The Kingdom
6 years ago - David Zavimbe, seeing the rising tide of violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo, reaches out to other heroes in Africa to assemble as the Kingdom, to defend the people and their revolution. William Glenmorgan is hesitant to involve himself in political activisim, seeing himself as a foreigner on African soil, but ultimately determines that even as an outsider he can acknowledge when something is the right thing to do. Nommo Balewa declines to join, claiming that it is no longer his place to interact with the outside world, but eventually relents and joins, equipping their headquarters with their teleporting magic. They continue to work seperately across the continent, but maintain their Citadel headquarters.
Membership: 27-year-old David Zavimbe, 21-year-old Mari Jiwe McCabe, 43-year-old William Glenmorgan, Anansi the Spider, Shango & Nommo Balewa
Membership: 27-year-old David Zavimbe, 21-year-old Mari Jiwe McCabe, 43-year-old William Glenmorgan, Anansi the Spider, Shango & Nommo Balewa
2 years ago - After working with Anansi the Spider, Virgil Hawkins meets the members of the Kingdom.
Membership: 31-year-old David Zavimbe, 25-year-old Mari Jiwe McCabe, 47-year-old William Glenmorgan, Anansi the Spider, Shango & Nommo Balewa
Membership: 31-year-old David Zavimbe, 25-year-old Mari Jiwe McCabe, 47-year-old William Glenmorgan, Anansi the Spider, Shango & Nommo Balewa
1 year ago - The Kingdom joins the battle against Mageddon.
Membership: 32-year-old David Zavimbe, 26-year-old Mari Jiwe McCabe, 48-year-old William Glenmorgan, Anansi the Spider, Shango & Nommo Balewa
Membership: 32-year-old David Zavimbe, 26-year-old Mari Jiwe McCabe, 48-year-old William Glenmorgan, Anansi the Spider, Shango & Nommo Balewa
Noteworthy Teams
Complete Membership
For some time, some of our international readers have talked about how little spotlight is given to DC's catalog of international characters. It's been an ongoing conversation to try to work out ways to use these characters so that they would contribute to the larger narrative tapestry. As we worked with certain characters from Africa in our existing timeline that we decided would work better if they were actually on a team of similar characters, we began the long and extremely fun process of building the Kingdom; our version of the most prominent heroes of the African continent.
The Kingdom is not a completely original creation for our project. Some of the characters concepts here might be a little bit of a stretch, but they all are, more or less, fully canon DC characters. Even the team itself exists in the comics, although you'll notice that all the art on this page is taken from the team's very limited comic appearances and includes none of the characters we've chosen to include in our version. If any of you talented artists out there feel compelled to tackle this group, I certainly won't stop you :)
The Kingdom is not a completely original creation for our project. Some of the characters concepts here might be a little bit of a stretch, but they all are, more or less, fully canon DC characters. Even the team itself exists in the comics, although you'll notice that all the art on this page is taken from the team's very limited comic appearances and includes none of the characters we've chosen to include in our version. If any of you talented artists out there feel compelled to tackle this group, I certainly won't stop you :)
The Kingdom's Comic HistoryThe Kingdom actually have appeared in within the pages of DC, only very briefly. In the 2011 post Flashpoint series Batwing by Judd Winick, we are introduced to the Congolese hero David Zavimbe. During his adventures, he begins to explore the disappearance and murder of several people who he discovers are the retired members of a disbanded African superteam, called the Kingdom. All the members of this team are orginal characters, all of whom are retired, and several of whom die during the course of the series. The Kingdom do not come together again, nor does a new version of the Kingdom comes together... they're simply a framing device for a very compelling mystery in a very good comic tale by one of the best writers of the modern era.
When we decided that we wanted to put together a team of heroes from across the continent of Africa, we considered several options for just who that team would be and how they would organize themselves. We considered using the team of heroes from the Dakotaverse, the Shadow Cabinet, but even though that was an active team with members that were known, active superheroes, it didn't quite deliver what we were looking for in the same way as the Kingdom and their towering headquarters the Citadel |
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Our Kingdom StoryOnce we decided to build a team of African heroes, and chose to call them The Kingdom, and started assembling which characters we though would work well together, and would each bring something fun and, we felt, unique, to the table... something kind of interesting started to happen.
We wound up with a hero from the past who represents an ideology that feels lost in modern times. An armored hero who comes form a world of violence, trying to atone for his own past. A thunder god. A man of science who can summon a giant hulking behemoth alter-ego. An animalist close-quarters brawler with a distinct haircut... and a wall-crawling trickster. I cannot emphasize enough how much we didn't plan that. It just happened. The fact that we've somehow managed to assemble this particular group, with this particular energy, and put them into our world in a way that felt so completely effortless is kind of amazing, we hope you guys can see just how perfectly they fit in and how including them this way just feels so completely right. We love this one. |