Kingdom Came.

As I mentioned the other day, I recently re-read Kingdom Come via a copy of Absolute Kingdom Come, paying the most attention to the copious amounts of supplementary material in the back. While reading through all the names on the two page section marked "Memorial," which was basically a key to the 105 (105!) characters on the covers of the first three issues, I was actually taken aback by how many of these characters were introduced into the mainstream DCU before the 2011 reboot. Several of them were introduced by Ross himself during his collaboration with Geoff Johns on the 2007-launched Justice Society of America (as character creator, cover artist and eventually co-writer), but there were obviously a lot of Kingdom Come fans writing and editing at DC Comics in the last 15 years.

Just looking at the key...

•A female Judomaster II was introduced in 2007's Birds of Prey #100, and she later joined the JSoA

•Magog was introduced to the DCU in the pages of JSoA, eventually earning his own short-lived solo title, and even making the transition into the post-Flashpoint, rebooted New 52 universe in the pages of Superman/Wonder Woman

•Lightning, "Black Lightning's metahuman daughter," was introduced in the pages of JSoA, albeit via a retcon that gave Jefferson Pierce his second adult daughter (Writer Judd Winick had previously retconnd Black Lightning's history to give him an adult daughter who took the name "Thunder"; Black Lightning's retconned origin would include them in Black Lightning: Year One

•Von Bach, Swastika and 666 are among "The Fourth Reich" super-Nazis that mess up a picnic in Columbus, Ohio at the opening of the 2007 Justice Society of America series

•The Thunder of Kingom Come is "a new Johnny Thunder with the mischeivous spirit of the Thunderbolt;" the Jakeem Thunder that Grant Morrison, Howard Porter and John Dell introduced in 1999 JLA arc "Crisis Times Five" has some obvious differences from this Thunder (including having an exterior rather than interior Thunderbolt), but they sure look an awful lot alike

•The Hawkman of Kingdom Come didn't come to the DCU, but his design did, as former Infinity, Inc. character Northwind "evolved" into that design during Johns and company's run on JSA

•Robotman III is the name that Victor Stone, AKA Cyborg takes in Kingdom Come, sometime after his half-robot body was updated to one of golden-colored liquid metal. Cyborg never took that name in the DCU, the second Robotman never stopped using it or died for very long, but he did acquire a golden-colored liquid metal body at the climax of Titans/JLA and kept it through Devin Grayson and company's The Titans ongoing. Johns changed Cy back to a more familiar design in the pages of The Flash, essentially giving Cyborg his George Perez-design, but with the gray metal parts now being colored gold. When Johns relaunched Teen Titans in 2003, Cyborg was back to the grayish metal coloration

•While I've lost track of DC's Starmen over the years, Kingdom Come's Starman VIII–his costume and origin as revealed on this key completely in tact–was a member of the JSoA

•Wesley Dodds's former sidekick Sandy the Golden Boy did indeed dawn the costume of Kingdom Come's Sandman IV (that of Jack Kirby's 1970s Sandman), in the pages of JSA. He didn't keep it long, though, and never really took the name Sandman for very long either, sticking with the one-syllable "Sand" for most of his career

•The red-haired, tornado-powered Red Tornado III was introduced with a different name and cooler costume into the pages of JSoA as Cyclone; she's sadly been MIA since the 2011 reboot

•Atom-Smasher was probably the very first emigree from Kingdom Come to the DCU, and he also stuck around the longest. Here he's described simply as "formerly Nuklon, godson of the original Atom." Nuklon took the name Atom-Smasher in the first story arc of James Robinson, David S. Goyer, Stephen Sadowski and Michael Bair's JSA, although his costume varied somewhat (and for the better). He wore the blue full-head mask that Ross' Atom-Smasher does, but had a more traditional spandex superhero costume than the professional wrestler gear Ross outfitted him with. Atom-Smasher, like most legacy heroes, has also been MIA since the reboot

•The Red Robin name and costume came to the DCU via Jason Todd during the best-ignored Countdown period of DC Comics, and was then adopted by Robin III Tim Drake, after it became clear that Robin IV wasn't going to be killed off any time soon. After the Flashpoint reboot, Tim Drake ditched the Kingdome Come costume, but kept the name. The name has apparently become strong enough that I noticed it was what was used instead of "Robin" in this goofy Batman Unlimited: Animal Instinct direct-to-DVD cartoon I watched (the costume in that looked like a stripped-down, anime-inspired version of Ross' design

