saadahye
[Discussion] I recently read Kingdom Come and i was a bit confused by the ending. Why did Captain Marvel pull Superman back and instead himself went to face the atomic bomb? Its not like the bomb would have killed Superman? Can anyone explain?
in Comic
There are originally two main options as the story explains.
Option one is that the bomb drops, killing the heroes, and stopping their war so that humanity can be saved.
Option two is that Superman stops the bomb, heroes are saved, and continue their war. This will eventually lead to everyone dying.
Captatin Marvel comes up with a third option. Detonate the bomb high above the heroes. The result is that only some of the heroes die, but it gets the war to stop, and humanity is saved.
It’s explained a few pages later by Wonder Woman at the UN. “With his dying breath, Captain Marvel managed to detonate the bomb high above ground zero…there were survivors”. This leads to humanity and heroes working together.
So basically Captain Marvel took an action that made the heroes and humans work together alongside each other. Heroes will no longer solve problems for humans, but solve problems with humans. This is Superman’s speech at the end with the UN. Obviously the humans/heroes working alongside each other is sort of a parallel to Captain Marvel.
My take is that he was atoning for his mistakes and misguided allegiances by commiting an act of sincere heroism.
I gotta read Kingdom Come again. What a story
This is still one of the best DC comics (and comics in general) ever written.
It is never said Superman would survive just that he would stop the bomb but then the superhuman war would continue. He left the decision to Billy because to that point every decision Superman made led to this war. He understood he was to far removed from humanity and asked the one hero who was both human and superhuman to decide to stop him or let him stop the bomb. Billy chose to sacrifice himself instead of letting the greatest superhero die. In Kingdom Come Superman is wrong as is every faction.
Captain Marvel made the sacrifice play to end the war and protect the people of Earth. He knew had Superman made that move civilisation would’ve survived only to be killed in the war yet if he made himself a martyr then the war would end and the world could finally return to itself prior self.
It’s really a poetic ending for him in the sense that one has to die to save everyone else and I think based on Wesley Dodds and Norman McCay’s stories Captain Marvel’s death is also highly linked back into the religious aspects of this story with him almost becoming a Jesus type figure dying for the sins of everyone else in the hopes it ends the needless sacrifices during this war.
Yeah and my thing is, how does Superman survive the explosion, but Power Woman doesn’t? They’re both Kryptonian. Makes zero sense to me.
The bomb had a force field around it that prevented Kal from grasping it, so he could not stop it as as fell and could not prevent its detonation. The only thing that detonated it higher in the sky — and therefore presented the meta-human massacre from being complete — was the magic lightning Marvel repeatedly called down.
Kal said he could stop it. He might have been wrong.b The bomb was designed to be Superman-proof. It had to be because otherwise it served no purpose.
I think there are two reasons why this could be. First it’s important to remember that this is an elseworld story which means this is an alternate version of Superman, and we don’t know if this Superman could tank an atomic bomb.
We do know that he never has tanked an atomic bomb in this universe so whether he could or not Captain Marvel has no way of knowing.
The other thing to consider is that the entire time when we see the character operating as lex Luthor’s stooge that’s Billy Batson. That’s an adult’s Billy Batson not Captain Marvel he bought in to what Luther was selling and maybe that wasn’t good. But when Billy transforms into Captain Marvel he doesn’t just gain strength and speed and flight and lightning he also gains wisdom, the wisdom of Solomon.
It is very possible that when Captain Marvel sees what Billy has done he feels guilty and takes actions both to save Superman and also to take his power away from Billy by killing them both.
My favorite line in this whole story is when Superman is trying to bring the UN building down on everyone and the Spectre says, “Finally, after 10 years he has let loose a wrath that would cower Satan himself.”
would the bomb not have killed Superman? Been a long time since I read this comic, but Superman’s “vulnerability” isn’t all that consistent.
a nuclear explosion nearly killed Superman in everyone’s favorite comic New 52 cough cough Superman/Wonder Woman
IMO a nuke shouldn’t be a big deal to Supes but writers are gods lol
The answer is in the words spoken by Superman and the reaction in the eyes of marvel.
They are equals.
Like others have said Captain Marvel was redeeming himself. A bigger question IMO is why did he have to blast the bomb with lightning thus killing himself mid transformation? Shazam is as invulnerable as Superman, couldn’t he have taken that bomb out any number of ways without killing himself?
My favourite moment in comics ever!
You billy are both man and god
One of the best story in comic book history.
He was doing something heroic and making up for his wrongdoings.
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The book makes its extremely clear.
It’s a parable for Jesus because he’s the only one who is both human and super
Please mark this as spoiler next time
Superman surviving nuclear bombs is not really a certainty. Some continuities he does, some he doesn’t
Story doesn’t make much sense to me in the first place ngl Superman comes back & I guess everyone was just like sitting around til he came back? Idk
Sorry my having a different opinion offends or hurts yours feelings
Bart.