Rick Jones (comics)
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Richard Milhous "Rick" Jones is a fictional character by Marvel Comics. He is presumed to have been named after Richard Milhous Nixon. Although not strictly a super hero, Rick has appeared in nearly 400 comic books. He first appeared in The Incredible Hulk #1.
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History
Rick Jones's career might be summed up as "professional sidekick". He has acted as a sidekick to the incredible Hulk, Captain America, Captain Marvel (Mar-Vell), Rom, and Captain Marvel (Genis).
Early days with the Hulk and the Avengers
Rick lost his parents at a young age and grew up at an orphanage. He first gained notoriety when he accepted a dare to drive out to a bomb testing ground in New Mexico. As luck would have it, the gamma bomb that had been designed by Bruce Banner was being tested on that day. Dr. Banner and pushed Rick into a protective trench, but he absorbed the gamma rays that first transformed him into the incredible Hulk.
Rick's guilt over the incident (and lack of any other place to go) led him to stay close to Dr. Banner and his alter-ego. He spent some time as the sidekick of the Hulk, even gaining mental control over him for a time, but eventually the Hulk's dangerous unpredictability forced Rick to keep his distance from him. When Iron Man, Ant Man, and Thor were brought together to capture the Hulk as part of an evil plan of Loki, Rick formed the Teen Brigade, a loose network of teenagers with ham radios scattered throughout the United States. Loki's plan backfired, leading to the formation of the Avengers, which the Hulk was briefly a member of.
After the Hulk's departure from the team, Rick remained close to the Avengers, even earning a position as an honorary Avenger, and he became close to the recently revived Captain America. Jones' guilt soon led him to seek out Banner and the Hulk again, although he later rejoined Captain America. Captain America trained Rick, briefly allowing him to take the title and uniform of Bucky, Cap's long-dead partner. This only lasted briefly, but Jones would make use of the training many times throughout his career.
Captain Marvel (Mar-Vell)
Shortly after his split with Cap, Rick joined together with the Kree Captain Mar-Vell when he found himself drawn toward the Nega-Bands. When he placed on the Bands, this linked him to Captain Marvel. Once joined, one of them would remain in a protective bubble within the Negative Zone until the other stuck the Nega-Bands together, which would cause the two to switch bodies.
Soon after joining with Mar-Vell, Rick played a critical part in the Kree-Skrull War. Partway through these events, Mar-Vell was released from the Negative Zone, breaking the bond between the two. At the height of the conflict, the Kree Supreme Intelligence briefly unleashed the Destiny Force from within Rick, which he used to summon images of various Golden Age heroes. While at full power, Rick single-handedly stopped both the Kree and Skrull fleets long enough to put an end to the conflict. However, injuries that Rick had sustained led to Mar-Vell to join bodies with him again in order to save him.
Jones and Mar-Vell served as a duo for several years while Rick pursued both his musical career and his love life, but the two were eventually freed from their pairing and placed in the "normal" universe. Shortly thereafter Rick again began to spend his time with the Hulk, and he even briefly formed a new Teen Brigade. Shortly after Rick had returned to the Hulk, Mar-Vell died of radiation-caused cancer. Ironically, Rick himself contracted cancer shortly thereafter when trying to turn himself into a second Hulk.
Shortly after he contracted cancer, Rick served as a sidekick to the Galadorian spaceknight Rom during the height of the conflict with the Dire Wraiths. Shortly after the Wraiths were banished from Earth, the Beyonder cured Rick's cancer and briefly granted him super powers.
Further encounters with the Hulk
Rick quickly was at the side of Dr. Banner and the Hulk once again, but this time Rick was taken over by the personality of the Savage Hulk. Banner was soon transformed into the Grey Hulk. Banner and the Grey Hulk were manipulated by Sam Sterns into siphoning the radiation from Rick into Sterns, turning Sterns back into the Leader and drastically altering his appearance.
Rick stayed with Banner and the Grey Hulk (along with Betty Banner and Clay Quartermain) for several months as they traveled the country looking for a government supply of gamma bombs. The group divided up once again after the apparent death of the Hulk at the hands of the Leader.
