Kingdom Come is a comic book limited series published in 1996 by DC Comics, written by Mark Waid and painted by Alex Ross. It concerns the efforts of Superman and the Justice League in the near future to control the growing population of largely amoral and dangerously irresponsible new superheroes. Alex Ross painted each page of the comic using watercolors.
The Absolute version of Crisis on Infinite Earths catalogued this timeline as Earth-96.
Having retreated to the isolation of his Fortress of Solitude, the Man of Steel failed to realize the importance of his role as a symbol to others, and thus many other heroes of his generation withdraw from the world at large, leaving a power vacuum that is soon filled by a less disciplined generation. These new heroes battle openly, "with abandon" using lethal force against each other without concern for collateral damage or innocent passers-by. For the most part, the day to day superheroics are undertaken by this new, third generation heroes who have little or no respect for the legacies they represent. In fact, their actions have become so reckless and selfish, it has become difficult to determine the heroes from the villains anymore. Average humans, demoralized by the loss of their true heroes, the disregard the new generation shows for them and their inability to do anything about the state of affairs created by these metahumans, have fallen into a societal depression, where efforts that celebrate human achievement, like professional sports, have been mostly abandoned.
Certain classic age heroes like the Flash, Hawkman, the original Green Lantern, Alan Scott, and Batman have remained active, although their modus operandi have changed dramatically. The Flash now lives 'between seconds' and remains in constant motion at super-speed. Hawkman has become an environmental terrorist, attacking logging camps and appearing more bird than man. (It is implied, though not stated in the text that Hawkman is in fact Carter Hall, not Northwind, his godson, who comes from a race of human-bird hybrids. The modern Northwind has been seen in issues of the Justice Society of America with an appearance very similar to the Kingdom Come Hawkman.) Green Lantern lives in an orbiting satellite, defending the Earth from extraterrestrial threats. He has also taken to wearing a full suit of green armor, and wielding a lance or sword made of emerald energy. Batman, his body no longer able to take the punishment heaped upon it over the years, wears an exoskeleton which includes a heavy neck and back brace to move. He now patrols Gotham City through the use of remote control robots.
The narrator and point of view character of the story is a religious minister named Norman McCay. McCay is a longtime friend of Wesley Dodds, the original Sandman. The aged Dodds, now infirm and in a nursing home, suffers from hallucinations or visions about a pending apocalypse and tries to warn McCay with his final breath. McCay, like Dodd's doctors, attribute the visions to senility. When Dodds passes away, his visions begin appearing to McCay. Already suffering from a crisis of faith, McCay is convinced he has finally gone insane when the Spectre appears to him while he prays for guidance. McCay is recruited by the Spectre (who feels his ability to determine the innocent from the wicked is not what it once was) to bear witness and help pass judgment on the approaching superhero apocalypse.
This sad state of affairs comes to a head when the Justice Battalion, led by Magog, attacks the Parasite with excessive and unnecessary force. In his panicked efforts to escape, the Parasite manages to tear Captain Atom open, releasing the nuclear forces within him, obliterating the entire state of Kansas and parts of the surrounding states.
Lex Luthor is still alive and well, and has organized Mankind Liberation Front. The MLF is primarily a group of Silver Age Justice League villains, including Batman foes Catwoman and the Riddler; Vandal Savage; King, leader of the Royal Flush Gang, as well as third generation villains like Ra's al Ghul's successor, Ibn al Xu'ffasch. (Al Xu'ffasch is also Bruce Wayne and Talia al Ghul's son, although their relationship is understandably strained.) The MLF work to wrest control of the world away from the heroes. Luthor's group also have an ace in the hole, a man the Spectre calls "the captain of the lightning and the thunder." This is none other than Captain Marvel, whom Luthor captured years earlier and has kept under control through the use of worms that crawl through Marvel's brain. The worms play upon the psychological dichotomy of the teen Batson inhabiting the adult body of the world's mightiest mortal, Captain Marvel. The worms very much resemble Marvel's old nemesis, Mr. Mind. Batman and his group ally themselves with Luthor's group, to better protect mankind from the coming metahuman war.
