Faraday's last appearance in the 1950s was in World's Finest Comics #64 (May–June 1953). He was picked up again after more than twenty-five years, in Batman #313 (July 1979).[2]
He is named "King" by his father as a joke, a play on the phrase "King for a day".
An ex-soldier, he takes a position as a counter-espionage agent for the U.S. government and engages in a variety of standard spy-type capers. Some of his Danger Trail adventures are reprinted in Showcase #50 (May–June 1964) under the title "I-Spy". Faraday is later incorporated full-bore into the DC Universe as a member of the Central Bureau of Intelligence. At one point, he is Nightshade's mentor. In fact, he has a hand in both her and Bronze Tiger being recruited into Task Force X. He also teams up with Batman a few times. On two of those occasions, he helps to capture Two-Face.
Faraday is part of The New 52: Futures End. He works with Grifter to investigate alien and cross-dimensional spies on Earth.
Skills and abilities
Faraday possesses no superhuman abilities but is a trained espionage agent and an expert hand-to-hand fighter and marksman.
Other versions
New Frontier
Faraday plays a prominent role in the alternate universe series DC: The New Frontier by Darwyn Cooke. King Faraday is a Chicago native who leads an effort to contain and corral the large amount of super-powered entities appearing including orchestrating "Project Flying Cloud" with Carol Ferris, Colonel Rick Flag, and Col. Hal Jordan. King uses various illegal methods, such as laying a trap for Barry Allen with a robotic Gorilla Grodd, even though he has not committed any crimes. Despite all this, he forms a friendship with one of his assignments: the Martian Manhunter after J'onn sacrificed his last chance to return home to save Faraday from a rocket. He is killed in the last issue of the series while defending his friend from a psychic attack from The Centre.[3]
Tangent
King Faraday appears in the 1997 Tangent Comics one-shot Green Lantern. This version is a Moldavian exile who is fascinated by mysteries and has his own magazine "King Faraday Digest" based around his investigations and published by "The House Of Mystery" which was managed by Roy Raymond and originally owned by Alfred Pennyworth, until Pennyworth was bought out by "Ralph Digby" an obvious play on the Elongated Man Ralph Dibny.
In his appearance in Tangent Comics he is resurrected from the grave by the Green Lantern after his death during a plane malfunction. He is resurrected with the intention of completing his last mystery so he can return to the afterlife in peace.
King Faraday appears in Justice League: The New Frontier, voiced by Phil Morris.[4] Similar to the original comic, this version is opposed to super-powered beings who are not affiliated with the government, and as such comes into conflict with Martian Manhunter. However, he changes his mind after Martian Manhunter saves his life, and later sacrifices himself to protect him from an attack by the Centre and kill one of its Tyrannosaurus with a grenade.
King Faraday appears in Smallville Season 11. This version is an agent of Checkmate who bonded with a captive White Martian, treating her as a daughter. He is later killed during General Zod's attack on the Castle, one of Checkmate's bases, as Megan escapes.[5]
References
^Markstein, Don. "King Faraday". Don Markstein's Toonopedia. Retrieved 2 April 2020.
^Eury, Michael; Kronenberg, Michael (2009). The Batcave Companion. TwoMorrows Publishing. p. 239. ISBN978-1893905788.
^ abcde"King Faraday Voices (DC Universe)". Behind The Voice Actors. Retrieved December 7, 2023. A green check mark indicates that a role has been confirmed using a screenshot (or collage of screenshots) of a title's list of voice actors and their respective characters found in its opening and/or closing credits and/or other reliable sources of information.
