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Today, we look at how Jack of Hearts has returned to life in the Marvel Universe…over a decade after…returning to life in the Marvel Universe.
In Death is not the End, we spotlight the outlandish explanations for comic book characters (mostly super-villains) surviving seeming certain death.
In Timeless #1 (by Jed MacKay, Greg Land, Jay Leisten, Marte Gracia and Ariana Maher), there is one of those classic bits where there are glimpses of the future of the Marvel Universe, which are obviously actually just quick previews of future plots in each of a variety of books (it’s such a clever idea that it gets used ALL OF THE TIME, but, again, that’s because it is such a good idea. You get to hype up future comics while having it be this big cosmic premonition)…
One of those bits is a hint that Jack of Hearts might be coming back to life and sure enough, at the end of She-Hulk #1 (by Rainbow Russell, Roge Antonio, Rico Renzi and Joe Caramagna), She-Hulk sees Jack of Hearts returned to life, which is quite traumatic for Jennifer Walters because she was not only there when he exploded Ant-Man into charred bits, it was right before She-Hulk herself was manipulated into losing control, a very traumatic experience in many ways…
Here’s the thing, though…Jack of Hearts has been alive in the Marvel Universe for over a decade!
HOW DID JACK OF HEARTS DIE?
Jack of Hearts was a superhero who could control a vast amount of energy, but the problem was that he really couldn’t control it very well at all. After he had joined the Avengers, his control over the energy worsened and he had to go into a special containment unit for hours on end, until Hank Pym revealed he was going to have to start spending 14 hours a day in the unit, which he just couldn’t deal with. Even the lesser amount of hours in the unit were taking a toll on his mental health, as he was starting to lash out at everyone around him because he was so angry over his situation.
One person he lashed out the most at was Scott Lang, who had recently decided to join the Avengers and Jack of Hearts put his own feelings of frustration firmly on Scott’s shoulders, hating him for having it “easy” while Jack had to go though so much strife in his life.
Things came to a head, though, in Avengers #76 (by Geoff Johns, Steve Sadowski and Andrew Currie), when Scott’s daughter, Cassie, was kidnapped by a lunatic and when Scott tied to save her, the bad guy shot him. Jack of Hearts showed up with his energy levels at dangerous levels and he decided that this was it. He grabbed the bad guy and decided he was going to avenge the daughter that this guy hurt and flew into outer space with him…
Once in outer space, that energy led to a giant explosion, presumably killing Jack of Hearts…
However, his body wasn’t outright destroyed in the explosion, leaving the possibility that he might have somehow survived it all, as the dude’s body IS sort of made out of energy, ya know?
Okay, so now here’s the weird bit. In Avengers #500 (by Brian Michael Bendis, David Finch and Danny Miki), a sort of zombie version of Jack of Hearts returned to Avengers Mansion, where Scott met him at the gates…
He then exploded, killing Scott…
We later learned that Scarlet Witch had gone insane and she was manipulating all of the events of the storyline. However, that’s a fascinating thing in and of itself, in the sense that a number of the bad guys in the story arc were OUTRIGHT created by Scarlet Witch. In other words, there is a decent chance that the Jack of Hearts who blew up as a zombie was not the ACTUAL Jack of Hearts re-animated and it is quite possible that she just created a zombie version of Jack of Hearts out of whole cloth.
HOW DID JACK OF HEARTS RETURN TO LIFE?
2011’s Marvel Zombies Supreme (by Frank Marraffino, Fernando Blanco, Jason Paz and Chris Chuckry) seemingly told the story of what would happen if a group of soldiers specially trained to take down superhuman targets (with an assist from Battlestar, John Walker’s old partner from when Walker was Captain America) ran into zombie versions of the Squadron Supreme at Project: Pegasus…
In reality, these were very realistic clones made based on the Squadron’s bodies and minds and then empowered by zeta rays from space…
And, of course, things went horribly wrong…
At one point, the soldiers hole up with some of the remaining scientists at the Project along with a projector where we learn that the mad scientist behind this whole thing had discovered that he had access something other than Zeta rays…
In the second issue, things were looking pretty dire, so the solders basically said, “Screw it, whatever this projector can do my help us” and turned it on…
and we see that Jack of Hearts’ energy had been re-collected by the machine and it re-corporealizing him…
Jack of Hearts then promptly fainted, at which point in the fourth issue, we saw the unit leader explain that she knows all about Jack of Hearts and that she blamed him “falling apart” (i.e exploding) on him not having a specific mission to concentrate on and thus his mind essentially began to wander…
It’s at this point that we see a recap of his whole comic book life and it ends with his body floating in space after the explosion in Avengers #76…
So this suggests that whatever Scarlet Witch did in Avengers Disassembled, it didn’t actually involve Jack of Hearts literal body, which makes SOME sense, as why would he be a zombie otherwise?
Anyhow, eventually her words got through to him and Jack of Hearts came to and helped defeat the zombie Squadron…
Now, don’t get me wrong, She-Hulk #1 didn’t say for sure that Jack of Hearts JUST came back to life, so perhaps it will acknowledge that Jack has been back for a while now, so we shall see in the next issue of She-Hulk!
If anyone else has a suggestion for a future Death is not the End, drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com!
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