The Four Color Media Monitor

Polygon's gushing over DC's announcement they're adapting Mark Waid's decidedly overrated 1996 Kingdom Come GN to audio format:

Marc Thompson, who voiced the Man of Steel in DC Comics’ fully-cast audiobook retelling of All-Star Superman, is returning to the role for an adaptation of another of the best Superman comics of all time. Penguin Random House Audio and DC Comics announced Thursday that an audio production of the apocalyptic 1996 limited series Kingdom Come, by Mark Waid and Alex Ross will be releasing on Nov. 18, and gave Polygon an exclusive clip where the end of the world is nigh.

Kingdom Come is set in a dark future after DC Comics’ most iconic superheroes have retreated from public life, leaving behind an overzealous new generation that constantly fights among themselves and doesn’t care who gets hurt in the crossfire. When the highly violent “hero” Magog (Tom Alexander) causes a nuclear disaster in Kansas, Superman comes out of retirement to reform the Justice League and bring hope back to the world.

This second collaboration between DC and Penguin Random House Audio is adapted by BBC Radio veteran Dirk Maggs, who has worked on audio adaptations of Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman comic book series, the ‘90s Batman: Knightfall arc, and the 1993 YA novel Superman: Doomsday & Beyond. The adaptation of Kingdom Come features sound effects and a cast of more than 30 actors, including Edoardo Ballerini as the preacher Norman McCay, who serves as the story’s narrator, and Lorelei King as Wonder Woman.

“I’ve been adapting and directing multicast, award-winning audiobooks of iconic DC Comics Superman and Batman stories for more than three decades, but among them all, Kingdom Come was always the one that got away,” Maggs said in a statement. “At last, thanks to Penguin Random House Audio, I can tell Mark Waid’s epic story, with Alex Ross’s beautiful artwork brought alive through cinematic sound design combined with James Hannigan’s stirring orchestral score.”

Gee, and how's that Sandman audio book doing now that Gaiman's since fallen from grace? That aside, it's head-shakingly sad that once again, news sites like these are gushing over a tale built upon darkness, and the loss of Lois Lane. That Lois was written kicking the bucket in Kingdom Come is a real turnoff at this point, even more so than the dark angle the overrated story leans on. What's so "epic" about stuff like that?

But since Alex Ross is mentioned, I will give him credit for something else amazing he did later - he refused to participate in production of 2004's Identity Crisis, which is easily worse than Kingdom Come, based on how it minimized sexual violence, and when Ross realized what they were doing later, he said he was glad he didn't take any offers for illustrating it. It's possible he understood how darkness can definitely be taken way too far. Even so, I think it's a shame he served as an artist for Kingdom Come, because seriously, what's so inspiring about the premise of such a tale? Today, it's arguably dated, and why this has to qualify for an audio adaptation I'll never know, beyond the likelihood the staff producing it can't think or see beyond such a narrow viewpoint as they're going by. If there's a Superman story out that that's more optimistic that hasn't been adapted to audio by contrast, do they take a dismissive view of the potential in adapting to audio? Sadly, the answer is quite likely that they do, and it's not getting anywhere that way.

Labels: dc comics, golden calf of death, golden calf of villainy, history, Justice League of America, misogyny and racism, msm propaganda, Superman, violence, women of dc