1.
I'm not a man with the highest regard for politicians as a breed, but the men of state in "Kingdom Come", and they are almost all entirely white men of state, are so utterly imbecilic that even I can't believe in them. We find some of them gathered in the United Nations in the second chapter of the book, for example, discussing the fact that none of them are "delighted" that Superman and his various costumed allies have just effectively taken over the world. It could certainly never be said that these dispossessed rulers of the Earth are showing the slightest sign of acting with any measure of bravery and initiative in the face of the Kryptonian's usurpation of their power. Mind you, the fact that Kal-El has just announced that he doesn't "anticipate anyone acting without our sanction" isn't actually labelled as the
imposition of a world-wide tyranny in the book, and so it's not as immediately obvious as it might be that the planet has just seen Superman declare himself above any and all national and international laws, although that's exactly what's he's just done. He has, indeed, just made himself King of the World, but it doesn't quite feel like that. He's said what he's doing, but he's never portrayed as a tyrant so much as our beloved Superman going just that little bit too far in the face of undoubtedly severe provocation. Indeed, "Kingdom Come" is careful to show Superman behaving in the most shameful way and yet in the most positive and tragic light possible. Certainly those troublesome words such as "dictatorship", "kidnapping", "false imprisonment" or "criminal responsibility" are never used when his actions are discussed. Even the man of steel's opponents tend to rail against the things he's done rather than the principles and laws he's broken. His appalling behaviour is therefore smartly hidden in plain sight, the fact of it cleverly moderated by both text and art, and it's all a rather impressive trick, masking the depth of his shameful behaviour by constantly positioning him against folks who are far less sympathetic than he is. It ensures that we're never alienated from our beloved Superman, even though disguising the degree of his criminality compels everyone in the pages of "Kingdom Come" to act as if they've never heard of any ethical principle that can't be expressed in language any more sophisticated than that usually associated with greeting card homilies.
"Please understand our intent." Superman declares to his superhuman prisoners in the Kansas Gulag he's constructed and helped to fill. "None of you are here for punishment. You're here for education." And it's as if Clark Kent the journalist has never grasped enough of ethics or law to understand that depriving folks of their liberty without reference to any legitimate authority is undoubtedly a form of "punishment". But then, the only folks we see specifically complaining about Superman's Gulag are its inhabitants, who are clearly at best ignorant and at worst psychopathic, and Lex Luthor, who's stated motive is to avoid being imprisoned himself. "Our job is thankless ... but we do what has to be done." declares Superman to a clubbing mass of irresponsible superhumans, continuing a tradition of superheroes depicting their illegality as a noble necessity, and one which has been proudly perpetuated by Scott Summers and his X-Men in recent months. (At least this Superman will later repent, although only of acting like a "god" rather than of his flagrant criminality.)
Yet, the politicians of the Earth of "Kingdom Come" have obviously been astonishingly ignorant of the desperate straits their nations are navigating. Superman may be bent on making "things right again", but his unilateral declaration of absolute authority comes as something of a shock to the civil powers that be, who clearly and quite unbelievably didn't understand, even in the wake of the destruction of Kansas, that things were quite this bad. For as the Spectre explains to Norman McCay while the two of them watch the private deliberations of the great national powers in the U.N. building;
"Long have these mortals suspected that they are no longer the captains of humanity's destiny. Their suspicions have just been confirmed."
It's a statement which surely makes the reader wonder how stupid these politicians are. Because these various representatives of the people have apparently only just noted with any certainty that their world is beyond their control, despite "Kingdom Come" being based on that premise from its very first page. How the various states aligned in the United Nations managed to miss the fact that the rule of law had utterly collapsed across the world, and that it had collapsed a significantly long time ago, is beyond me, but they've somehow done so. You might have imagined that the inability of even America to protect the community within its borders against massive and regular superhuman attacks would have made some fundamental impression, but, apparently no. These politicians are inconceivably stupid.
Of course, the U.N. has to be incredibly dense and irresponsible in "Kingdom Come", because otherwise it might act as they should do, both individually and collectively, to try more wholeheartedly to bring the plague of superhumans under control. But the plot of "Kingdom Come" depends upon the Earth being so badly afflicted by the curse of the "nameless-thousands" of the "mighty" that Kal-El will feel compelled to assume the office if not the title of dictator, and also upon the UN ultimately feeling itself obligated to nuke the world's meta-humans. And all of that relies upon the unlikely premise that the governments of the world have failed to act decisively because they've not had their "suspicions" "confirmed" despite the truth having apparently dawned upon everyone else on planet Earth years and years before.
