30 Years Later, Kingdom Come Is Still Right About What’s Wrong With Superhero Comics
Mark Waid and Alex Ross's 1996 *Kingdom Come* was designed as a direct critique of 1990s superhero excess—the gratuitous violence, cybernetic enhancements, and stylistic nihilism that dominated the decade—by contrasting a new generation of brutal heroes with DC's timeless classical characters. Though some dismiss the story as dated, the author argues it remains relevant because the core problems it addressed persist: contemporary comics still frequently sacrifice character integrity and heroic idealism for trend-chasing realism and escalating violence, making *Kingdom Come*'s defense of meaningful heroism as necessary now as it was thirty years ago.