Review: Kingdom Come

Elseworlds. "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". That's how DC describes their Elseworld stories. I truly love them. I enjoy seeing the characters I'm familiar with put into different settings. And there are quite a few to choose from.

I really love this one, Kingdom Come. It's a future story that may or may not happen. The set up is, the heroes of today, all basically the second generation of heroes, are now the third generation. Batman is an older man with graying hair and walks with an exoskeleton (years of crime fighting having taken their toll). Superman has retired after an accident in the midwest involving a nuclear explosion. Some of the heroes we know are still active, others have children who have taken their place. But for the most part, most of this generation of heroes are reckless and dangerous.

We see the story through an old man's eyes, as he is given a way to view the events. And the events are intense. Something brings Superman back. And he decides that the time has come for Super heroes to act responsibly. Basically, a "my way or the highway" attitude. He recruits other heroes to help him enforce this new policy of his. Meanwhile Batman doesn't like the idea of forcing behavior like this. So he to puts together a faction of heroes, and some villains to go his way. And caught in the middle, the normal humans of Earth.

It's a pretty gritty and dark tale, and ultimately a moral one. In the end the reader is left wondering just who really won? The story moves quick, and worth rereading.

And the art!!! Oh boy, the art is incredible. Alex Ross painted the whole book. And it's beautiful. His interpretation of the heroes as they age is incredible. Some wonderful epic sized battles, and every day things all seem all the more real for the time he put into it.

Book Review: Kingdom Come