In truth, the reader might be able to accept that some of the nations of the world have been either complicit in these superhuman rampages, or too fearful to act, or too apathetic and self-interested. But to argue that they'd all not really noticed with any conviction what had been so self-evidently going on for years is just silly, and, in its own way, a little worrying too, as we'll discuss in a moment.
2.
The strangest thing about the nation-states of the world of "Kingdom Come" is that they seem to have done almost nothing to attempt to deal with the gangs of "meta-humans" who've been making life so intolerable for their people for so long. Though governments have struggled to be "convinced" of the seriousness of the situation, American citizens such as Norman McCay are shown being unable to walk the streets without running into warring tribes of costumed superhumans or encountering the monumental debris left by their passing. And yet, we're shown little sign of any coherent response to this collapse of the rule of law by the American state in "Kingdom Come" beyond a single panel which shows a headline on an old copy of The Daily Planet declaring "U.N. Enacts More Metahuman Censures". What that means escapes me, beyond giving the impression that the international agency is doing a little but not nearly enough, for it's hard to see how expressing one's disapproval for a population of costumed thugs is a decisive act. The politicians of the world are obviously, we're being told, entirely useless in even the most obvious and threatening of circumstances. Every single one of them. And yet, given how long-standing and catastrophic the superhuman problem is, it's inconceivable that a great deal more hasn't being done. All those "nameless thousands" must surely have convinced America, for example, that it's suffering a regime-destabilising epidemic of superpowered disorder. And if the government hasn't noticed ten years of escalating terror, its citizens, its vote-wielding citizens, undoubtedly have.
Even if we credit that this America can't physically challenge these metahuman criminals, and I'll challenge any such presumption in a line or two, there's a great deal the various local and national organs of government could and likely would do to protect the citizenry and their interests. Early warning systems and public shelters, perhaps even administered by public volunteers, would be an obvious first response to the level of attacks shown by McCay's ventures out into the open. America has a terrific record of mobilising state, non-state and individual resources when faced with significant challenges to public order and/or national security, and it simply isn't conceivable that there isn't a significant public programme in place being organised at all levels of state activity during "Kingdom Come". To presume that both state and private organisations would do nothing is to present a picture of American society which quite fails to reflect the resilience, initiative and bravery which tend to mark a great deal of the behaviour of human cultures coping with constant attacks.
Yet we aren't even shown any representatives of the emergency services or the armed forces attempting to deal with the hyper-powered firefights as they occur. No police or army, no volunteers or helpful bystanders. Instead, everyone who's not in a costume is a victim in "Kingdom Come", and no organisation of individuals is of any use at all. It's a symptom of the unintended contempt for typical human beings and their various social institutions which marks far too many superhero comics, a stereotypical view of the likes of you and I which presumes that we're passive and easily disheartened and crushed, and that we rely upon the intervention of costumed musclewomen and men to save us whenever trouble comes.
But such a view of the common lot and the common lot's government ignores the fact that the American government in "Kingdom Come" has had a great deal of time to develop pro-active as well as defensive responses to the meta-human incursions. Many of the super-people are, for example, susceptible to the simplest of attacks, and few appear to be invulnerable. The USA obviously has a great deal of weaponry at its disposal, and that weaponry in the DCU is considerably more sophisticated and lethal than any that exists in the real-world. Those rampaging criminals who can't be brought down by bullets might be brought down by the likes of nerve gas and the bomb, and the state would have the responsibility to do so in a case of a breakdown of public order such as is shown in "Kingdom Come". But in order for "Kingdom Come" to function as a plot, the state must cease to notice what's happening in any depth and fail to respond with any imagination or force. It's a ridiculous notion, especially in a world where so many of these lawless superhumans congregate in the same bar at the same time; it'd be easy, the reader suspects, to find a way to constrain the freedom, or indeed the breathing, of those hard-partying folks given a little time to plan a response to their presence.
