King Mob (comics)

King Mob
Detail from cover of The Invisibles volume 1 issue 19, illustrated by Sean Philips
Publication information
Publisher	Vertigo
First appearance	The Invisibles #1 (1994)
Created by	Grant Morrison (writer) Steve Yeowell (artist)
In-story information
Alter ego	Gideon Starorzewski
Team affiliations	The Invisibles The Five (band)
Abilities	Psychic control Master martial artist Expert gunfighter Magical adept

King Mob is a fictional character, a revolutionary created by Grant Morrison for The Invisibles.

The character's name is inspired by the Situationist group King Mob, as well as Morrison himself (as a part of a sigil to improve his life.) He is also Gideon Stargrave, one of Morrison's early creations. Some elements of his personality, especially his Gideon persona, are inspired by J. G. Ballard's "The Day of Forever" and by Michael Moorcock's Jerry Cornelius.

King Mob is a former horror writer named Gideon Starorzewski whose pen name was "Kirk Morrison". He is the leader of the cell of Invisibles at the beginning of the series, and adopted the name from an earlier Invisible active in the 1930s. He has a love-hate relationship with his "counter culture terrorist" persona, and is sometimes troubled by his capacity for violence.

He recruits a young Liverpudlian "Jack Frost" to the cell so they can go back in time and recruit the Marquis de Sade as well. Captured while saving Lord Fanny, King Mob is tortured by Sir Miles Delacourt, during which he has a vision or hallucination of an alien spaceship in Australia. King Mob psychically forces Delacourt to free him.

While sneaking into the Dulce installation, King Mob finds out that the "Lost Ones" are using "living information" from a parallel universe to sow chaos and discord in King Mob's own. After his friend and lover Ragged Robin leaves his time for the future, King Mob makes some steps towards abandoning violence as a tactic by dropping his gun in a pond on the property of Mason Lang; however he also later blows up Lang's house.