How Tom King sadly got his start in comicdom
Business Insider interviewed the overrated Tom King, who told how he first began working in comicdom, and now, regrettably, has also gone on to work in TV and film projects:
To say that Tom King has had a varied career is an understatement.What doesn't feel natural is the way he repeatedly applied themes like trauma to established characters in such contrived, blatant and forced fashion. Additionally surprising is that Harras, who wasn't considered such a great editor at Marvel, would actually tell King what he did, yet both continued their work in comicdom for years, and Harras only recently retired, if memory serves. And what did Harras do to improve comicdom's fortunes within that time? Practically nothing, and he clearly never improved DC's when he became their EIC. And then King and the news source even justify his approach with the following:
As a little boy growing up in Los Angeles, King wanted to be a comic book writer. After honing his writing skills as a young man, his dream came true when he interned for Marvel in New York.
But the bubble burst when Robert Harras, the editor in chief of Marvel at the time, told him that "comics are dead" and he should find a real job. So, he studied philosophy and history at Columbia University, and worked at the Department of Justice for over a year after he graduated in 2000.
Then, 9/11 happened. King told Business Insider he felt a call to action, which led to another career move: joining the CIA. [...]
In 2013, he wrote for the Vertigo imprint, before his first work at DC Comics, "Nightwing" — about Batman's former sidekick — was published in 2014. Since rejoining the industry, he has earned many accolades, including winning the best writer Eisner Award, considered the Oscars of comic books, in 2018 and 2019 for "Batman," "Mister Miracle," and "Swamp Thing."
"I love writing. I really liked the CIA, I very much enjoyed the work. But I thought 'I like this even more.' This feels so natural to me," he said.
Similarly, writing is about inspiring empathy for characters, he said. His work at DC usually involves deconstructing a beloved character and presenting them from an unconventional angle.They vehmently refuse to acknowledge this is precisely the problem, which makes their claim of promoting "empathy" farcical. King put a number of characters in horrific roles, and they expect us to be okay with that? Even if these stories weren't in what passes for "continuity" today, it still wouldn't make them acceptable. That writes from a left-wing viewpoint doesn't help matters either.
His latest series, "Black Canary: Best of the Best" is a story about motherhood through the lens of an MMA fight between the titular hero and the DC Universe's strongest fighter, Lady Shiva.If we look at this through the context of his apparent leftism, one could argue King certainly did rebel against them in some way or other. Mainly because of how his comics could very easily allude to leftist anti-war themes. And how is writing heroes fighting villains that difficult? Stan Lee did it very well back in the Silver Age, and if people like King actually believe it's got to be much more "sophisticated" than that, they really are missing the boat.
King said: "It's a story about not giving up. It's a story about an underdog who should lose, who everyone predicts should lose, and how they're beaten to the ground and beaten just to the edge of everything until nothing's left of them but their soul, and how they have to cling to that and get back up from the mat and keep fighting."
Writing a story about a hero fighting a villain is harder than fans might think. At its heart, King said, it's "about a mother and a daughter and about the greatest theme in all of DC lore, which is legacy."
He added: "The idea of what your parents give to you, what you take from them, how they shape you, how you rebel against them."
King said that his father was "out of the picture" from a young age, and he gives the impression that using his dream job to provide for his family is his way of rebelling against his upbringing.
"I'm working with the characters I had in my head as a kid, but I always see it every day as a job I need to do," he said. "I have a responsibility both to my family to sort of get my work done, and to my audience to make it as good as I can and to myself to create art I'm proud of."
It's this balancing act that has shaped his approach to writing for HBO's upcoming "Lanterns" series, which is expected to arrive in 2026, alongside co-creators Damon Lindelof and Chris Mundy. It follows Hal Jordan (Kyle Chandler) and John Stewart (Aaron Pierre), two members of the intergalactic Green Lantern Corps, as they tackle a dark, Earth-based mystery. King said that he felt "responsibility" to the comic characters that the fans have been reading for over 60 years: "I was friends with Neal Adams, the co-creator of John Stewart, and every time I was in the room, I felt Neal yelling at me: 'Don't forget where you come from kid.'This is another problem - writers who only care about selfish themes see themselves as "bearing responsibility" for how to write established creations. Predictably through a dark lenses. And then they justify this with the following:
And although the series features cosmic characters, it aims to engage with the audience on a real-world level.Nope. It only feels like a new era of wokeness. That the TV show in planning follows a whole "real world" setup only makes clear what's wrong with it - the writers aren't interested in the concept of surrealism, let alone entertainment value. There's no need to wait up for this new Lanterns series to be broadcast. All that's likely to result is yet another misuse of both Hal Jordan and John Stewart.
He said: "Damon, Chris, and I came with a lot of love for the material and we wanted to do what I've always done in comics, which is take these original creations and show why they're still relevant today, and why they can speak to both the audience and the issues of everything we're dealing with." He added: "It feels like a DC renaissance. We're at the beginning of creating an entirely brilliant world."
Labels: bad editors, dc comics, Green Lantern, history, marvel comics, moonbat writers, msm propaganda, politics
