King Snake

King Snake
Cover to Robin #5, featuring King Snake and Robin
Publication information
Publisher	DC Comics
First appearance	Robin #2 (February, 1991)
Created by	Chuck Dixon Tom Lyle
In-story information
Alter ego	Sir Edmund Dorrance
Team affiliations	Royal Artillery The Ghost Dragons Kobra Black Lantern Corps
Abilities	Master martial artist Steel-reinforced spine

King Snake (real name Sir Edmund Dorrance) is a fictional character who appears in books published by DC Comics universe, usually as an adversary of Tim Drake and Batman. Created by writer Chuck Dixon and artist Tom Lyle, King Snake first appeared in Robin #2 (1991). He is a master martial artist, and is the father of the villain Bane.

Sir Edmund Dorrance, aka King Snake, is a British native who first distinguished himself in the Royal Artillery (a corps of the British Army). He and some friends then became mercenaries, offering their professional expertise to various anti-communist rebels, and made considerable money in doing so. While in Santa Prisca working with local rebels, his camp was taken by surprise by government commandos and Edmund blinded by gunfire. He fled the country, leaving for dead a female rebel with whom he had slept. The woman was actually alive and pregnant with Edmund's son. Both she and her child were imprisoned for Edmund's crimes against the Santa Prisca government, with the child growing up in prison to become the villainous Bane.

Edmund subsequently moved to Hong Kong and used the money he had acquired to start a double life. To the public, he was a Hong Kong businessman worth millions, with interests in shipping, banking, and electronics, while in secret he was one of the most feared men in Asia, a giant in the heroin trade. Taking on the name King Snake (after a snake known for its immunity to other snakes' venom, and a habit of eating other snakes), he found willing soldiers in the Ghost Dragon Chinese youth gang of Macau, Kowloon, and Hong Kong. Although he had a strong power base in Hong Kong, he could not hope to stay when the island was handed over to China. He began extending his interests into France and the United States. A Jingoistic man, he felt that Hong Kong had been made into a great city purely due to British influence, and decided to lay waste to the city rather than have it be soiled by falling into Chinese hands. His plans to release a Nazi-developed plague after leaving Hong Kong were foiled by Robin (Tim Drake). At the time, Tim was working with former DEA agent Clyde Rawlins, and the deadly martial artist Lady Shiva. The United States had attempted to stop Sir Edmund's expansion into America, to no avail. Edmund had killed Rawlins' family in retaliation, and Rawlins himself went rogue in order to pursue King Snake outside the law. Lady Shiva, meanwhile, sought King Snake because he was rumored to be the deadliest male martial artist in the world, and she wished to face him in battle. They eventually stormed King Snake's skyscraper headquarters and defeated him, though Rawlins died in the attempt and Shiva mostly watched the proceedings. Robin knocked Sir Edmund out a window, and Shiva ordered Robin to kill King Snake while he hung from the building. Robin refused to do so and left, believing Edmund dead. Presumably Shiva either let Edmund fall or else threw him off the ledge of the building to die. King Snake actually landed on a parapet. Shiva examined him, and, satisfied that he had broken his back and was thus no longer a threat, left him.