Designation: Earth-96 Mark Waid and Alex Ross's Elseworlds tale of a thoroughly un-super DC Universe rightly earned its place in the comics canon, and its place on this list. Superman, Batman and the rest begin to look thoroughly unhip in the light of a rising group of young "metahumans" who have all the abilities and little of the morals of the older generation of heroes. That's bad enough, but worse is when the Joker - him again? - ups his game in response and kills Lois Lane - her again? - and the rest of the Daily Planet staff. On his way to court, the Joker is killed by up-and-comer Magog, and nobody bats an eyelid. Disgusted, Superman goes into Exile, and everything goes tits up. Magog and his young guns fight Parasite, a battle which leaves a large part of the midwest irradiated, so America's food supplies shrink to zilch. Superman finally comes back, ten years later, to clean stuff up. Things don't really go that smoothly, though, as he faces opposition from both the new heroes and some of his old friends, which leads to an all-out war between superpeople and the UN considering the launch of multiple nuclear warheads to kill heroes and villains alike to ensure the survival of humanity. The darkness in Kingdom Come is evident in the basic story, but in a lot of other places too. There's the framing narrative of Norman McCay, a preacher who interprets the increasingly dire situation as an End of Days biblical apocalypse; there's the bitterness displayed between superheroes we best know as cheerfully sparring BFFs; and there's Alex Ross's photorealistic, painted art, which makes all of your favourite characters look like pudgy old dudes in tights. Shiver.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