•Roy Harper, who first went by Speedy and then by Arsenal, never grew out his goatee or started wearing a red cap, but he began wearing a red version of the Neal Adams-designed Green Arrow costume in Dan Jurgens' Teen Titans way back in 1998. His costume changed (for the worse) a few times since then, but he returned to a red Green Arrow costume in the pages of the Brad Meltzer/Ed Benes Justice League of America, where he also finally took the name Red Arrow. He later returned to "Arsenal" and a different costume, and, since the reboot, has been going by Arsenal, but wearing a costume closer to that of his Red Arrow one

•Zatara II was introduced to the DCU during Johns' Teen Titans run, but rather than being the "son of the late Zatanna, and grandson of the original Zatara," he was the still-alive Zatanna's cosuin.

•Wildcat III is described as "a man-panther with the original's spirit;" a Wildcat with that exact design was introduced by Ross and Johns into their JSoA, although he was now the long-lost son of the original Wildcat, Ted Grant

Those are just the characters from the covers of Kingdom Comes #1-#3, of course, and thus not a complete accounting.

It's also interesting to note that in the years since these covers first appeared on comics shelves other characters with these names have all appeared, but in very, very different forms. Characters like Mr. Terriffic II (all-around good guy Michael Holt, rather than the over-equipped and over-zealous human arsenal of Kingdom Come), Joker's Duaghter II (a crazy lady with a belly shirt and The Joker's flayed-off face worn as a mask over her own, rather than a Jill Thompson-esque Harlequin with cool gadgets), Hourman III (an intelligent machine colony from the 853rd century with vast powers over time and space, rather than a strong guy who can fly), Batwoman II (a mundane human vigilante, rather than a New God fan of Batman's with an amazingly insane costume and a giant flying dog named Ace), Spy Smasher II (a lady who messes with Oracle in Birds of Prey, rather than an "indpendent operative in the post-cold war world"; neither is terribly developed, but their designs are racially different), a new version of Black Condor and The Phantom Lady (Basis updates of the originals; Kingdom Come's Condor wasn't really distinguishable from any previous Black Condors, but its Phantom Lady was an actual phantom) and a new Stars and Stripes (Plucky teenager Courtney Whitmore and her stepfather Stripey in a robot battle-suit code-named S.T.R.I.P.E., rather than the heavily armed, reckless legacy versions of Kingdom Come).

The further adventures of Cathedral

A few years ago, I singled out Cathedral as my favorite character from Alex Ross and Mark Waid's 1996 Kingdom Come series, mentioning that as far as I knew he appeared only in a single, two-panel scene in the first issue (fighting The Whiz, only to be tossed aside by Wonder Woman) and on the cover of the first issue (along with 32 other characters). The key to that cover in one of the trades is where I learned the character's name, as he goes without one in the comic itself, and found a simple five-word description of the character: "Holy terror of the underworld."

I was recently re-reading–well, skimming–Kingdom Come in the form of a well-loved/falling apart library copy of Absolute Kingdom Come. I paid more attention to the copious supplementary material than the story itself, which I've read and re-read so many times before, although I did scan all of the pages for little details, particularly all of the pages with crowd scenes, as the pages in the Absolute version are so large that it's much easier to see background characters.

I learned a little more about Cathedral in this volume. First, there's the above sketch; he appeared with Catwoman II and Manotaur in the section of the sketch gallery marked "The New Breed." Here we get more than five words on Cathedral. Writes Ross, "Instead of dark-clad, cloaked figures roaming around on building rooftops and edifices, I threw together someone who would blend in better."

Sheesh. Look at the detail on the sketch. No wonder Cathedral was relegated to just two panels, which only showed parts of him anyway. He looks like a real pain in the ass to draw; can you imagine him starring in a monthly comic? It's hard to imagine anyone drawing that guy on 20 pages a month...I would assume he would spend a lot of time out of costume or in silhouette.

