Tom King’s 7 Best Comics, Ranked

Tom King has distinguished himself over the past decade as one of the finest literary minds of the comics world, creating stories for DC, Marvel, and Vertigo that have quickly garnered the attention of both fans and critics alike. His work is characterized by a preoccupation with philosophy, theology, the social impact of violence, and the ethical implications of warfare (both human and superheroic).

King is known for his use of very standard, uniform panel layouts–most often the nine-panel grid–his extensive use of epigraphs and quotes from various sources in comics, academia, and literature, and his signature title cards: often taking the form of simple, black panels interspersed naturally in the grid. His maxi-series, short stories, and ongoing series have earned him numerous Eisner award nominations and wins, but among his many acclaimed works, there are a few that truly distinguish his place among comics contemporaries.

7 Swamp Thing: The Talk Of The Saints

Marking one of King’s only collaborations with popular DC artist Jason Fabok, The Talk of the Saints is a warm tribute to Swamp Thing co-creators Len Wein and Berni Wrightson, re-exploring the debate that has laid at the heart of the character for decades: what makes a monster? The story is paced as slow and methodically as the speech of its protagonist, featuring several multi-page sequences of subdued natural progressions that play out like watching a time-lapse of a flower bud unfurling.

King’s penchant for philosophizing shines through in a manner more subdued than in some of his other works, but that is nonetheless quite explicit in considering whether actions or nature make a monster, and what it means to take responsibility for that.

6 The Unjust Judge

A contribution to DC’s revival of the Batman: Black and White anthology, The Unjust Judge tells the story of Batman attempting and failing to save a priest trapped inside a burning church on the verge of collapse. King opens the story in classic style with a wonderful epigraph–this time from the King James Bible–laid over Mitch Gerad’s harrowingly rendered and spark-riddled images of the crumbling church steeple, consumed by flame.

This pattern of theological source material printed over brutally poignant and gritty imagery continues throughout the short story, first in the form of the priest singing a hymn, and finally in an explication of the parable which began the text. Gerad’s inking and shading elevate the black and white compositions to heights of comic book art rarely seen and delivers the gravitas and dignity necessary to support King’s heady text, a combination that ranks this work of short fiction among some of the finest around.

5 Heroes In Crisis

After experiencing a panic attack and subsequent hospitalization in 2016, followed by the same-day death of his grandmother who raised him, Tom King decided to seek out the care of a therapeutic counselor. Inspired by the process and what he had been through, King conceptualized a story that would allow superheroes to address the long-term mental health ramifications of being continually exposed to horrific violence and traumatic incidents.

In this way “The Sanctuary” and Heroes in Crisis was born, a book that not only provided King a platform to explore these oft-uncharted territories of superhero psychology but also a space to memorialize his grandmother through graphic homage and elegant, quiet moments of remembrance on the part of the heroes (chief among these being Wally West’s poetry recital in a field of flowers at the opening of issue 7). Though beleaguered by dictums and interference from the DC higher-ups, Heroes in Crisis manages to deliver a massive crossover event that remains as stunningly intimate as any of King’s other, less high-profile work: revealing touching, heartbreaking, and poetic moments of vulnerability featuring many characters that have, perhaps, never previously been allowed to be so.

4 Strange Adventures

In collaboration with longtime partner Mitch Gerads, and recruiting renowned artist Evan Shaner, King crafts a story told in parallel form, alternating between apocryphal visions of an alien war previously waged by the titular character on the planet Rann and the present, Earthbound investigation of Strange for his conduct in that war. As the spiritual successor to his wildly successful Mister Miracle, Strange Adventures represents King returning to till fruitful soil that has previously yielded him astonishing crops (namely multiple Eisner awards)–re-imagining a classic silver age character in a 12-issue maxiseries and transposing his narrative onto contemporary sociopolitical issues.

Significantly less edgy and experimental than its predecessor, Strange Adventures showcases a King who has already proven his mettle in the world of the avant-garde, now telling a sweeping saga in more traditional narrative format and according to highly cinematic principles.

3 The Vision

The Vision follows the lives of Vision and his synthezoid wife and children, attempting to settle down and live an ostensibly normal, human life–a goal in achieving which he finds himself constantly beset by tragedies caused by the metaphysical friction of created, artificial beings trying desperately to adopt the idiosyncrasies of human psychology.

One of King’s most verbose titles, The Vision at times borders on the self-indulgent with its lengthy, academic dialogues, but nevertheless creates a dazzling vision of the human condition as refracted through the defamiliarizing lens of an android’s philosophy.

2 The Sheriff of Babylon

One of King’s only creator-owned projects and his first collaboration with penciler/inker/colorer par-excellence Mitch Gerads, The Sheriff of Babylon follows former cop, current military contractor Christopher Henry in a search to uncover the parties responsible for the murder of one of his recruits. Based in large part on King’s own experiences in Iraq with the CIA, Babylon distills a terrifying, personal image of military life in Bagdhad during the early Twenty-First Century, brought to life by Gerads’ harrowing and beautifully stylized artwork.

Sheriff of Babylon significantly also features some of King’s first experiments with quasi-diegetic inserts–taking the form of intermittent blacked-out panels with “Bang.” written on them–a device which would find ultimate realization in the iconic “Darkseid is.” panels of Mister Miracle.

1 Mister Miracle

Mister Miracle is one of the most ambitious comics of the past few decades, not just in scope, but in daring to revisit, repurpose, and revise the masterwork of comics legend Jack Kirby–New Gods–and to use it as the basis for a master class in comics deconstructionist. Taking inspiration from the heavily theologically inspired tales originally spun by Kirby in the mid-’70s after his departure from Marvel comics and longtime collaborator Stan Lee amidst less-than-amicable circumstances, Mister Miracle honors and exceeds the legacy of its source material by taking up the mantle of the philosophical concerns first hinted at by Kirby and putting them on center stage.

Tom King and Mitch Gerads set the gold standard for the medium in this book, employing a groundbreaking, unheard-of amalgamation of comic book stylistic and structural devices in tandem with brilliant content–non-diegetic inserts, parallel narratives, repurposing of direct quotes from the original Kirby comics, caricature, expounding of Descartian metaphysics, graphic overlays/distortion used as a motif, etc.

Turning a harsh, critical eye to sensitive and important topics such as media culture, suicide, modern fatherhood, mental health, the proper disposition of the comics industry, the nature of God, and the role of fiction in society, Mister Miracle represents the best of what comics can be, and the crowning jewel of King’s laurel-strewn career. Hailed as an “all-time classic in the making,” Mister Miracle will undoubtedly go down in comics history alongside such towering works as Watchmen, The Sandman, Preacher, and The Dark Knight Returns as one of the finest examples of comic book literature ever produced.

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