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A review by fangsfirst
The Kingdom by Mike Zeck, Ariel Olivetti, Mark Waid
4.0
I'm into Kingdom Come more for Mark Waif than Alex Ross to be honest: I'm one of those writer-followers, not artist-followers. I won't *not* read a comic if the art is great and the writing middling (Tradd Moore's recent Doctor Strange mini, Ales Kot and Marco Rudy's Winter Soldier come to mind), but I want to enjoy what I'm reading, not just what I'm looking at. Bad art will make me cringe or grimace (sorry, Humberto Ramos, it was not meant to be!) but I find it way more worth pushing past.
I saw the average rating for this one right before starting it and thought "Oh...." And was halfway through it going, "Is the ending going to be complete shit? When does this get bad or middling??"
The Kid Flash, Planet Krypton, and Offspring issues are, I think, the obvious standouts, but there wasn't a bit of it I was not all for. It wasn't the greatest thing ever, but Imit wasn't ho-hum, either. Waid has said (to my very own face, when he was hanging around a local shop that was slow at the time, offering to sign my enormous pile of books written by him that I guilty said I didn't want to trouble him with) that he struggles to be interested in writing characters he didn't grow up with—but here we are with all legacy characters, and he does phenomenal work with them, folding in those legacy ideas brilliantly.
I haven't read a lot of Plastic Man or anything, yet I was deeply involved in the young Offspring's plight in trying to be a hero instead of a joke, all the while seeming to appreciate the joke. Kid Flash (Iris West, natch) is in a similar position, yet almost the opposite: Wally has become detached, and only expects greatness from her brother Barry, and she desperately wants his validation. Planet Krypton is about a server who questions her life decisions, deep regrets, and assumptions about the people around her.
All of these tie into overarching themes of excess hero worship, continuity cop-ing (which is sort of amusingly weird, coming from an aficionado like Waid!), and how to appreciate and accept the totality of comics history in all its weird (especially Silver Age) oddities (okay, that part's a little more clearly Waid).
I know a lot of the worship for Kingdom Come comes back to Ross (who was apparently upset by this story), but as neat as it is to see "realistic" superheroes, it's the characters I give a shit about, and this has character in abundance.
I saw the average rating for this one right before starting it and thought "Oh...." And was halfway through it going, "Is the ending going to be complete shit? When does this get bad or middling??"
The Kid Flash, Planet Krypton, and Offspring issues are, I think, the obvious standouts, but there wasn't a bit of it I was not all for. It wasn't the greatest thing ever, but Imit wasn't ho-hum, either. Waid has said (to my very own face, when he was hanging around a local shop that was slow at the time, offering to sign my enormous pile of books written by him that I guilty said I didn't want to trouble him with) that he struggles to be interested in writing characters he didn't grow up with—but here we are with all legacy characters, and he does phenomenal work with them, folding in those legacy ideas brilliantly.
I haven't read a lot of Plastic Man or anything, yet I was deeply involved in the young Offspring's plight in trying to be a hero instead of a joke, all the while seeming to appreciate the joke. Kid Flash (Iris West, natch) is in a similar position, yet almost the opposite: Wally has become detached, and only expects greatness from her brother Barry, and she desperately wants his validation. Planet Krypton is about a server who questions her life decisions, deep regrets, and assumptions about the people around her.
All of these tie into overarching themes of excess hero worship, continuity cop-ing (which is sort of amusingly weird, coming from an aficionado like Waid!), and how to appreciate and accept the totality of comics history in all its weird (especially Silver Age) oddities (okay, that part's a little more clearly Waid).
I know a lot of the worship for Kingdom Come comes back to Ross (who was apparently upset by this story), but as neat as it is to see "realistic" superheroes, it's the characters I give a shit about, and this has character in abundance.