Joe "King" Carny
53 years ago - Joe Carny is born.
36 years ago - 17-year-old Joe organizes and executes a series of profitable low-risk heists.
32 years ago - 21-year-old Joe is invited into the Royal Flush Gang. He becomes the Jack faster than anyone in the Gang's history, and first meets Mona Wayland, the 10 of Spades.
28 years ago - 25-year-old Joe marries Mona Wayland after the death of her father. They become the new King & Queen of the Royal Flush Gang.
10 years ago - 43-year-old Joe has no say in Mona Wayland recruiting Derek Reston, whose technology revolutionizes the Royal Flush Gang, instantly advancing him to the new Jack.
7 years ago - 46-year-old Joe & Derek Reston come to blows when the Royal Flush Gang's flashy new tactics lead to their fighting Green Arrow.
4 years ago - 49-year-old Joe & the Royal Flush Gang battle the Justice League. They escape by abandoning Derek Reston, severely undermining Joe's authority & losing all respect from Mona Wayland.
The Batman Beyond version of the King is probably the most villainous character of the bunch; forcing the rest of the family to do his bidding, manipulating his daughter Melanie without remorse, cheating on his wife... he's just a generally lousy guy. In the comics he's kind of a non-character, but of course, you have to have a King for a Royal Flush, so he's continued to appear whenever the rest of the gang does. We're combining a few different ideas to make our own take on the character that winds up central to their story.
Royal Flush King's Comic HistoryFrom the very beginning of the Royal Flush Gang in 1966, the King has been in a weird position in the hierarchy of the Gang. The Ace was the leader in those early appearances, which means the King is in fact not actually in charge... He's just a guy. He was depicted as regularly using melee weapons with poorly-described energy blades or whatnot.
In 1982, when a new version of the Gang was assembled by, we eventually discover, Hector Hammond, all the members of the Gang were now given actual identities. the King was Joe Carny... a drifter dying of lung cancer that other bums called "the king of the road", given his uncanny knack for influencing people to respect him. it's maybe the thinnest concept out of the bunch, but honestly, it did what it needed to do to give us a new version of the Royal Flush King. In the meantime, our take on the King is an amalgam of the animated version and Joe Carny. He's going to have been brought into the Gang and made the Jack before marrying the Queen to become the new King. His jealousy of the new Jack Derek Reston is going to be the driving force behind the tension in the Gang, leading them to fight, for Joe to abandon Derek to the Justice League, and to Joe's eventual death. |