With Superman's Justice League gaining more captives than converts, they have to hold them somewhere. After being rebuked by Aquaman for their request to build an undersea prison and by Orion, (now ruler of the New Gods and Apokolips following the defeat of his father Darkseid) to build a prison off-world, Superman and the league end up building a massive penal colony called the Gulag in the Kansas wastelands; security design of the Gulag was provided by the universe's ultimate escape artist, Scott Free. The prison is filled to capacity almost as soon as they build it. Superman designates Captain Comet as warden. Superman tries to persuade the inmates through the use of repeated holographic messages that their methods are wrong-headed and dangerous, but his entreaties fall upon deaf ears. With hostile hero-villains like 666, Kabuki Kommando, and Von Bach locked up together, the pressure builds. In the meanwhile, Superman, urged on by Wonder Woman, had become more and more inflexible in his tolerance of inappropriate behavior by the metahuman community. He also learns that Wonder Woman's ever-increasing militant attitude may be based at least in part upon the fact that she has been exiled from Paradise Island. In the eyes of the Amazons, she has failed in her mission to bring peace to the outside world.
When the Gulag breaks open, the Justice League clash with the bloodthirsty inmates, while Superman and Captain Marvel battle (Marvel countering Superman's possibly superior strength by summoning lightning with his magic word "Shazam!") The Spectre and Norman watch, helpless (or unwilling) to do anything. Batman's forces join the fray, aiding Superman's League in quelling the riot, but also attempting to stop Superman and his allies from imposing their narrow rules upon all metahumans. Batman, wearing an armored battle suit with the power of flight, comes into direct conflict with Wonder Woman. The sheer power of the conflict threatens to destroy the nation...and perhaps the world.
As the conditions of the war worsen, shaking the earth and blackening the sky, the United Nations Secretary General Wyrmwood authorizes the deployment of three tactical nuclear warheads, hardened against certain metahuman powers. While this action will destroy hero and villain alike, the UN feels it has no choice in the matter; if mankind is to survive, metahumanity must be destroyed. This genocide is the UN's attempt at saving the world from an inevitable human/metahuman war. As Wyrmwood says; "Listen to me and understand! There is nothing logical about dispatching tactical nuclear weapons into the heart of my own country!...The only way to ensure that future generations remember this as our final option is to insure there are future generations after this day..."
Superman releases him and flies off to stop the incoming bomb. Batson, his mind now clear of Luthor and Mr. Mind's influence, says the name, turns into Marvel, flies past Superman, and takes hold of the bomb, having found a third option. Marvel shouts "Shazam!" three more times in rapid succession, and the lightning sets off the bomb prematurely.
Despite Marvel's sacrifice, most of the metahumans are obliterated in the explosion, although a few survive beneath a force field generated by Green lantern and his daughter Jade. Superman, though outside the force field, is virtually untouched. His uniform torn and blackened by the lightning and the nuclear explosion, his eyes glowing red with restrained heat vision, he rises from the ashes looking more villain than hero. Enraged at the tremendous loss of life, he flies to the UN Building and threatens to bring it down atop the delegates as punishment for killing all his friends (Superman does not realize there were survivors at this point), and reacting in such a fearful and cowardly way to the metahuman war. The surviving metahumans arrive, but Norman McCay is the one who talks him down, pointing out how his appearance and behavior are exactly the sort of reasons that normal humans fear the super-powered. Chastised and ashamed, Superman immediately ceases his rampage. He is handed Captain Marvel's cape, the only remnant of the hero, and tells the UN representatives that they will use his wisdom to guide, rather than lead, humankind. Superman ties Captain Marvel's cape to a flagpole and raises it among the flags of the member nations of the UN, suggesting that this role of guidance would be more political and global in nature than the classic crime-busting vigilantism of the past.
The final scene features Clark Kent, Diana, and Bruce Wayne meeting for a meal at Planet Krypton, a theme restaurant based on the golden age of superheroes. (Norman McCay and a man who looks like the Spectre's civilian identity, Jim Corrigan, are also eating at the restaurant.) Clark and Diana are there to tell Bruce they're expecting a child, but Bruce deduces the news before they can tell him. Diana still manages to surprise Bruce by asking him to accept the role of godfather and mentor of the child, whom Bruce rightly describes as potentially the most powerful being in the world. As the three exit the restaurant, they pass three framed comic books; the books are Whiz Comics #2 (the first appearance of Captain Marvel), The Sandman's costume, and More Fun #1, the first book ever published by DC Comics.