During this time, Rick authored the book "Sidekick" about the time that he had spent with super-heroes. While on a book tour, he met Marlo Chandler, not realizing that she had only recently broken up with the Hulk. (She had not realized this either; their relationship happened while the Hulk had been acting as a Las Vegas leg breaker under the alias of "Mr. Fixit".) Rick was kidnapped by a Skrull vessel, but the Hulk aided in Rick's rescue, and this started another period where Rick and the Hulk stayed together, this time with Marlo and Betty.
Rick came in touch with death in several ways during this time with the Hulk. First, Rick himself died thanks to the Mad Titan Thanos, who killed half of the universe using the Infinity Gauntlet in order to impress Death. Rick and the others who had died were brought back to life in the ensuing events.
Rick's second major encounter with death occurred when Jackie Shorr came into his life, claiming to be his mother. (It is still not known for sure whether this claim is true or not: Shorr has made this claim of several individuals, although she insists that they were only substitues for Rick.) Shorr was discovered to be insane, but not until she had already killed Marlo. Rick found a way to bring her back using a resurrection device known as the "deus ex machina" that the Leader had developed, but the Hulk destroyed the equipment partway through the process, leaving Marlo in a catatonic state. Fortunately, Rick's tender care eventually helped Marlo return to normal.
Shortly after Marlo returned to life, the two became engaged and quickly married. However, neither of them realized that a portion of Death (the same being that Thanos had tried to impress) remained in Marlo. This piece of Death attracted many strange visitors to the wedding, including Mephisto and Death herself.
The married couple soon found success in a popular talk show called "Keeping Up with the Joneses", but this was cut short when Rick was crippled by the Hulk, who had been separated from Banner and transformed into the Biblical horseman War. The injury was serious enough that Rick was confined to a wheelchair, unable to walk. Rick's difficulty in dealing with this strained his relationship with Marlo, and this only worsened after the tragic death of Betty Banner due to radiation poisoning. The two split up shortly after the funeral for Betty.
Rick briefly joined again with Dr. Banner after Banner's reappearance, but he developed serious health problems and had to be brought by the Avengers to the now-captive Supreme Intelligence for aid. This marked the beginning of the Destiny War, and over the course of these events Rick's injury was healed and he was joined with the son of Mar-Vell, Genis, who had recently taken on the title of Captain Marvel.
Captain Marvel (Genis)
Rick's connection with Genis was not quite the same as the one he had with Mar-Vell. Physically, the switch took place in much the same way, but rather than switching to and from the Negative Zone, one party would find themself in the microverse, formerly the home of the Hulk's girlfriend Jarella. In addition, Rick, now with quite a bit of experience on his own, took much more of a role as a mentor with Genis, guiding him as he became a super-hero and learned to control his cosmic awareness. As Rick's confidence grew, he also attempted to restart his relationship with Marlo.
It was during this time that Marlo's connection with Death was finally revealed. Thanos presented some aid in separating the two, but in the process Rick was prematurely aged and lost one of his arms. Shortly thereafter, he was yanked back in time to the Destiny War, where Rick aided his slightly younger self in the conflict that led to his initially joining with Genis.
Marlo tried to aid the elderly Rick the way he had helped her when she was catatonic, but Rick's pride again created problems. The Supreme Intelligence tried a method that should have restored Rick to his normal condition, but it apparently failed. Shortly thereafter, Rick was apparently spontaneously restored to his normal age and his arm was replaced. Rick believed this was divine aid; Genis held the more cynical view that it was a delayed reaction to the Supreme Intelligence's procedure. No definite cause for this has been identified.
Rick and Genis were yanked back and forth through time, where Rick encountered two older versions of himself: One was an aging collector surviving under the rule of the Maestro, whereas the other was a super-villain named Thanatos who was intending to create the "ultimate Rick Jones". Thanatos was stopped, but it is unclear as to whether Rick will still become either of these older selves.
Rick and Marlo again split up when Marlo became romantically involved with Moondragon. Shortly after this occurred, Genis' cosmic awareness reached its peak, causing Genis to go insane. Although Rick continued to try to guide Genis, he did not listen, and quickly became a callous, homicidal maniac who believed that he was a god. Genis even went as far as to destroy the universe (although he allowed Rick to survive this) and rebuild it, but in the rebuilt reality Genis again lost his mind. Rick developed an ability to mentally attack Genis through the Nega-Bands, but Genis turned the tables and killed Rick on a whim, but he managed to bring him back to life shortly thereafter.