But then, governments which seek to protect their legitimate monopoly of power from the threat potentially posed by superheroes in comics are nearly always portrayed as, at best, irresponsible and, at worst, evil institutions seeking to end everyone's fun by insisting on public spirited and lawful behaviour. But there would have to have been the equivalent of a whole string of Manhattan Project-like initiatives in this future DCU dedicated to combating the likes of Superman should his allegiances turn, as they do in KC, and these would have surely been set up long before the lustre of the old superheroes faded. It's just not conceivable that the state hasn't ensured that it can defend itself from both American and foreign metahuman activity, just as it's inconceivable that it would fail to try to defend its members in the face of such widespread and constant attacks. After all, the economy of the America we're shown is strangely unaffected by this uncertainty and widespread disruption, with consumer goods and fast food restaurants all over the place, and not a single panel representing poverty of any kind. (The worst we see is a single panel show a graffitied wall.) This isn't an America that can't afford resistance, or at least protective measures for its citizens. So why would the state have failed to act? Even the most venal government couldn't do that in the face of such horrendous and constant civil disorder, and it takes a great deal of dismissive thinking about the electorate to imagine that they'd stay quiet on such a matter too.
But then, "Kingdom Come" also relies upon the reader not noticing that the American government has no superhumans of its own. It seems very odd that none - none - of the new breed of meta-humans have decided to stand with the state. In fact, it's unbelievable. I can't think of a time in America when fear and disillusionment meant that good women and men wouldn't stand with the legitimate civil power. Even in times when large numbers of citizens have through either principle or self-interest resisted the idea of service to the state, the majority of Americans have for whatever reason fallen quite literally into line. Why, therefore, have none of these apparently troublesome superhumans decided to work for the government? After all, the state can offer a great deal in terms of wealth and power and status that a freebooting life of punching out meta-powered folks wearing daft costumes can't.
Time and time again, for all of its manifest problems, America has proven itself able to defend itself and to mobilise its women and men in such a cause. (And here I speak as a man of a somewhat radical political bent, meaning that I'm far less starry-eyed than many about the virtue of the state or the common decency of the common woman or man.) So why does "Kingdom Come" want us to believe that a world that's full to the brim of terrifying super-humans will find ordinary folks and their institutions somehow completely lacking when, under equally terrible but more conventional historical scenarios, the opposite can patently be found to have been true?
Or, more appropriately, what it is about superhero comics that makes it so easy for the reader to forget that their fellow citizens are more than just dupes, mob-members and martyrs, and what is it about them which makes it so easy for us to ignore the fact that the state is more than simply a few corrupt and incompetent self-servers at the top of the political tree?
3.
One utterly unconvincing explanation offered in "Kingdom Come" for the passivity and apathy of America's men and women is, as the passed-on Wesley Dodds is heard to have declared, that "human initiative began to erode the day people asked a new breed to face the future for them". It's an odd, odd idea, presuming that all other human endeavour and responsibility ceases to hold any meaning the moment costumed super-people start punching each out across the nation. Whatever "facing the future" means, it presumes that people's individual and social lives loose all meaning when they can't stand up for themselves against powerful and threatening forces. Yet that situation, of living a life in a world dominated by powers far beyond the individual's control, seems to me to describe the lot of humans and their societies since the year dot. Just because the JLA are shown battling Starro The Conqueror on daytime TV surely doesn't make keeping a family safe and warm or earning a much-longed-for promotion any the less important. It certainly wouldn't make the business of politics less vital and pressing, since the responsibility of ruling a state containing such powerful beings and threatened by such overwhelming dangers would be all the more enticing and demanding and not less. In truth, "Kingdom Come" shows, without meaning to, an almost adolescent contempt for the business of everyday life and social and political involvement, and casts being ordinary as being powerless and unimportant.
But generations in the shadow of the bomb didn't crush the human spirit, and neither did the yet more generations spent under communist rule mean that the people of Eastern Europe didn't rush to embrace the end of Party rule when the Iron Curtain came down. People don't stop dreaming and trying just because they face impossible situations, or, at least, many of them don't. Their response to troubling times might not always be noble-hearted or public-spirited, but they never lack all traces of "initiative". History tells us that a people can indeed be crushed, but never so much that a generation of survivors can't rebuild their lives and culture in often new and vital ways. And the truth is that this essential feature of human existence can actually be perceived in the background of all the epic stories told in superhero comics of alien invasions and demonic attacks and the like. Within months of the Skrulls conquering the Earth, for example, Marvel's books clearly showed how everyday life had been rebuilt, and I would suggest to you that this isn't a reflection of comic book silliness so much as an accurate portrayal of life out here in the real world. Consider London and Berlin in the Second World War; both flattened, both filled to the brim with human beings, both containing populations which suffered uncertainty and terror and the most challenging of privations, and yet both were effectively rebuilt and working relatively well within years of the conflict
ending. Human beings and their cultures and societies at the micro and macro levels are incredibly resilient under even the most extreme of circumstances. They're not the noble and virtuous proletariat of populist fictions, but they're not this helpless and beaten mass either. For while a few superheroes may rebuild New York City time after time after comic-book disasters, it has to have been the ordinary, everyday folks who have rebuilt the life and the everyday detail of the city, from its electrical wiring to its neighbourhood relations. And that's what folks do, in both the fictional and the real universes. It can be an incredibly hard process, it's hardly ever a perfect business, and it doesn't happen overnight. But by God human beings are tough and capable things, and I don't believe a word of how superhuman power destroys the human spirit. It's a premise which, without meaning to, grossly under-estimates how determined and hardy humans and their communities are.
