Tom King

Name:	Tom King
Also Known As:	"Tom Taylor" (joke)
Pronouns:
Occupation:	Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) employee; comics writer
Medium:	Comics
Works:	DC Comics
Official Website(s):
Fan Website(s):
On Fanlore:	Related pages

Tom King is an American comic book writer and former CIA employee. He is known for being the son of a Warner Bros. studio executive, for his participation in the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and for writing Big Two superhero comic series.

Social media presence

• anti-Comicsgate
• death threats
• accusations of out of character writing; writing characters in a shared universe of multiple, evolving interpretations
• accusations of nepotism

Fan responce to King's participation in the CIA and the U.S. invasion of Iraq

In comic fan communities at large, King's unique characterizations of Big Two comic characters has generated much more controversy and outrage than King's participation in the 2003 Iraq invasion. But for the fans who do care about the impact of the Iraq invasion, it is by far the most serious topic influencing their opinion of King, how they analyze his work, and whether they're willing to condone his comics career.

King entered the comics industry advertising his experience with the CIA. According to King, he felt anger in response to the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the United States, and he responded by joining the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). He participated in the invasion of Iraq, became a counterterrorism officer, and had a years-long career working for the CIA.

Of his CIA career, King has consistently stated he enjoyed the work.

He has submitted his DC Comic scripts to the CIA for approval before publishing.

• Johnston, Rich. "Batman Uses CIA Torture Methods in Batman: One Bad Day: The Riddler" Bleeding Cool. 2022-08-16.

The CIA has spent most of its existence committing atrocities all over the world and the Iraq War is one of the most blatantly illegal wars in recorded history.

King was in the CIA for seven years, throughout most of his twenties, and was actually on the ground in the Middle East. He’s also talked about how much he loved that job and how he was good at it.

His whole comics career has involved profiting off his time in an inherently evil organization

u/darthllama, ^{Archived on 2024-11-09}

To add to this as a comic book reader:

Tom King was part of the team that planned the US invasion of Iraq, kicking off one of the most blatantly illegal wars in recorded history
He was on the ground in the Middle East during the Bush years
I don’t feel like digging up the video, but there’s literally a panel from several years ago where he complains that the methods Batman uses for interrogation aren’t realistic
He has been openly proud of his time in the CIA
He very obviously incorporates his time in the CIA into the comics he writes, so there’s not really even a way to separate the art from the artist if you know his background

Many comic book readers don’t care about any of this and King is one of the most celebrated writers of the last decade, in spite of the fact that he has obviously been complicit in things that should at the very least get him shunned from polite society

https://old.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/1h32ju0/is_the_cia_bad_are_they_as_bad_as_the_third_reich/lznonfz/</ref>

Some fans of color have reported feeling disturbed and upset that King has enjoyed continued opportunities and success from his participation in the Iraq invasion. The Poly Post, the student newspaper of California State Polytechnic University Pomona, quoted one such fan:

“It is so demoralizing,” Zahra said. “As an Arab fan, I do not feel like my voice and people are at all valued in comic books spaces. How can I? Someone whose career was spent murdering my people and justifying our mass murders is praised constantly.”
The Iraq War led to the deaths of approximately half a million Iraqi civilians, according to the National Library of Medicine.

"We’ve normalized war criminals, now they’re writing comics", The Poly Post (2025)

As someone whose parents are from Iraq and has been there I have very mixed feelings... The nicest thing I can say is [Sheriff of Babylon] does try to have an interpretation that's critical but King is King and can't help but be orientalist throughout the thing and that includes the perspective of how it views Iraqi native cultures, it's a white guy offering a very Americanized perspective of a place Americans conquered and will never see.
So yeah it's inextricably toxic to a degree tbh. I wouldn't recommend it if those things are an issue for you.

https://www.reddit.com/r/comicbooks/comments/1c4ra4c/comment/kzqr5ex/

He was part of the team that planned the US Invasion of Iraq, a blatantly illegal war.

He spent time on the ground in the Middle East during the Bush administration.

There’s a panel from a few years ago where he states that Batman’s interrogation methods wouldn’t work in the real world. That is concerning coming from a former CIA counterterrorism operative, to say the least.

There’s no way someone with King’s background wasn’t complicit in atrocities

https://www.reddit.com/r/comicbooks/comments/1icg3hy/comment/m9qcysc/

Tom King is an ex-CIA agent and it shows in his work, which has reflected a consistent inability to thoughtfully examine the inequitable international political system he helped uphold. It would be one thing if he came out of that world deeply troubled by his experiences and used his knowledge to examine those issues in his work. But he doesn’t.

 fantastic-nonsense

Tom King has such a distinct style. As soon as I saw the American planes dropping bombs in the Middle East I knew it was him 🥴

Some fans have found it exciting to read comics specifically written by a real-life CIA agent, and submitted to the CIA for approval for publishing.

Here's the really strange thing that I would think--I'm just shocked there was no discussion of this really in the comics community at all—which is that King and DC both admitted that before these issues went to press, they were all vetted by the CIA. Which tells me that he's still—even if he's still not officially working for them, he's got some kind of handler at the very least. And so they're admitting that they're giving the CIA up-or-down veto power over what gets published in one of their comics. That to me is just nuts.
But, you know, when you try to get this discussion going in the comic book community—it is: "Oh my God! That is so cool!" They think it's terrific a guy with King's background is working in the industry, and they, you know, they think, "Oh my God! This must be a really important comic if it's got to make national security clearance!"

