Scott Braden’s Lost Tales The Kingdom

Scott Braden talks to creators Mark Waid, Alex Ross and Gene Ha about DC’s The Kingdom, an epic series that never was from DC in the latest of his popular Lost Tales feature series…

fter the phenomenal success of their best-selling King- dom Come prestige format Aseries for DC Comics, the dynamite creative team of Alex Ross and Mark Waid wanted to revisit the events foreshadowing their apocalyp- tic story with the proposed ongoing series The Kingdom. According to Ross: “The genesis of the project was that post-Kingdom Come, DC brass, Paul Levitz, and Mike Carlin met with Mark and me at San Diego in 1996. They only had in mind at the time that we could continue some spillover project of a possible Magog series. I proposed to everybody that the use of Superman in the series was the best thing in our work, and a focused Superman series like Legends of the Dark Knight would be better for our talents. We had initially discussed the title Man and Superman. They definitely want- ed a Kingdom Come conceptual tie-in and shot that idea down. After this, DC scheduled a meeting with Mark and me in New York with the editor and Paul to discuss other possibilities, and I plotted behind all their backs a prequel series called The Kingdom. I made a painted teaser piece, as well as character sketches of new versions of Black Adam, Blue Beetle, and Gog, plus images of Superman having nightmares about the Joker. I dumped all this on Mark and DC in person, so I could steer the direction of the potential project.” “Whereas they all agreed to this creative course, they jumped the gun and offered the series art chores to an artist I had no recommendation for or input in. I had been thinking of Gene [Ha] the whole time and know that artwork©DC Comics. All Rights Reserved