348 KING: A COMICS BIOGRAPHY OF MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR
McGregor would later begin work on a new Killraven series intended to see publication
in Marvel Comics Presents in the late 1980s/early 1990s, but it was never completed.
In 2001, Eva Hopkins and Joseph Linsner created a one-issue story, simply titled
Killraven , which revisited the characters; this and all the preceding Killraven stories
were later collected and republished by Marvel in black and white in a 2005 Essen-
tial Killraven volume. A six-issue Killraven miniseries by Alan Davis was released in
2002–3 (and collected in 2007 in a hardbound edition); this story was a reimagination
of the original character and is not a continuation of the original’s story. Another rei-
magination, planned for fi ve issues and written by Robert Kirkman and drawn by Rob
Liefeld, has been announced.
Mark O’English
KING: A COMICS BIOGRAPHY OF MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR. Written and illus-
trated by Ho Che Anderson, this three-part unauthorized biography of American
Civil Rights leader Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was originally published by
Fantagraphics Books from 1993 to 2003. It was collected into a single trade paperback
in 2005. Anderson’s graphic narrative traces King’s life from his years as a doctoral stu-
dent at Boston University in the early 1950s, through the March for Jobs and Freedom
in Washington, D.C., and to his assassination in Memphis in 1968. Th e biography,
strengthened by historical research, delves deepest into King’s personal struggles be-
hind the scenes of a social movement publicly dominated by his spiritual wisdom and
shrewd agitation in the interest of racial equality. Drawn in a fast-paced comic noir
style that shifts between black-and-white shadows, photographs, and abstract, muted
colors, King couples the intense energy of Civil Rights Era boycotts and backroom
negotiations with a subtext of sorrow and tragedy at the loss of a great leader.
Signifi cantly, Anderson frames King’s life story around the observations of “Th e
Witnesses”—voices of men and women of all ages and races who represent a wide array
of perspectives and ideological arguments during the 1950s and 1960s. Th e Witnesses
include unnamed church members and family friends, reluctant bystanders and Free-
dom Riders, white racists and nervous politicians, even Motown singers and Hollywood
actors. Th eir voices play on both the judicial and the spiritual meanings of the term
“bearing witness,” as they bring elements of a Greek chorus, black church testimonial,
and crime-scene interrogation to the recollection and analysis of King’s life. Illustrated
in tight black-and-white headshots, the Witnesses speak directly to the reader in tra-
ditional panel grids that juxtapose the principle narrative’s wide angles and jagged,
overlapping panel arrangements. Aesthetically, their presence brings a sense of balance
and expert pacing to the story. Yet the ultimate purpose of these Witnesses is to facili-
tate a multidimensional glimpse into the motives and consequences of King’s actions,
making King: A Comics Biography of Martin Luther King, Jr. as much a collective history
of the Civil Rights Movement as it is the story of a single man.
As a result, the biography’s preface frames King not as the larger-than-life symbol
that is familiar to most readers, but as a son who is being nudged out of the formidable