Kingdom Come is interpreted by many as a clash between the Silver Age of comics and the "modern age," (1994), highlighted by the Image Comics revolution in two-dimensional stereotypical anti-heroes, laden with excess muscle and guns, committing graphic violence for its own sake. The series contains numerous references to Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons's Watchmen. (The League's replacements, the Justice Battalion, is comprised mostly of superheroes from Charlton Comics, several of which -- Captain Atom, Peacemaker and Blue Beetle -- were the basis for Alan Moore's Watchmen, one panel from the first issue of Kingdom Come shows a bookstore window displaying the book Under the Hood by Hollis Mason a.k.a. Nite-Owl, a fictional book in Watchmen. Another panel on the same page shows graffiti that clearly reads, "Who Watches the Watchmen?", although part of it is cut off as it always is in Watchmen. Also Rorschach appears in the bar/nightclub scene, and also in the gulag.) Ross admitted Watchmen was an influence on this series (i.e. apocalyptic themes and the conflict between superhumans and humans) as well as the series often blamed (rightly or wrongly) for catalyzing a trend towards violence in comics that led to the grim and gritty 1980's era and the subsequent Image style of the early 90's.
The iconic leader of KC's "new heroes," Magog, is an amalgam of the Biblical Golden Calf and Marvel Comics's Cable, considered to be the prototype of the Image style. Ross and Waid originally planned to have Magog lead the final Gulag riot and die, but admitted they had grown too fond of him. Superman is a Christ-like figure, depicted as a carpenter, walking on water (in Batman's flooded Batcave), and when he returns, a reporter refers to it as "the Second Coming of Superman". The Book of Revelation and Apocalyptic imagery heavily influence the story.
Captain Marvel is often, fittingly enough, interpreted as a stand-in for Marvel Comics itself, even though the character was never in any way related to Marvel. Like the company, which introduced human frailties to superheroes, the Captain is simultaneously "man and god."
The artist, Alex Ross, took the opportunity to insert many visual references in the story: Norman McCay is based on his own father, and the bar/nightclub features many "washed-up" Silver Age figures and a stage performance by the Beatles, among countless other features. The Planet Krypton restaurant has a Batman uniform from the 1960s television series in the center of the dining room, amid various other nods to the DC universe. Ross also threw in a couple of references to the cartoon series Super Friends: the United Nations' new headquarters resembles the Justice League's Hall of Justice, while the superhuman gulag is styled as the Legion of Doom's Darth Vader-helmet shaped dome. Marvin, a supporting character created for the early seasons of that series, also appears in a couple of panels -- one in his familiar appearance, and another in his current, older appearance, apparently emulating Lobo's clothing and drinking habits. A gang of street punks stalked by Batman robots (visually inspired by the Griffon labor from Patlabor and the 1940s batmobile) are based on Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids. King Marvel bears a strong resemblance to the seventies-era Elvis Presley. Other visual references included depictions of the Monkees, John Steed and Emma Peel, Village People, Riff Raff and Colombia from the Rocky Horror Picture Show as well as Captain America and Thor from Marvel Comics.
Many of the heroes who were members of the Justice Society of America became the living embodiments of their namesakes. Hawkman is a hawk/man hybrid. Wildcat is an anthropomorphic panther. Dr. Mid-Nite is a walking cloud of the dark smoke he uses to disorient his enemies.
Several visual references to Star Wars can also be found: Batman's exoskeleton bears strong resemblance to Darth Vader's armor; the Batcave's light panels and multi-level interior structure recall the carbon-freezing chamber on Bespin; and Peacemaker's helmet is clearly modeled after the one made famous by Boba Fett.
And in three panels, the protagonist from Marvel Comics' Marvels (also painted by Alex Ross) can be seen.
Just Like Frank Miller's Year One, Alex Ross based Batman's appearance on actor Gregory Peck.
While in Apokolips, Superman stands among a thrall of primitive citizens - two of which are the Torturers from Monty Python's Life of Brian.
A novelization of the comic book was written by Elliot S! Maggin and published in 1999. A fully-dramatized audio adaptation of this novelization also exists.
Since the publication of Kingdom Come, some of its elements have found their way into the mainstream continuity:
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