Sunday, August 15, 2010

Kingdom Come: The Gulag

Some of the most understated and under-appreciated characters in Kingdom Come are the new breed of super-powered beings inside the world-ending powder-keg that is the Justic League Gulag - a high-powered prison for super criminals.

There's Von Bach, a Swiss super dude who is the locker room leader in the wake of Magog's repentance.

There's the anarchist 666, who voices the displeasure of everyone and causes the riot to happen.

There's Kabuki Kommando, while alone, seems to represent the kind of global reach that the rebellion needed.

There is of course, the crazed Captain Marvel who broke the whole thing open on the League. Marvel was the earliest of the superheroes who couldn't deal with the grim and gritty world, so withdrew inside Billy Batson, later found by Lex Luthor who convinced him that superheroes are bad and that inside him lived a monster. The guilt and Dr Sivana's mind-control worms turned Marvel - the homeliest of all supes - into a walking stew of psychoses.

Everything was engineered by Lex Luthor, who said, "This new development turned a 10-year plan into a 10-day stratagem."

Oh well. People who have never read Kingdom Come a few times won't understand what I'm hinting at, anyway.

Just remember that when you read certain comics, there are more to be learned than just watching colourful spandex.

All I can say is, "Shazam!"