8 Comic Book Characters That Broke Superman

8. Magog - Kingdom Come

Kingdom Come Magog Superman
DC Comics/Alex Ross

Mark Waid and Alex Ross' Kingdom Come is a storytelling masterpiece replete with eye-catching visuals (it's Alex Ross, duh), authentic dialogue, and a brilliant commentary on the evolution of the superhero genre from the Golden Age to the ostensible 'Dark Age' of the 1990s. It also happens to feature a version of Superman who has no time for anyone's sh*t - at least after a prolonged period of soul searching.

I'll spare the details for anyone who hasn't read the story, but the basic premise of Kingdom Come involves a version of the DC Universe not all that dissimilar to the regular one - only this time, everyone is fed up with how supervillains basically get away with genocide nearly every year, and so direct their ire towards DC's old guard, exemplified by the trinity of Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman. Said old guard are also being outmuscled by a new kind of hero, one unafraid to exercise lethal force.

Instead of rising to the challenge and proclaiming how it's not right for superheroes to, y'know, murder as and when they please, Supes ends up suffering a complete breakdown after the Joker storms the Daily Planet and murders all the staff, including Lois Lane. One of the new heroes called Magog then goes after the Clown Prince and murders him, leaving Supes to spend the next decade moping around in a simulated version of Kansas, dejected at the loss of his friends and at the fact humanity had willingly embraced a murderer as their new hero.

Wonder Woman eventually finds a way to galvanise the Man of Steel to confront the new bloodthirsty heroes, but things don't go according to plan, and he ends up imprisoning more of them than he converts. One big prison riot and a failed nuclear strike from the government later, and Supes briefly threatens to tear the entire UN down, believing all his friends are dead.

Trust me when I say that Kingdom Come ends on a much happier note than that (as long as you can stomach Batman eating his steak WELL DONE), but there's no denying Supes loses his head more than once throughout.

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WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well. In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.