Posted in: Comics, Marvel Comics | Tagged: Black Knight, marvel, tom ming

When Tom King Sold An Unpublished Black Knight Story To Marvel

On April the first, Batman/Catwoman, Rorschach and Strange Adventures writer Tom King tweeted "Ha. A Marvel voucher for my first comic writing gig, 21 (!) years ago. I was just out of college. It was for Black Knight. The comic was never published because Marvel sadly collapsed a bit that year. I thought comics were dead and got a job in DC at the Justice Department."

Not an April Fool, as in February 2017, he also tweeted  "My first paid comic work. From when I was an intern at Marvel in college. I sold them a Black Knight script that never got published."

Tom King was an intern at Marvel Comics just before 9/11 happened and he decided his time would be better spent with the CIA in Afghanistan and Iraq. He worked at Marvel as an assistant to Chris Claremont, though Chris seems to have no memory of it these days. I should try and ask him again.

The Black Knight is returning to prominence at Marvel comics recently, ahead of his portrayal in The Eternals movie by Kit Harington. Marvel is publishing a new Black Knight series written by Si Spurrier. Might there be room for a Black Knight back-up strip using that script if they can find it? If only to embarrass Tom King about how awful he used to be as a writer – or at least compared to his later work for Marvel, The Vision, which is the closest the publisher has ever got to Watchmen?

Or maybe he would welcome it – and it might be worth cheering him up, after the news that Warners are no longer making his New Gods movie. Say, maybe DC could publish the unpublished Superman/Black Lightning story he did with Black Lightning co-creator Trevor Von Eeden?

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