Anyway, it turns out he does appear in more than two panels, although only in the background. You really have to hunt and/or read the "Keys to the Kingdom" character annotations to follow Cathedral's storyline through Kingdome Come. Apparently he didn't learn his lesson after his encounter with Wonder Woman and The Justice League, and so he ends up in The Gulag with all of the other "bad" super-people (his leg appears in one panel of a Gulag scene).

During the climactic battle scene, which makes a bit less sense every time I read it (Batman decided the best way to de-escalate the fight between The Justice League and the escapees was to attack them all with his own superhero army?), Cathedral is among the active rioters.

He's shown rushing Red Robin in one panel and, a few pages later, is shown being knocked down by Justice Leaguer and original Red Tornado Ma Hunkel, who I did not even realize was in this comic, but who is fantastic; she now wears a full suit of high-tech armor, and has some sort of torso-spinning tornado punch action with which she floors Cathedral.

Catherdal's body is not among those named in the splash page showing the aftermath of the nuclear bomb explosion (which claimed the life of Red Hood, aka Lian Harper, who apparently dies an early death in this continuity too). But he's not shown being tossed into Dr. Fate's cloak/portal or under Green Lantern's forcefield, nor is he shown among the surviving prisoners who Wonder Woman takes with her to Paradise Island for rehabilitation, Golden Age Wonder Woman-style.

So his final fate is undetermined, but fingers crossed he appears in an Alex Ross-written-and-drawn comic book called Alex Ross' The Cathedral at some point.

The only character from Kingdom Come I really want to see more of

I enjoyed Mark Waid and Alex Ross' series Kingdom Come immensely when it was originally released, and it's a pretty rewarding book to re-read every now and then, as each time reveals additional Easter eggs and metaphorical elbows to the ribs regarding obscure bits of DC history.

I know a lot of people have kind of fallen out of love with it over the years, or never really thought it was all it was cracked up to be in the first place, but setting the story itself aside for a moment, at the very least, it was a character design tour de force. Ross did an all-around incredible job costuming his players, and in many cases his versions of decades-old DC heroes looked much better than any previous versions (His Dr. Mid-Nite, Hourman, Starman, Red Tornado I and Dr. Fate in particular).

Ross' version of the DCU was enormously influential, and it seemed like there was a period in which the DCU was consciously adopting elements of it in an almost systematic way (Roy Harper adopted a costume closer to his Kingdom Come one, Cyborg went all liquid gold-skinned, Nuklon changed his name and started dressing more Atom-esque, etc.).

After the Infinite Crisis/52 continuity rejiggering, the Kingdom Come continuity seemed to have been merged with the new DCU. We got a were-cat version of Wildcat, a girl who looked like Red Tornado II and the Kingdom Come Starman in the JSA. A Batman/Talia kid popped up, as did a new Zatara and Plastic Man's son Offspring (From The Kingdom, not Kingdom Come, but close enough). There was a new, female Judomaster in Birds of Prey. Oh, and a bunch of super-Nazis seen in the pages of KC rampaged through the early issues of the relaunched JSoA

What's going on exactly?

Geoff Johns, who wrote the rejiggering, seems to finally be getting around to explaining that with this past week's issue of JSoA, the first chapter of a story entitled "Thy Kingdom Come," which is co-plotted by and featuring some art by Ross. Now we've got Kingdom Come Superman on the main DCU Earth, and, from the looks of upcoming covers and solicits, more Kingdom Come-ers are yet to come throughout this story arc. (At the very least, we can expect to see the KC Thunder, no relation to the Thunder Judd Winick invented in Outsiders).

But there's only one character from Kingdom Come I really want to see much more of at this point, however, and that's this guy, about to impale Whiz Kid:


I think that's his only appearance (I'd have to go through again with a magnifying glasses in the crowd scenes to be sure), but I've always been intrigued by that guy who looks to be a super-strong, humanoid church who talks in a peculiar font of his own.

According to the key in the collected trade version of the series, his name is "The Cathedral," and he's "a holy terror to the underworld." And that's literally all I know about him.

Well, that, and that I'd love to learn more about him.

Here's a headshot, pulled from the key in the back:



Man, I hope he makes an appearance in "Thy Kingdom Come."