It is jarring to read Kingdom Come after an intense, close reading of Dark Knight Returns. DKR rewards a close reading: it operates on so many different levels, it subverts itself, it offers the possibilities of its own internal critique.
Kingdom Come is all surface. A pretty, neo-classical, surface with astonishing art, but still all surface.
The most common way to read Kingdom Come, of course, is as a genre statement: a reassertion of traditional superhero comics over the nihilistic, violent anti-heroes which dominated the 1990s (and which Miller's DKR played a big role in ushering in, stylistically at least). The Silver Age striking back against Image, retaking the noble myths from MacFarlane. All well and good, but that doesn't help much on this blog, where we want to focus on the politics. So away we go.
In its own way, Kingdom Come seems to me a work just as conservative as Miller's Dark Knight Returns. A different conservatism, a different tradition, but still conservative.
Why do things fall apart in DKR? Liberal society and political correctness runs out of control, once the heroes are forced out by the politicians and the media. Miller's portrayal of society during Batman's retirement is a conservative's parody of liberalism, with its airheaded media and ineffective politicians and corrupt lawyers and politically correct social workers.
Why do things fall apart in Kingdom Come? Kids stop respecting their elders and traditional values, mostly. Plus, the legal system and the media drive the heroes away, by acquitting Magog for killing the Joker. Which, as Magog tearfully confesses to Superman ten years later, was so very wrong.
Each is a conservative answer, I'd say: one rooted in rage at "Liberals" and a conservative-libertarian world-view, the other rooted in a celebration to the point of fetishization of traditional values. When the kids stop respecting their parents' values, the world literally falls apart.
But Kingdom Come, unlike Dark Knight Returns, seems deeply politically underdeveloped. All surface. And a bit incoherent.
Take Superman. What exactly is he supposed to represent? Can he be read as standing in for the United States geopolitically speaking? Not clear. Could be a warning against isolationism - if America turns its back on a world consumed by horrors, then the world will fall apart (as it does when Superman goes into seclusion). Maybe.
Superman's portrayal in Kingdom Come seems to me to reflect how America wants to see itself - as well-intentioned, desperate to use its power for good, but a little naive about how to go about doing so. His noble intentions are never in doubt. But he runs into trouble in two directions: first, in his inability to comprehend that others might not share his values or want to join his alliances; and second, when he builds the gulag to "re-educate" those who don't join him. This seems more promising as a geopolitical critique. Superman's fatal flaws, in this reading, are also America's: an inability to comprehend how others might not see us the way we see ourselves; and a failure to recognize how the means we use in pursuit of goals we believe to be just might corrupt us from within. Superman's gulag equals Abu Ghuraib. That's a bit obvious, but at least a coherent liberal internationalist foreign policy metaphor - particularly given the ending, when Superman/America finds a workable solution to the problem of power by joining the United Nations and "binding" his/its power in ways that would make John Ikenberry proud.
What to make of the fact that Wonder Woman is portrayed as the hard-nosed hawk, then? What are the gender politics behind her portrayal as the one who is willing to do whatever needs to be done - to kill, to rule by force, to act unilaterally? Beats me.
But it's pretty striking that Superman loses his leadership position when he refuses to fight - "but in a war people will have to be killed" - and everyone else follows the battle-garbed Wonder Woman to the battlefield. So now, we have a more hawkish metaphor: you have to lead to be a leader, and doves don't have a clue about how the world really works. Of course, Wonder Woman's hawkish leadership leads to disaster, no matter how necessary it seemed at the moment, so maybe that's part of the above narrative?
Perhaps the point is that once Superman chose to try and use his power to enforce order, WW's means became necessary. So he had to renounce it to retain American idealism. Yeah, I think that's it: Kingdom Come is an argument about American grand strategy after the end of the Cold War. If the US turns its back on the world (isolationism), the world will fall apart - this is the Cold War internationalist consensus. If it tries to dominate the world unilaterally, on the other hand, it will lose its democratic ideals and became a tyrant. If it believes that the force of its universal values and good intentions will carry the day, it is doomed. The only hope for the US and the world is to build strong, binding international institutions built on mutual respect and self-restraint.
It works even better for post-9/11, even though it was written in 1996: if you take the Kansas nuclear disaster with Captain Atom as the functional equivalent of 9/11 - especially since this brings Superman back as an interventionist looking to use his power to reshape the world in his own image, only to discover the limits of his power.
And there you have it. 100% made up off the top of my head as I wrote, and I head off for dinner without even re-reading it, I might add. Comment away!
[I know, I haven't said a thing about the whole man/Gods thing, or lots of other stuff... but you can if you want.]
I'm not entirely convinced KC is as easily approached as a conservative work as you indicate (though I could easily be wrong, it has been a while since I have read it). Superman, throughout his comics, seems to me to be an embodiment of the liberal ideals of internationalism (argues for strong teamwork in the JLA), shows a great deal of compassion in helping nations throughout the world (particularly during natural disasters), and also displays a desire to use the minimum of force to bring about peace.
It seems to me that it is only when an arch-conservative approach to crime-fighting is employed by Magog that things fall apart. By being consumed by bloodlust in the name of vengeance and lowering oneself to the level of his enemies, Magog could easily be seen as one of the "nuke em all" crowd at various conservative boards. By breaking superhero (liberal) conventions about the primacy of life (even evildoers), Magog opens the door for the chaos that ensues. As a visible symbol, he gives explicit approval to violence and a "means justify the ends results" to problem solving. This can easily be seen as a parallel to the liberal argument that Americans must display higher moral integrity than out opponents.
I had some other thoughts, but maybe I'll save those for other topics, since they can be applied to a few other works like DKR as well.
Posted by: Fasu | January 08, 2005 at 12:04 AM
Well, re-reading your post shows me that we may have some similar sentiments on this work than when I rattled off my post...no more posting late at night for me.
Posted by: Fasu | January 08, 2005 at 12:06 AM
Yeah, I meant "conservative" in a "looking back to an idealized 1950s" sense rather than in a Republican Party sense. After all, one of the first groups that Superman takes down on his return is a band of American nativists who are about to attack a group of immigrants - so that kind of populist conservatism is the first thing that Superman needs to purge from the body politic.
That idealized 1950s would include not only traditional family values - as one of my students noticed, Wonder Woman at the end has been turned from a warrior into a mother - and respect for one's elders, but also a Cold War internationalism. Hence, isolationism leads to chaos (Bosnia, Rwanda); nativism betrays American universalist values; imperialism and unilateralism rots America's soul; only patient benevolent hegemony rooted in institutionalized cooperation can get the job done.
And about that whole "gods" thing... what are we supposed to make of the idea that Superman - America - is a "god" relative to "men"? Does Captain Marvel's sacrifice, and Superman's rediscovery of his human identity, suggest that America needs to stop putting itself above the rest of the world and start identifying with it?
Posted by: cbp | January 08, 2005 at 09:31 AM
Good point about Magog, by the way.
Posted by: cbp | January 08, 2005 at 09:32 AM