Who's King Faraday?

Who's This? DC's superspy.

The facts: The strip came to be known as "I--Spy!", which is a pun (with your little eye), starring American secret agent King Faraday, which is also a pun (King for a Day, though I don't see how it has anything to do with the premise), and first premiered in Danger Trail #1 (August 1950), created by Robert Kanigher and Carmine Infantino. Danger Trail only lasted four issues, but his stories would get reprinted in Showcase (where it got the I--Spy title). He also teamed up with Batman in World's Finest early on. But it's not until DC starts to develop its "covert" side post-Crisis that he really starts making a lot of appearances, becoming a recurring character in Suicide Squad (he's Nightshade's mentor, and recruited her and Bronze Tiger into Task Force X), Checkmate (vol. 2), and the World War III event (in addition to healthy appearances in New Teen Titans and Batman). In 1993, he even got a new Danger Trail mini-series all to himself. He has since mostly been attached to non-DC properties that slum it in the DCU, characters like Wildstorm's Grifter, and one of DC's attempts at the Red Circle heroes in The Mighty Crusaders. An immortal version of King Faraday (so more like Nick Fury) appeared in the New52/Rebirth era in such titles as Suicide Squad, Grayson and Bane: Conquest.
How you could have heard of him: He played a role in DC: New Frontier (the comics and the movie), and has made animated appearances in Justice League Unlimited and Young Justice. It seems that when DC needs a secret agent type, they'll usually go to him because, well, he does have a memorable name.
Example story: Danger Trail #2 (September-October 1950) "Hangman's House!" by Robert Kanigher, Carmine Infantino and Joe Giella

The year is 1950. We're three years before Ian Fleming publishes his first James Bond novel. We're well ahead of the curve here. The series isn't called I--Spy! yet - not that I ever found it necessary - but it would become a good choice for a strip that uses first person narration. We're in the secret agent's secret journals, and that could prove an interesting (if wordy) emulation of Film Noir. The story starts with Faraday meeting up with an old buddy from the paratroops. Since this is just 1950, it absolutely makes sense for a secret agent to have a WWII background (indeed, so did/will James Bond). But this Jimmy West is cagey, throwing a 1900 quarter from a car window to get Faraday's attention, their unit's very specific S.O.S. signal (how did THAT work during D-Day operations?). Jimmy also works for the government and if King accepts this mission, it will mean infiltrating "Hangman's House", a fortress prison where a top scientist is being held by the "Butcher Boys" after his death was faked. I don't understand who our post-war enemies are either. Before Faraday can even start work, his friend and his driver are killed by some goon with a machine gun.

Missed at point blank range? I'm not sure these guys are a match for a super secret agent! So let's do the mission to honor Jimmy's memory, shall we? Faraday gets a briefing from Jimmy's boss, which includes a debate on the merits of hypnosis. With a mirror, King is able to put himself into suggestible trances, but only Chekhov knows where this is going. And since he was a paratrooper, he gets dropped out of a plane right into a huge fortress island from the cover. His parachute doesn't open, turn the page, the emergency chute opens in a big caption. Oh well, okay.

That castle looks like it's in the ocean, but it's really in a lake or bay, and Faraday at first makes his way to the town on the opposite shore, hoping to find a safe way inside the prison. Perhaps through a prison guard at the local brothel. He starts a fight over a tart and gets captured. All part of the plan, of course.

What was that oblong thrown off the ramparts? A prisoner leaving through the only exit - so that's what happens here. They search him, but miss the 25¢ coin, and when a guard tries to steal it from him in the night (the economy's gone down the tubes in this... North African country? - the guard wears a fez and people speak French), he takes his gun away from him and, at gunpoint, makes the guard lead him through the castle. But though the turnkey brings him to the scientist's cell, he's still got some pep in his step.

The old Professor is quite happy to get out of there, but Faraday nevertheless puts him to sleep with hypnosis. And then he puts HIMSELF to sleep (using the shiny coin as a mirror, but it was hairy trying to find a reflective surface there for a while, oh the suspense!). Have you guessed it yet? King Faraday also hypnotized the guard to make him believe both sleepers were dead and that he had probably killed them in the struggle. Fearing reprisals from his bosses, he disposes of the bodies in the usual way, in burlap sacks, basically abetting the escape.

"I tore my way through the professor's sack" is a phrase better left unexamined. The belligerent officer catches up to them in his speedboat, but he's quickly sent into the drink, and the Americans boat away under a hail of gunfire. Finding their exit blocked off, Faraday simply rams the enemy boat, and I guess they're lucky they don't explode or drown.

Some pretty typical adventure fare. As a spy story, it's okay. Good escape plan, lots of action, a gonzo comic book idea like hypnosis behind it (oh, Kanigher!)... But it was SO wordy, trying to cover plot holes or scenes they didn't have room for, that it felt like I was reading a story three times its length. Now, that may be a plus in someone's book, but the art-to-writing ratio were way off in this one. Certainly didn't make me lunge for the next issue of Danger Trail!

Who's Next? 25th-century commandos.