Good Idea, Bad Idea: The Canonization of Kingdom Come

No, Kingdom Come hasn’t been named a saint, but for years now it’s been slowly working its way into official DC continuity. Characters, themes and ideas from Mark Waid and Alex Ross’s epic story have been showing up in canon DC Universe stories for quite some time, from Red Arrow in JLA and a feline Wildcat in JSA to a more warrior-like Wonder Woman and the Shazam vs. Superman lightning trick. Lately, the references have gone into overdrive, with revelations that the JSA’s Starman is the same one we saw in Kingdom Come, and the Kingdom Come Earth is one of the 52 Earths in the multiverse. Later this year, Kingdom Come’s Superman is set to join the Justice Society. But is all this Kingdom Coming a good thing or a bad thing?

Good Idea! Making the greatest DC Universe story matter.

Others may not agree on this point, but I consider Kingdom Come to be the greatest story ever told featuring the classic DC superheroes. The Dark Knight Returns is no doubt a great story, but in my humble opinion Kingdom Come trumps it in every respect. Of course, like many truly great DC stories (like DKR and New Frontier), Kingdom Come suffers a bit from the fact that the story isn’t in-continuity, so the story doesn’t have any actual impact on the characters involved.

Granted, by making Kingdom Come an alternate universe, the story still doesn’t have an impact on the “real” characters. But by interacting with the characters from Kingdom Come, their New Earth counterparts can learn some of the same lessons. Surely the Superman of New Earth can learn a thing or two from Kingdom Come’s Superman, considering the major arc in Kurt Busiek’s Superman is about whether the world would be better off if Superman retired. Sound familiar?

Bad Idea! Exploiting a classic story.

DC doesn’t have a very good track record of following up on classic stories. The Dark Knight Strikes Again wasn’t by any stretch of the imagination a worthy successor to DKR. The first time DC tried to capitalize on the success of Kingdom Come they produced a series of mediocre one-shots and the poorly conceived The Kingdom mini-series that introduced Hypertime.

So what reason do we have to believe the same thing won’t happen this time? A bad story featuring the same characters as a great one can only serve to diminish the greatness of the original story.

Good Idea! Keeping part of the original creative team involved.

I would be totally against this whole thing if either Alex Ross or Mark Waid had said they were against the idea. Kingdom Come is their story. Of course, I would prefer if Mark Waid was writing and Alex Ross was painting any and all future stories set in the Kingdom Come universe or involving those characters, but that’s just not realistically going to happen. However, having Alex Ross co-write the story in Justice Society of America, a series he’s already had a lengthy relationship with, gives a validation to the story it otherwise wouldn’t have had.

Good Idea! Getting Geoff Johns to write it.

DC’s had a number of memorable stories over the past several years, and Geoff Johns’ seems to be attached to most of them. Green Lantern: Rebirth was a great introduction to the characters that made sense of their convoluted past. Infinite Crisis was the best DC story to come along in quite a long time. 52 was an unprecedented series that paid of after the year of stories was finished. Throw in lengthy and quality runs on Green Lantern, Teen Titans, The Flash and JSA, and you’ve got a pretty impressive resume. One thing most of those stories seem to have in common is an acknowledgement and appreciation of the stories that came before him.

The Verdict: Good Idea!

Right now, DC’s keeping the scale on this story relatively small. If you don’t read Justice Society of America or Countdown (which seems to be an increasingly large amount of comics readers), you probably won’t even realize when the Kingdom Come universe crosses over. Making a story ignorable might seem like a bad idea, but when it involves the potential to defame a classic story, that’s a good thing. But really, the only way this thing would be a bad idea is if DC royally screws up the execution. And given the creative talent involved, I doubt that will happen.