Greetings and welcome Mr. Minionman. Got bandwagoned into fighters, eh? I guess be sure to thank your friends for us. Hopefully you'll come to like KOFXIII and other 'real' fighters a lot (SSB is fun too).
For some team building advice, most players follow the battery/second/anchor process. The battery (1st) builds meter the best, the second is as advertised, and the anchor (3rd) I want to say is considered your strongest/last stand/can and will use the built metere the best character. Way I see it though, since every character has his or her strenghs, you don't necessarily need to follow that process. As with any fighter, the most skilled will beat out the less skilled.
King and Maxima are pretty good. I usually see King as a battery or second, and Maxima can be anywhere. Since I use Kim a lot, I'll say he can be an excellent starter, once you take advantage of all his tools. Others I might recommend for good starters are Clark (if you like grapplers), Takuma, Mature, Athena, or Yuri. Opinions will vary, but best thing you can do is look more for a character that clicks with you, like I assume King and Maxima did with you; the rest will work itself out later.
Keep our website's wiki in mind for learning about the characters too.