Porkins Policy Radio. Episode 74: "Tom King, the CIA and Comic Books with Ryan Carey" (2016)

>Joshua Dysart went to Iraq

>Tom King is CIA

Is this the return of the days when comic book writers were real men?

Anonymous comics fan on 4chan (2016)

Some fans believe that criticism of King's CIA career is unwarranted.

Comics twitter is only attacking King because they dislike his writing. They don’t give an ounce of a fuck what he did with the CIA (which btw was counter terrorism, which means he probably actually saved lives) nor have the majority of the people dogging on him for that were even alive when 9/11 happened.
People just need reasons to hate.

He used to be in the CIA, operating in Iraq during Gulf War 2. How genuine people are about having a problem with that, and how much they just don’t like his writing and use that fact as an ad hominem reason to justify hating it, I can’t say.
But that’s usually the reason why the hate for him is more intense than other writers that people online have a general distaste for.

100%. It also gives people another angle to attack his WW run. They can convince themselves anything related to America or politics is all tied to his past. Honestly most of the anger online regarding Wonder Woman is from truly deranged people. The vitriol they have for a writer over a fictional character for perceived slights and story telling (that they have misinterpreted…) is terrifying.

as opposed to what? "Yeah, sure, he took part in the engineering of an illegal war that killed hundreds of thousands, but do not let that influence your understanding of his comics?" Why should we lobotomize all context away before reading Wonder Woman?

There was a notable incident in 2018 when comics fan journalist twiststreet questioned the authenticity of King's CIA career, and made an inquiry. In response, King posted photo evidence of himself posing with a gun in Iraq during the invasion in 2004, along with a screenshot of an email, and shared that the questioning of his story prompted his wife to respond, "Tell those assholes to call me and ask me what it was like worrying every day that you'd get shot. You served your country. Fuck those fuckers."

Most comics fans accept that King did work for the CIA--but despite King's insistence that he did not work a mere "desk job", many fans still believe King has aggrandized his CIA job, and hope that in reality he was probably working for the agency in one of the many support jobs; these fans speculate that for all King's references to having personal experience with torture, violence, and other human rights abuses, he himself only indirectly supported those activities.

We know Tom King sent in his script for Sherif of Babylon to the CIA for review and they immediately approved it. King doesn't know anything or believe anything they need to censor. He's just some guy who worked in an office. He also wants people to think he planned a war and knows how to torture people for some stupid reason.

But King himself has said 'I was 23 and in charge of the Iraq invasion' in interviews. I fully believe he's just being hyperbolic. He just ordered pizza for the actual big brains doing the planning. But if you don't want people saying you helped mastermind a war... don't say you helped mastermind a war.

Some fans speculate King's fiction indicate he feels sadness, guilt, or other unpleasant feelings related to his CIA career; these fans claim his fictional works are specifically about "reconciliation" with his own traumatic experiences, and an anti-war attitude is implied by his lack of positively portraying U.S. involvement in Iraq. Other fans counterargue that the assumption of King's remorse is directly contradicted by his statements in interviews, and his works focus on sympathetic portrayals of the perpetrators, while further marginalizing the perspectives of colonized peoples.

People on Twitter are sharing this in relation to a kind of faux-exposé on Tom King, saying he coordinated the invasion of Iraq. As I understand it he was a very low rank worker in the CIA in his early 20’s during the invasion and elements of his own reconciliation with this are present in his work. He’s not an outright war criminal as far as I’m aware

Fans have also reported facing backlash and community censorship when criticizing King's CIA career.

It’s also weird to me that people get legitimately angry when any of this is pointed out. If I had made this exact same post on r/comicbooks, it would be heavily downvoted and I’d have a bunch of angry replies

Some fans are totally unaware of King's CIA career history, prior to writing comics.

Depiction of minority characters

Representation of Jewish characters

Fans have praised King's inclusion of Bruce Wayne and Hal Jordan having Jewish mothers and practicing Jewish cultural traditions, in the Post-New 52 comics timeline. King drew on his own mixed faith background as someone who identifies as "half Jewish and half Protestant", and fans have praised the authenticity of that writing.

While his depiction of Jewish characters is one of King's notable contributions that has been positively received by fans, King has cited fan-written meta essays as inspiring and supporting his choice to include representation of Jewish culture and religion—and because King has admitted to reading fan meta, fans have speculated that King must be aware of the fan meta that criticizes racial and imperialistic implications in his work, and yet he chooses to ignore them.

Further meta

• Porkins Policy Radio - "Episode 74: "Tom King, the CIA and Comic Books with Ryan Carey" (2016-12-28)
• [Comics] You wanna know how I got these emotional scars? How DC (and Tom King) massively screwed up Batman's wedding not once, not twice, but three times., ^{Archived on 2022-12-21} by EquivalentInflation (2022-12-21)
• "Who’s Afraid of Wonder Woman?", ^{Archived on 2025-03-26} by Robert Jones, Jr. (2025-03-26)
• "The orientalism and anti-arab racism in Tom King's Rules of Engagement (from Batman #33-35, 2017), a thread (1/?)"^{[Unable to archive]} by taliasghul (2024-01-13), a Twitter thread analyzing the portrayal of Talia al Ghul in King's Batman comic series
• "We’ve normalized war criminals, now they’re writing comics", ^{Archived on 2025-03-12} by Connor Lālea Hampton, writing for The Poly Post, student newspaper of Cal Poly Pomona (2025-02-04)

References

Related Concepts, Fandoms, Terms, Fanworks
See also	Comicsgate Cultural Imperialism in Fandom Frank Miller Military-Entertainment Complex Spy Fiction