Partnerships Nightshade Partnership Nightshade | Alter ego King Faraday Notable aliases White Queen's Bishop | |
![]() | ||
Team affiliations Suicide SquadCheckmateCentral Bureau of Intelligence First appearance Danger Trail (1st series) #1 (July 1950) Similar Nightshade, Dave McFly, Count Vertigo, Thinker, Bronze Tiger |
King Faraday is a fictional secret agent featured in DC Comics. Faraday first appeared in Danger Trail (1st series) #1 (July 1950), and was created by Robert Kanigher and Carmine Infantino.
Contents
- Fictional character biography
- Skills and abilities
- New Frontier
- Smallville
- Tangent
- Television
- Film
- References

Fictional character biography

He was named "King" by his father as a joke, a play on the phrase "King For A Day."
An ex-soldier, he took a position as a counter-espionage agent for the U.S. government and engaged in a variety of standard spy-type capers. Some of his Danger Trail adventures were reprinted in Showcase #50 (May–June 1964) under the title "I-Spy". Faraday has since been incorporated full-bore into the DC Universe as a member of the Central Bureau of Intelligence. At one point, he was Nightshade's mentor. In fact, he had a hand in both her and Bronze Tiger being recruited into Task Force X. He has also teamed up with Batman a few times. On two of the occasions he has helped Batman in the capture of Two-Face.
One Year Later, he is a member of Checkmate, serving as the Bishop for White Queen Amanda Waller.
Faraday is part of the The New 52: Futures End. He is working with Grifter to investigate alien and cross-dimensional spies on Earth.
Skills and abilities
Faraday possessed no superhuman abilities but was a trained espionage agent and an expert hand-to-hand fighter and marksman.
New Frontier
Faraday plays a prominent role in the alternate universe series DC: The New Frontier. He leads an effort to contain and corral the large amount of super-powered entities appearing. He uses various illegal methods, such as laying a trap for Barry Allen, even though he has not committed any crimes. Despite all this, he forms a friendship with the Martian Manhunter. He is killed in the last issue of the series while defending his friend from a psychic attack.
Smallville
King Faraday appears in Smallville Season 11, based on the TV series. Faraday is a Checkmate agent who looks after a female White Martian, and raises her as a daughter, naming her Megan Morse. After Zod's attack on the Castle (one of Checkmate's bases) during Season 9 episode "Sacrifice", she and Faraday stay locked inside the facility. Faraday ends up dying, and Megan escapes. His last transmissions were later found by Batman and Martian Manhunter in the remains of the Castle.
Tangent
King Faraday appears in the 1997 Tangent Comics One Shot Green Lantern in this depiction he 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.