Wow, Hawkman is a badass. I know nothing about Hawkman other than what I've read in this series, but if Geoff Johns wants to do Hawkman: Rebirth when he's done with Flash: Rebirth and Aquaman: Rebirth (mark my words, that's going to happen), I am totally on board with it.

I could be wrong, but I feel like one of the major strengths of this story arc is that you don't necessarily have to have read Kingdom Come to appreciate this story line. I mean, yeah, KC Supes, Gog, and now Magog are all in it, but the story is still primarily about the JSA and all its members. And I'm enjoying the parallels between this and KC, with the heroes slowly becoming at odds with one another and a looming battle between them. But this storyline still seems original to me in that the theme of KC, at least to me, was how much violence is too much violence, and how far are you willing to go to defend the line you've drawn? (i.e.: can you cross the line in order to uphold it?)

Yet, the theme of Thy Kingdom Come (I think that's this arc's title anyway) seems to be, how much can you trust a seemingly benevolent god when you don't even understand his motives? Gog (as well as being awesomely creepy) seems to be a parallel to the JSA and the heroes themselves. The JSA looks up at him, and some see the answer to their prayers, while others see an unknown danger who can't be fully trusted because they don't know WHY he's doing the things he's doing. I imagine that's how most of the world looks at the JSA. An average person would look up and see this group of heroes (or gods), doing righteous and mighty deeds, but they wouldn't know WHY. (Remember, I doubt the average DCU citizen knows the origin stories of every hero as well as the fanboys do.) Some people no doubt look up to the heroes as benevolent gods, answering prayers, while others would not fully trust them, because they have no idea what their motivations are, they can't see what they're gaining, and it is very hard to trust something when you don't understand it at all. When it comes down to it, "Because I love you," (I think Gog says that at one point in a past issue, anyway) really isn't a very good reason for a stranger to be doing anything.

Anyway, I might be reading entirely too much into this thing, but I feel like this is Geoff Johns' most 'literary' story to date, one that seems to have a much deeper meaning behind the kickass superhero story, and that's why it was my Pick o' the Week. True, it's not as fast paced and all around awesome as Green Lantern or Action Comics have been, but I'm okay with that. There's a lot of depth to these pages, not to mention a roster of 24 members (I think... I may have miscounted), and he can take all the time he needs to tell the story right.