The King is someone I’d never heard of before my most recent round of reading. He’s recently gotten the legacy treatment, and his son/grandson/whathaveyou has joined the JSA. The King’s shtick is he’s such an amazing master of disguise that no-one has ever seen his actual face – not even the reader. As hooks go, it’s a nice one.

They also throw in the old-hat (even at that early point) “the cops think he’s a criminal, and the criminals think he’s a rival criminal” hook, but it doesn’t play as well here as it did in The Sandman. However, it helps set the dynamic with his arch-foe, The Witch. She’s basically The King in a dress, a criminal mistress of disguise who uses dimwitted thugs.

This isn’t like Batman/Catwoman. We’re talking about a murderer. It’s also different from Zatara and the Tigress – we never actually see him let her go. For all we know, she escapes.

Time and again, The King lets the Witch walk, no matter what crime she has commited.

Class.

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