Thursday, November 13, 2008

Buy Pile Report: Kingdom Come Superman

I'm not through my complete Buy Pile yet, and I don't know if I am going to have time tonight, but I wanted to make sure to get on here and say my piece on JSA: Kingdom Come Special: Superman.

If you read the original "Kingdom Come," it doesn't get any better than this, and you better make sure to pick this up, even if you haven't been reading the current "Justice Society" arc.

The issue reads like another epilogue to the original "Kingdom Come," and looks the part to boot, since Alex Ross handled every last bit of the art, from drawing to inking to coloring, painting the scenes from Earth-22 and drawing the scenes from our Earth.

(By the way, on an unrelated note, the movie "Weird Science," which is on HBO right now, includes a scene with a Mohawk-wearing Native American Biker saying the sentence "You can't even take a shower with a beautiful woman without taking off your jeans!" How awesome was that movie?!?)

Where was I? Oh yeah, understated grace and art. Ross crafted more than a few classic scenes here. Superman fans are going to love the look on KC Superman's face when he realizes he's in a room full of Kryptonite. "Kingdom Come" fans are going to love the reunion with Norman McCray. And, comics do not get any closer to art than those final scenes with Lois.

Most of all, I just really loved reading KC Superman as written by the man who knows him best, once again. At heart, this epilogue was the story of how this Superman is able to handle his second chance. It's one thing to put a tortured character into a bright new world with a fresh chance at happiness, but that character has still been through all sorts of hell. This is the story of a survivor who didn't necessarily want to survive, given all he's seen, and we get to see here how those experience taint his actions.

This is a story anyone who's survived a traumatic experience can relate to, and I could not recommend this issue highly enough to anyone who read "Kingdom Come."

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