But "Kingdom Come" wants to tell us a story about superheroes and forgets that the mundane world isn't the polar opposite of the superheroic one. Whatever virtues and vices superheroes have, typical folks have them too, to a greater or lesser degree. The superhero isn't a separate breed, who's very existence either diminishes our worth in the context of a story or dismisses the value of ordinary folks by dint of their exclusion from the tale-telling at hand. Yet in "Kingdom Come", the people and their society and state are nothing but victims, outsiders in a tale that's supposed to be all about their vulnerability, and too often superhero tales such as this reduce the mass of the people to hostages, body-bag prospects or do-nothing bystanders.
The idea that the folks in the world of "Kingdom Come" have the disposable income to eat and socialise at "Planet Krypton". but not the will to protest and organise and sacrifice in their war with a group of predatory metahumans requires a view of American society which is, without meaning to be, dismissive and disrespectful as well as historically unconvincing. While I'm not suggesting that the land would filled with both citizen militias and brave marines throwing themselves upon waves of superhumans, I am suggesting that America, and indeed her allies, in the circumstances shown would achieve a great deal more than is allowed for in "Kingdom Come". "If any of us are to survive ... any of us ... now more than ever ... we need hope!" pleads Norman McCay during a metahuman attack, which presumes that community leaders, representatives of the various churches and faiths, pressure groups, political parties and politicians, teachers, doctors, god help us celebrities of all stripes, and anybody else you care to mention, have all ceased to hope and all proven unable to inspire any such emotion. 350 million Americans and no inspiration? And no-one fighting back? Oh, I can well understand why Norman McCay isn't inspiring too many folks, lecturing his understandably sparse and elderly flock with the fine print of the Book Of Revelations, but I suspect that there are thousands upon thousands of folks out there in Kingdom Come's USA who are more than capable of choosing a more rousing, clear and relevant text for folks facing exceeding hard times.
No. It's daft to suggest that this America and this world would be lacking hope and inspiration. But far more than merely daft, it's also, without meaning to be, insulting. Kingdom Come may never show, to my memory, an emergency worker dodging through the Kirby Krackles to save a bystander or a brave policewomen trying to arrest a giant reptilian monster, but they're there, just as their cowardly and depressed counterparts are too. But a world entirely without hope and resistance? No, those good eggs of the people are out there in the word of "Kingdom Come" and they're there in their millions upon millions. Many more will keep to themselves, and some others will undoubtedly exploit the situation for selfish or even outright despicable ends, but there will still be those folks across the world who'll try to do the right thing, whatever that is. Neighbourhood shelters, charitable giving, organising resistance within and without the government; the world of "Kingdom Come" is surely marked by a far more vibrant and considerably less empty society and state than we're ever shown.
Yet there's an unconscious disrespect for the people and their lives that's present in so many superhero comics, and it's definitely there in "Kingdom Come" too. It's not a reflection, I'm absolutely sure, of any prejudice on the part of the creators of comic books, who seem to me to be a particularly kind and decent bunch on the whole. But it is a problem that's part of tradition of the superhero genre, and it's one that we hardly notice at play in the comics that we consume because it's so common that it's almost invisible. Yet the process of making the likes of Superman and the Justice League seem fascinating and important and powerful shouldn't ever need to rely upon implying that the mass of the population and their institutions are by comparison unimportant and ineffective and indeed worthless, because, of course, they're simply not.
To be continued.
I do wish you, as always, a splendid day, and the virtues of sticking together, and I hope you'll join me for the next part of this if it should be an interesting and convenient enough a prospect.
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