kingdom come

Last night, I skimmed through DaMike's copy of Kingdom Come. I'd read it months ago and hadn't had the opportunity to return it to him. When I checked, I saw that I had printed out annotations to the series that I hadn't finished reading, so I started skimming and reading again. I think reading with the annotations is a nerd's pastime; but as I'm quite content to be a nerd I really haven't disparaged myself, have I? It was just interesting to note, since I wasn't into the comic series game much (although I did enjoy the X-Men stories like X-Cutioner's Song and the Infinity Gauntlet thing), that so many things had changed. Batman had a son by the daughter of R'As Al Ghul (?), Dick Grayson (once Robin, became Nightwing and then Red Robin--boy this guy's troubled) has a daughter, Flash and Green Lantern are up to Flash IV and Green Lantern IV. I was enlightened on quite a few items that I found confusing in my first read (like why did that girl have a Green Lantern emblazoned on her front when there already was a Green Lantern--apparently it was his daughter).

There were also a lot of "cameos" the annotations pointed out, like the Beatles playing at a metahuman club (no faces, just the shoes and the bottom of the drums, but you knew it was them), and the Monkees becoming SuperMonkeeMen (or something like that). I didn't need any annotations, though, to see that wondrous pest Bat-mite! For those of you old enough to remember the "New Adventures of Batman" cartoons that were shown here in the early to mid-80s, you remember Bat-mite... he of the lavender costume, obsession for Batgirl (at least when I was a kid I knew what slimeballs some guys could be) and generally annoying presence.

IMHO, Kingdom Come is another revolutionary comic, just like Crisis on Infinite Earths or X-Men's Dark Phoenix Saga. It seems to shake the very foundation of the comic universe and adversely affects countless characters and the treatment of the characters (in this case, the metahumans) in general. And of course there is the epilogue which is just so sweet. Suffice to say that I had dreamed of that pairing ever since I was a kid but of course there were a lot of obstacles. It just seems right that they get together.

As chance would have it, I ran into DaMike in Greenbelt. Reminder that I had to drop off the copy later tonight. Goodbye, great graphic novel. It was a tremendous pleasure.