Jack-in-the-Box (Astro City)
Jack-in-the-Box is a male comic superhero who features in Astro City.
Contents |
Biography
Jack Johnson was an African-American male who had been an inventive genius and among the first to break the color barrier in the toy manufacturing industry in the early 1960s which won him a job with the 'Whamco corporation. Though he faced pay discrimination in comparison to his white colleagues, his true disillusionment came with the discovery that Whamco was exploiting his inventions for criminal purposes. His protests merely resulted in the termination of his employment in 1964, together with the kidnapping of his father to ensure his silence. Jack fought back by adapting his inventions into a personal arsenal and taking on the secret identity of the clown-costumed hero Jack-in-the-Box, in which guise he freed his father and other hostages and eventually exposed Whamco's criminal operations. By this time an established superhero, he continued his double life.
Over the years, Johnson fought supervillains such as Steeljack, organized crime figures like the Underlord, and common criminals. Meanwhile, in civilian life, he established his own independent toy company, married and had a son, Zachary Johnson. For several years, he balanced his responsibilities to his family, career and heroic mission successfully, keeping his son and possibly even his wife ignorant of his secret identity. But his luck ran out in 1983, during a conflict with the villainous Underlord. He ended his career as he began it, rescuing innocents held hostage by criminals, knowingly entering a trap set by his enemy to do so. Caught in an explosion, his fate was a mystery, with the authorities and media speculating both that he might have been killed and that he might have escaped. As time passed and Jack-in-the-Box did not reappear, hope for his survival dimmed, though it was thought that he had at least taken his enemy down with him.
Overview
Personality and attributes
Powers and abilities
Jack-in-the-Box has no superhuman powers or unique abilities in the vein of Samaritan and Winged Victory, he instead is an extraordinarily self-taught accomplished athlete and acrobat, capable of midair maneuvers to combat flying opponents, and even to dodge aerial explosions. He displays impressive agility that often allows him to dodge and evade almost any given attack. He has demonstrated to have a deductive mind and giftedness in inventions and engineering, he was also considered a talented toy designer, and he's able to maintain and augment the arsenal of gimmicks and devices inherited from his father and to utilize them expertly in the furtherance of his crimefighting career. He is also fond of wisecracks and wordplay.
Jack-in-the-Box's basic arsenal consists of his "footapaults", "handsprings", entangling streamers and "electro-noses" and other toy-themed gadgets and weaponry. His footapaults are telescoping boots capable of catapulting him into the air and leaping him rapidly through and over a variety of terrains and urban environments. (Sometimes, covers will show them also acting as stilts, while the actual stories only portray them as being used to make leaps.) Similarly, his handsprings are telescoping gloves that extend his reach and grip (and punch). He can also project from them a multicolored plastic solution that solidifies on contact with the air into streamers and can be used to impede and ensnare his foes. His "electro-noses" are rubber clown noses which, when deftly applied to an opponent's face, delivers a jolt from a built-in electroshock weapon, knocking the recipient unconscious.
Jack also carries a purse-like satchel which may carry other devices or equipment as necessary, such as a freezing device he once jerry-rigged from some air compressors and cans of refrigerant. While the first Jack-in-the-Box stories always showed both Jacks with this satchel, current Astro City stories show the original Jack without it, suggesting a retcon which makes the satchel an add-on by Zachary.
Notes
- Jack-in-the-Box was created by Kurt Busiek, Brent Anderson and Alex Ross where he made his first appearance in Astro City v1 #3 (October, 1995).
Appearances
- Astro City v1: (1995)
External Links
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