In part due to Rick's influence, Genis' madness calmed to a point where he was able to maintain a veneer of sanity, but he was still somewhat unpredictable. He created a recording studio for Rick, earning him a large sum of money through Internet-based sales of a song that he had written for Marlo. This song also provided the catalyst for the two to reunite again, and Marlo broke off her relationship with Moondragon.
In a surreal chain of events stemming from Rick's awareness that the Captain Marvel comic series was ending, Rick and Genis were separated again. Rick was reunited with Marlo at last report.
Partial appearance list
This list is not intended to be complete. Rather, this list is intended to indicate time periods where Rick frequently appeared throughout a series of issues of a book. There may be other issues in which Rick appeared that are not listed, and there may be a handful of individual issues within a specific series that Rick did not appear in. For a detailed and complete appearance list, see the Marvel Chronology Project (http://www.chronologyproject.com/j.htm#JONES).
- The Incredible Hulk (first series) #1-6
- The Avengers (first series) #1-17, 89-100
- Tales to Astonish #68-92
- The Incredible Hulk (second series) #103-106, 245-282, 319-346, 373-419, 441-470 (intermittently)
- Captain America #110-118
- Captain Marvel (first series) #17-62
- Marvel Spotlight #1-3 (continuing the story of Captain Marvel)
- Marvel Graphic Novel #1: The Death of Captain Marvel
- Rom #54-72
- Avengers Forever (mini-series) #1-12
- Captain Marvel (third series) #0-35
- Captain Marvel (fourth series) #1/36-25/60
Other notes
- Rick has been a regular or recurring character in numerous series from Marvel, including The Avengers, Captain America, two or three Captain Marvel series (depending on how you choose to count them), Rom, the Avengers Forever mini-series, and, most commonly, The Incredible Hulk (and the related Tales to Astonish).
- When Marvel characters are being "matched" to their equivalents in DC Comics, Rick is, therefore, usually associated with the Justice League of America's former mascot Snapper Carr. Rick shared his form with Captain Mar-Vell, in homage to the character's DC Comics namesake.
- When Rick first appeared at the gamma bomb test site, he was playing a harmonica. It was later established that he had been playing the song "That'll Be the Day" by Buddy Holly.
- During Jones' most recent string of appearances in The Incredible Hulk, a fan campaign was started to give Rick Jones his own trading card. Although this campaign (which for a long time consisted of one persistent individual) was less than successful, Jones did receive a Marvel value stamp in the back of one issue of the Incredible Hulk. Also, a baseball card of Jones (along with cards of Marlo, Betty, and the Hulk) was printed on a page of an issue of The Incredible Hulk in which the Hulk briefly joins a baseball team.
- In the alternate future that the Maestro comes from, Rick has a great-grandaughter named Janis. Rick has chosen the name himself, naming her after Janis Joplin. In the present, Rick has not yet had any children. However, one version of Janis traveled back in time to shortly before the time Rick was handicapped by the War Hulk, and she is still believed to be in this time period.
- Thanatos originally appeared in Spider-Man 2099. It was only established years after the series was cancelled that Thanatos was actually Rick Jones. Thanatos' plan to create the "ultimate Rick Jones" author Peter David's attempt poke fun at the Ultimate Marvel universe. Shortly after this story finished, another issue of Captain Marvel had the cover text The Ultimate Captain Marvel, and it imitated the cover style of the Ultimate books.
- Much as both Captain Marvels have shown a "cosmic awareness", Rick is said to have a "comics awareness", and he is able to recognize the fact that he is within a comic book, although he has only once directly acknowledged this fact. When the most recent Captain Marvel series had its last issue, Rick was able to use this ability to tell that the series was coming to an end, and he pushed for several of the loose ends of the series to be resolved. This ability was primarily created for the needs of this one issue, and it seems unlikely that it will see future usage.
Links
- Marvel Chronology Project (http://chronologyproject.com)'s Rick Jones (http://www.chronologyproject.com/j.htm#JONES) listing.
- Profile (http://marvelite.prohosting.com/surfer/cmarvel/rickjones.html) of Rick Jones.