REVIEW: The Legend Of Kingdom Come
In 1996, the world of comic books was, honestly, a pretty big mess. The stories being produced were bombastic, full of obscene physicality, and eschewed substance for angular ‘X-Treme!!!’ism that makes many readers even today shudder. They were, as legendary comic creator Todd MacFarlane states, onstage “shouting at the deaf old lady in the back row”.
And then came ‘Kingdom Come’ by Mark Waid and Alex Ross. In a world of so-called ‘Broadway Comics’, this was a cinematic masterpiece, turning the tacky into the tasteful. Ross’ breathtaking, realistic painted interiors made every panel an art piece unto its own, and Waid’s keen scripting wasted not a word in telling the story of the regretful, and redemptive, heroes. ‘Kingdom Come’ set the new gold standard for what comics could and should be, and 30 years later, it’s still one of the most popular and revered stories ever written.
‘The Legend Of Kingdom Come’ is a documentary about the making of the comic directed by Remsy Atassi and produced by Sal Abbinanti (longtime friend and manager of Alex Ross). Through archive footage, interviews with nearly a dozen comic creators and experts, and narration by Ross himself, we get a tale of how Alex Ross got started in comics, how ‘Kingdom Come’ came about, and it’s continuing legacy today. And as a documentary, it’s certainly well-structured. The interviews are clear and concise, the archive B-roll shots are humorous without being kitschy, and any casual or serious comic fan will enjoy hearing from what comic book life was like in the late 80s/early 90s.
But I think, unfortunately, that’s the problem with ‘The Legend Of Kingdom Come’ – it really only holds appeal for comic book fans. Now, that may be obvious, since it’s about a comic book story, but I think what’s missing is what the film was a clear message about what point it’s trying to make. Is this a biography of Alex Ross? Is it a retrospective on the ‘Kingdom Come’ story itself? Is it a historical recounting of a turbulent time of comic book history? Is it a message about the endurance of comic books as a storytelling medium of modern mythology? It’s never really clear, and feels like either Atassi and Abbinanti either didn’t have enough material for any one of those points so they had to fill the time with what they could, or they never really knew what story they were trying to tell in the first place. And either way, the film suffers for it.
That’s not to say there aren’t really fun moments – hearing from legends like Todd MacFarlane, Mark Waid, and Bill Sienkiewicz is a joy – but that goes back to my point about this being mostly a film for comic fans only. Nearly everyone in the documentary speaks to how the ‘Kingdom Come’ story transcended the comic book medium, and not only caught the public eye at the time but is possibly the starting point for the infusion of the amount of superhero cinema we have today. So it’s a bit disappointing that the film comes across as less than the sum of its parts by only speaking to veteran and deeply-ingrained comic book fans (which I readily count myself as).
(6/10) ‘Kingdom Come’ is easily one of the best comics to ever be written (certainly in the last 30 years), and it’s #5 on my “Top 10 Superman Stories Of All Time” list. But ‘The Legend Of Kingdom Come‘ documentary doesn’t quite seem to grasp the gravitas of what the story was, and doesn’t have clarity in its own story either.
