Red King (DC Comics)

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Red King
The Red King from the cover of JLA Classified #35, art by Dan Jurgens.
Publication information
PublisherDC Comics
First appearanceJLA Secret Files 2004 #1 (November 2004)
Created byDan Slott (writer)
Dan Jurgens (artist)
In-story information
Alter egoDarrin Profitt
Notable aliasesFallback
AbilitiesOver 63 metahuman abilities
High tech body armor
Able to generate alternate realities

The Red King is a supervillain appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics. He first appeared in JLA Secret Files 2004 #1 (November 2004), and was created by Dan Slott and Dan Jurgens.

Publication history

The Red King's first historical appearance was in JLA Secret Files 2004 #1 (November 2004), set up to tie into an arc in the main JLA book. But the 4th Parallel arc in which he is introduced was shelved for three years until

bi-weekly
in January, February and March 2007.

Fictional character biography

Darrin Profitt just happened to be one of six billion innocent bystanders in the

dreamscape during a battle between the Justice League and Doctor Destiny. After the defeat of Doctor Destiny on the dreamplane, the Materioptikon gem on his chest sucks him inside and falls at the feet of Darrin Profitt's dreamself. Doctor Destiny's physical body is rendered catatonic and the Justice League wake up, the Martian Manhunter turns Destiny's body over to the custody of Arkham Asylum. Darrin Profitt discovers that the gem is in his possession, and is accidentally sucked inside the artifact where he meets Doctor Destiny's trapped consciousness.[1]

According to Doctor Destiny, the Materioptikon has the ability to reshape reality, but it is flawed, anyone who enters the gem automatically generates multiple physical copies from

catatonic and dreaming in Arkham Asylum. Profitt overpowers Destiny and traps him in a facet of the gem, he then creates a few duplicates of himself using Doctor Destiny's tools and sends them out to place a bet at the race track and then invest that money in stocks, both the winners and losers return to the gem and report their results, he then uses the favorable results in his own reality. According to Doctor Destiny he endangered all of reality, all of Space and Time so that he could win a bet at the track.[1]

Darrin uses the Parallels to create favorable outcomes by sending his duplicates into a Parallel to test for a specific outcome; if they fail, he deletes that Parallel, but if they succeed, he uses their solution. Darrin used the billions he'd made from manipulating the stock market via the Parallels to become a billionaire philanthropist and playboy.

Becoming the King

Due to boredom and in answer to a challenge posed by Doctor Destiny, he used the Parallels to acquire technology capable of defeating the Justice League and conquering the world. Under the guise of altruism his alternates prompt the scientists of their worlds to develop protocols for jamming

speedsters, countermeasures against Themysciran magic in the event of an Amazon Attack, plans to construct and defuse theoretical doomsday devices, and ways to isolate, reproduce, and implant the metagene in ordinary humans. The parallel Red Kings share their knowledge and in the end the Darrin Profitts of the three final realities of the Materioptikon don their liquid metal Red King armor and set out to conquer their realities. According to Profitt his three-to-one chances for success are very good odds. Profitt secretly kept a fourth Parallel hidden from Doctor Destiny in the event that the three Red Kings failed, this fourth Parallel's Profitt wore a different costume and called himself Fallback.[2]
This Profitt had a world in which he never changed anything from his life, and lived in the same state as he was before Doctor Destiny's battle, serving as a "reset switch" that would allow Profitt to go back to his beginnings if something failed. He was executed by another Red King, who had no interest in becoming a loser again.

Third Parallel

In the Third Parallel, the Red King (3) uses one of his uncounted metahuman abilities to direct a swarm of meteors towards Earth. The unexpected kinetic bombardment wipes

healing factor can keep up with. He then kills Wonder Woman, crushes the Flash's chest, and smashes John Stewart. He then defeats an assembly of responding heroes including the Justice Society of America, Booster Gold and Doctor Fate, all of whom he refers to as "a collection of second stringers, benchwarmers and amateurs". He heads to Metropolis and calls out Superman, who can no longer think clearly due to the Bizarro virus. He is then blindsided by Batman, Flash, Green Lantern, and Wonder Woman in an attack co-ordinated by the Martian Manhunter who had faked their deaths, and assisted by Superman. Impatient and angry, the Red King (3) releases a massive blast wave which vaporizes all the remaining League members leaving only the Batman who was apparently the Martian Manhunter masquerading as the dead hero. The Red King (3) incinerates the Martian Manhunter, and then sits in the ruins of Metropolis until nightfall. According to his assistant, his blast wave destroyed every city on the planet and no one will ever trust him. The Red King (3) abandons that reality and then erases it from the Materioptikon.[3]

Second Parallel

The Red King (2) confronts the JLA, from JLA Classified #34; artist Dan Jurgens.

