky and entirely unnecessary. The conflict simply did not need the biblical overtones in order to give it more weight. It's the classic problem of telling instead of showing that writers often fall into. We don't need to be told how terrible mass destruction is. Simply showing it works just fine.
Worse, the book uses another tired convention of invoking the unseen messenger guiding a witness to the crisis, like a ghost from Dicken's Christmas Carol. Instead of giving us well-rounded antagonists from this new crop of careless superheroes, we get a constant exposition of doom.
The frustrating thing about this book is how good it is in parts. Its focus is almost entirely centered on Superman, Wonder Woman and Batman, and thankfully a lot of good stuff arises from that. However, a bit of a bait and switch happens when we have Wonder Woman advocating essentially a "final solution" to the problem. So we get this morality play played out between Superman and Wonder Woman instead of between the next generation of heroes and the old generation, which to me would have been far more interesting.
That all said, parts of the book really are well done. Superman's story is interesting and poignant. Wonder Woman's is also affecting when Superman guesses at her deeper motives. And Batman is written wryly and with great humor. And the interactions between the three, which is essentially the book, are great.
But the flaws I mentioned above truly drag this work down. Don't believe the hype. It's a good book with good ideas, but it fails in the execution and long preachy expositions. I would have given the book two stars but the art truly raises this work up from mediocrity and worth a look for that alone. But I do recommend borrowing a copy and reading it first before buying.
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