Jack of Hearts has never been the most popular character. He’s never had a truly memorable storyline to propel him into stardom, he’s probably not going to be making an appearance in any of the Marvel movies, and right now it seems like he’s dead, unless someone brought him back to life and I missed it.
All of which is a frickin’ shame, because he has one of the most lovingly rendered costumes in all of Marvel history.
Jack of Hearts occasionally turns up in Fwoosh conversations where he usually splits the fandom right in two as to their affinity towards his rather outrageous attire. I’ve got a dirty little secret that I’m going to share with you: I will absolutely judge your comic fanhoodshipness by your reaction to his costume. Because to me, Jack of Hearts has the most “comic book” costume of any costume out there. It is a costume that would never be created for any other medium other than comic books. He’s a walking example of four-color draftsmanship that is completely unafraid and unashamed to be a comic book character. There is no reason for him to dress that way. He does it for the pure unadulterated awesomeness that comes from wearing the physical manifestation of a deck of cards vomiting all over you, and it’s fantastic.
We’ve had a bit of a paradigm shift lately where we’ve seen characters like Machine Man and Hellcat receive action figures. For me this has opened up a tiny little door to other characters that, while I may openly champion, I usually doubt have much of a chance. But maybe, just maybe, Jack of Hearts could have a shot. There’s really nothing there that’s hard to put together. He’s mostly a bunch of Bucky Cap parts with a new head and that funky shoulder-piece. Hasbro loves the low fuss characters that can be achieved with some overlays and a little shiny paint.
While there have been attempt to tone down the outrageous “comic book-ness” of his costume over the years, I say if you’re going to throw down a Jack of Hearts, then you might as well go all in with the chips and other poker metaphors I won’t bore you with. I don’t need or want a toned-down Jack; I want hearts and arrows and wavy lines and random squares and the whole shebang.
Quite a few years ago Bowen made a bust that showed how stunning Jack looks when given the proper love and attention. If you bring that four-color magic into 3D, you can really drink in all the nuances of his design. Drag that into a computer program and spit out a swanky overlay that can be popped onto a stock Bucky Cap body, and you’ve got a hell of a showpiece waiting to be popped onto some upcoming Avengers wave.
Forget the fact that it would give me another notch in my “characters that teamed up with Spidey in the Marvel Team-Up comic.”
What’s that you say? I have another fetish he would sate?
Oh yes, he would also make a superb addition to my “characters that teamed up with Thing in Marvel Two-In-One.” Now if I could get a good Thing to go along with him, I’d be in business.
We speak of toyetic a lot, and here we have Jack of Hearts, one of the most toyetic designs to ever spill from an artist’s fingers, and yet he has had absolutely no representation in action figure form beyond the whims of customizers. Not even the 4-inch line was able to pay him his due. We’re resting at the perfect point in time for a character like Jack of Hearts, whose cult value and great design would make him an underdog favorite among the true comic fans. He’ll never be a cinematic hero, but then, he was never meant to be. He’s just a dude in a colorful costume. And that’s enough for me.