This mini-series is magnificent. Up till now only two graphic novels were considered the absolute pinnacle of the form: The Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen. Now a third joins their ranks. Kingdom Come is that good.

I for one get tired of hearing how wonderful graphical stories such as Maus are. That novel has to do with the Holocaust. Given the very nature of the story being told, it's fish being shot in a barrel. How could it not be gut-wrenching?

On the other hand, let's see you take a genre as old and tired and cliched as spandex-clad superheroes beating the crap out of each other and do something fresh. That is what KC accomplishes. In spades plus.

Superman has retired. In the wake of his abdication of Metropolis, a new wave of metahumans has taken over. They do not believe in truth, justice, and the American way. All they want to engage in amoral battles with equally deranged costumed criminals. And if civilians get killed in the process, then hey, they shouldn't've been in the way.

Something happens which brings Superman back. Meanwhile Lex Luthor is conniving his way to greater control than he would have dared dreamed in the old days. The unmasked Batman has his own agenda and it does not coincide with Superman's. Wonder Woman learns what demons wrestle within her self and the consequence of her actions. And one hero reaches within himself and defines Hero as all that word should ever mean.

Kingdom Come was published over the summer and fall of '96. The first thing one notices upon opening one of the four squarebound issues is that the artwork is painted. Alex Ross is the artist. His work, which is photorealistic in style, brings nuances to the characters that never occur in regular comic books. (Ross spent years on the artwork and it totally looks it.)

Ross did the mini-series for Marvel some years ago called, appropriately enough, Marvels. That story had to do with the beginning of the Marvel Universe as seen thru the eyes of an old man. Kingdom Come is the complement. It is the end of the DC Universe as seen thru the eyes of another old man as told in this Elseworlds story.

Once you get past the stunning artwork, you read Mark Waid's story (which is Ross' original idea, so let's give credit where credit is due). It has every nuance down pat: the page-turning surprise, the book ending cliffhanger, the foreshadowing, the fidelity to the characters' character.

Folks, it doesn't get any better than this. To say too much is to give it away. And this mini-series is so good that you wish you could wipe your brain clean so you could enjoy it anew.

Kingdom Come has spawned a comics-related industry for DC Comics. There are the requisite T-shirts and "baseball" cards. In November '97 a prose version will be published. And the piece de resistance is a hard cover graphic novel coming which will include new pages of artwork.

I wouldn't presume to improve upon perfection, but this could be it.

If you are at least somewhat familiar with the DC Universe, they you are in for the treat of a lifetime. Honest.