In the Second Parallel, the Red King (2) projects a hologram above the city of

Keystone City. A fleet of alien ships summoned by the Green Lantern Corps help evacuate the planet but not everyone makes it off, Batman apparently dies as the planet explodes while confronting the Red King (2) near the center of the Earth; just before he dies, Profitt apologizes for his mistake.[4]
Back on Mars, Batman returns alive with Profitt and his main accomplice; he then informs the League of what they need to do in order to stop the other Red Kings and do it before one of the other Red Kings erase their reality.

First Parallel

This attempt to take over a Parallel by the Red King (1) begins well, the plan being to be asked and allowed to rule the world rather than to take it by force. This version helps the JLA defeat a newly empowered version of the

John Stewart
), stated that Red King (1) "probably wouldn’t even bother" working with the League if it wasn't for Wonder Woman. The Martian Manhunter stated that he couldn't read Red King's mind, but Red King (1) genuinely seemed to care for Wonder Woman and she trusted him, so they decided they should trust him as well. This Parallel's League soon learned of the truth behind the Red King (1) when Batman learned the comatose Doctor Destiny had been repeating his name over and over; Dee then awakened and told him the truth about the Parallels, and ultimately the JLA attacked Profitt. Red King (1) defended himself but made an effort to solve the situation without violence, (asking them to surrender) but just then the third Parallel's Red King (3) arrived and demanded to merge with Red King (1). Red King (1) refused saying that he had changed his mind, but the other Red King (3) forced the merge regardless.

Downfall

Though he had stayed clear of the core reality, the Justice League indigenous to the Second Parallel realize its existence, the truth about their own being nothing but a facet in the Materioptikon, and the fact that the Second Parallel had to be destroyed to protect the core reality. However, to counter this, the Second Parallel Justice League retrieved their own Materioptikon from their reality's defeated Red King; using the power of the stone, they sent their reality's Plastic Man over to the other reality to communicate with their counterparts in there to do battle with that reality's Red King. This Plastic Man ended up in the First Parallel after releasing Doctor Destiny in the hub world of the Materioptikon, where he posed as a bomb similar to the one which destroyed the Earth in the Second Parallel. The Red King (3) was cornered in the JLA's base in the moon, where he was duped into believing the bomb would kill him if he could not defeat the entire Justice League in under a minute, with time to get away clear of the blast. With the Martian Manhunter manipulating his emotions, he had no escape, and was tricked by the First Parallel's League into a vortex to the core reality generated by the First Parallel's Materioptikon. That reality's Wonder Woman crushed the stone, destroying the link between the final Parallel and the Materioptikon and sealing Profitt within the core reality's Materioptikon, where Destiny's dreamself, free to roam at his leisure, prepares to torture the Red King with his now omnipotent powers, having sealed all of the gem's flaws and completing it as the true Materioptikon.

Powers and abilities

  • According to JLA Classified #35 he has over 63 different metahuman abilities including electrokinesis and cryokinesis.
  • Using Doctor Destiny's Materioptikon Darrin is able to create mathematically modeled parallel earths. He is able to generate a finite number of Parallels, parallel universes generated by the Materioptikon but based on his home reality. Profitt uses the parallels as elaborate mathematical models, testbeds to determine favorable outcomes for his plans. Since the Materioptikon's power comes from the absorbed dream energy of six billion humans, every use of this power diminishes the number of available Parallels that can be generated and maintained; Profitt was unaware of this until he had destroyed all but four of the Parallels.
  • As the Red King he also wears a suit of high tech armor which incorporates technology solutions gathered from dozens of parallels designed to defeat individual members of the Justice League; as noted by Superman, he had the necessary strength to defeat all of them in the long term.
  • As Fallback he might have had powers, but was unable to use them as another Red King killed him before he could demonstrate them.

References

  1. ^ a b JLA Classified #32 (March 2007)
  2. ^ a b JLA Classified #33 (March 2007)
  3. ^ JLA Classified #35 (April 2007)
  4. ^ JLA Classified #34 (April 2007)

External links

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