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KINGDOM COME By Mark Waid And Alex Ross

April 15, 2016 by Craig DiLouie Leave a Comment

KINGOM COME2Confession: When I was a kid, I didn’t read many comic books. I can’t tell you who did what in episode whatever. At heart, I’m a nerd, not a geek.

I just couldn’t get into the serial nature of them, and I didn’t find their moral clarity appealing. Often, the heroes always seemed to encounter situations where there was a clear right or wrong rather than a choice of a lesser of two evils. I found the latter juxtaposition much more appealing, the idea of an extremely powerful icon of virtue facing difficult ethical choices. Also the idea of something that is extremely powerful and extremely good ultimately judging humanity. On a spectrum, I think, we’re all on Superman’s shit list.

Enter some amazing graphic novel collections such as RED SON, THE WATCHMEN, and, reviewed here, KINGDOM COME. I picked it off my bookshelf to reread after BATMAN V SUPERMAN came out. I haven’t seen the film yet, but it seems to explore a lot of interesting dark themes. Mainly, whether an all-powerful hero, however good, can fit into the modern world, and whether that hero, however good, should be considered an enemy, as our fate is in that hero’s interpretation of good.

In KINGDOM COME by Mark Waid and Alex Ross (DC Comics, 1996), it’s the modern day, and Superman, Batman and the other heroes of yesteryear are getting old. Their progeny–the metahumans–now roam the planet in great numbers. The supervillains have been defeated long ago, and the superheroes are bored, so they have formed gangs and fight for sport, terrorizing the humans. The story is told through the eyes of an elderly preacher, who is given vision of the apocalypse triggered by conflict between superheroes. He lives in a world where humans have slowly ceded their ambition to be better because superheroes are there to take care of them. Faced with perfect, humans no longer aspire for progress as a species.

When a superhero fight turned deadly results in the destruction and irradiation of the U.S. breadbasket, Superman comes out of retirement to reform the Justice League. Some of the younger superheroes join him willingly, but others resist, some out of rebelliousness, others because they fear Superman is taking too much power into his own hands and deciding the planet’s fate on his own. Eventually, the rebellious superheroes are imprisoned, but Lex Luthor, in the guise of defending humanity, has other plans. The result is Ragnarok, superhero against superhero and civil war and final battle. Old generation versus the new. The question is whether it can be stopped or if it will destroy the world.

Mark Waid tells a complex, engaging story with no clear right or wrong, and the final battle seems inevitable. Superman is put in a no-win situation. There are cameos by so many heroes that if you’re a comics geek, you’ll be in heaven. Alex Ross’s art is amazing.

If you’re interested in looking at superheroes a different way, check it out. It’s a dark, complex and bold superhero story told with fantastic visuals.
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Filed Under: Comic Books, The Blog

SUPERMAN VERSUS THE HULK

January 17, 2014 by Craig DiLouie Leave a Comment

Awesome fight between Superman and The Hulk. The video is broken into four parts. After watching “The Meeting” (below), click the prompt to go to the next part.

Filed Under: Comic Books

CROSSED Freaked Me Out

June 15, 2012 by Craig DiLouie Leave a Comment

crossedImagine 28 DAYS LATER, but with the disease turning people into the primitive psychopaths in GHOSTS OF MARS, and you have the basic setup for CROSSED, a graphic novel by Garth Ennis and Jagen Burrows.

Actually, strike that. The primitive psychopaths in GHOSTS OF MARS were NICE compared to the Infected in CROSSED, the most graphically violent comic book I’ve ever read.

The story focuses on a young slacker who hangs out at a diner every night. Then a grinning man walks in carrying a bloody fragment of somebody’s spine, and the world changes forever. We fast forward and find out our slacker is now a survivalist, crossing the wasteland of America with a group of survivors seeking a place where they can be safe at last.

In CROSSED, the apocalypse is a sad, terrifying place where people are hunted by complete psychopaths. The visuals are very strong, which brings me to a serious warning: Avoid if you’re at all the squeamish type. In particular, do not read this book around children. The Infected do horrible things to men, women, children, and the visuals hold nothing back. Check out the novel’s Amazon reviews and you’ll get a good feel for how different people react to this material. The read literally haunted me for days.

In short, CROSSED is the most hardcore, unflinching, disturbing, in-your-face apocalyptic story I’ve ever read/seen.

*Update: I read one of the sequels by a different author/artist team, and found it to basically be murder/torture porn. I don’t recommend going beyond the first in the series.

Filed Under: Apocalyptic, Comic Books, Reviews of Other Books

THE LAST ZOMBIE By Brian Keene

April 10, 2012 by Craig DiLouie Leave a Comment

the last zombie by brian keeneIn THE LAST ZOMBIE, a graphic novel by Brian Keene with art by Joseph Wight, what’s left of the U.S. government following a zombie apocalypse maintains two research centers, one in Colorado, and one on the east coast. When the east coast facility goes dark, a scientist sets out with two squads of soldiers to travel the ruins of America and find out what happened. This novel, plus its followup, THE LAST ZOMBIE: INFERNO, chronicles their mission east and encounters with survivors, some friendly, many not. Keene’s on top of his game with this. The narrative is crisp and clear, the characters individual and interesting, the dialogue realistic. Wight’s art, meanwhile, is FANTASTIC.

Filed Under: Comic Books, Reviews of Other Books, Zombies

Charles Burns’ BLACK HOLE

May 28, 2011 by Craig DiLouie Leave a Comment

black hole by charles burnsIn Charles Burns’ graphic novel BLACK HOLE, a sexually transmitted disease spreading among teenagers in the 1970s causes physical mutations–sometimes subtle, sometimes grotesque–playing on obvious themes of alienation, sexual confusion and loyalty.

Click here to learn more about this disturbing novel.

Filed Under: Comic Books, Reviews of Other Books, Weird/Funny

RED SON: Meet the Communist Superman

May 22, 2011 by Craig DiLouie Leave a Comment

RED SON is a graphic novel that describes what would have happened if Superman’s space capsule landed on Earth 12 hours earlier–in the Soviet Union. As Superman is raised with communist ideals, he tries to make the world a perfect place–by force when needed. Five stars. Check it out here.

Filed Under: Comic Books

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