Comics’ Greatest World—Golden City

(Dark Horse, 1993)
™ and ©1993 Dark Horse Comics, Inc.

Golden City was the second locale of Comics’ Greatest World, introduced with four issues appearing one per week.

In Rebel, we get our first glimpse of Golden City. Once this had been a normal city, complete with the “normal” city problems like crime and poverty. That was before Grace had transformed it into the closest thing to Utopia that the world had ever known. Now it was known as Golden City: paradise on Earth.

In that blessed place, two brothers shared the identity of Rebel, a super-powered symbol of the city. Ironically, “Rebel” was really just a name for these two, not a lifestyle. For in Golden City, there was really nothing they would want to rebel against.

Then something went wrong. A criminal named Warmaker had been imprisoned in the supposedly escape-proof citadel but somehow managed to escape. For the first time, it seemed, Grace had failed, and now there was a serpent loose in paradise.

In the second issue, we met Art Thomason, a.k.a. Mecha, an outsider who thought he’d never be invited into the blessed world of Golden City. That was before Warmaker busted out of Golden City prison and Rebel was unable to stop him. In the panic that ensued, even Golden City was torn by looting and destruction. That’s when Mecha stepped in to help out.

A courageous man, with a suit of armor that augments his abilities, Mecha stopped looters and saved a child from a burning building. But his biggest challenge lay before him: taking on Warmaker himself.

Week three introduces a nobody named Frank Wells who up one day to find himself transformed into a super-hero. Frank Wells is Titan, Golden City’s answer to Superman. He possesses power beyond measure, and uses it only to do good. To do any less would be to betray his calling.

An old-time hero with old-time values, Titan is a living symbol of Golden City’s aspirations. When times are tough in paradise, it’s nice to have someone to believe in.

In the final week, we learn more about Grace, the super-powered woman who turned Golden City into the closest thing that Earth has to Paradise. Awesomely powerful, she has the ability to rule the world, but seemingly prefers to lead it by example. The world, for its part, would rather see her as an angel, than wonder what someone as powerful as Grace is really up to.

After saving Golden City from the rampage of Warmaker, the world has real cause to worry. Following that battle, Grace suddenly announces that she, Titan, Rebel, Mecha, and the other Golden City super-heroes are the catalysts of a great, unspecified change—and that effective immediately, Golden City is seceding from the United States, becoming its own sovereign nation!

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Comics’ Greatest World—Golden City #1

July, 1993
Cover Price: $1.00
38 copies available from $0.75