With some of the heavy hitters of the Marvel Universe moving out of the way, some of the lower-tier characters are quickly shifting upwards in my priorities. Not that niche characters haven’t always been of utmost importance to me, but now that I have excellent figures of such characters as Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, Hulk and Colossus, I have more room to spread the love around.
And that’s where a character like Jack of Hearts comes in.
I like the character, that is without question, but my primary interest in Jack of Hearts is that costume. It is a beautiful, colorful, insane, lovingly designed bit of pure comic book badassery that is as impractical as it is gorgeous, as batshit insane as it is eye-catching.
Everything about that costume screams out to be unleashed into the world of plastic. It is unafraid to be bold and loud and bright and primary. The swoops and swirls, the arrows, the hearts; you kind of have to feel a certain amount of sympathy for the artist that has to draw that costume over and over in a comic.
Jack of Hearts has appeared here and there over the course of his career. He first appeared in the Deadly hands of Kung Fu comic, which is an odd place for a character like this, and was initially an antagonist to White Tiger. But he later went on to spend some time alongside Iron Man, where he learned how to be a hero. During this general time he went on to be a “guest star” type of character, popping up here and there whenever writers remembered he existed. He had his own limited series, and much like other lower-tier characters showed up alongside anybody that needed a secondary Marvel hero to show up.
Like a lot of Marvel heroes, there’s a bit of tragedy in the life of Jack of Hearts. The accident that gave him his powers made it so that he is required to wear a containment suit. A beautiful, beautiful containment suit that everybody else looked at with great envy.
Capable of existing unprotected in space, Jack of Hearts has spent some time as a cosmic character, teaming up with such cosmic entities such as the Silver Surfer, among others.
He has, like so many, died and come back a handful of times. But that’s pretty much standard hero initiation in the Marvel Universe. I think he’s currently dead, but his death was stupid and was probably undone. Or not. I have no idea, but the Marvel Zombies thing was involved. Status: unknown.
Much of what would make up a Jack of Hearts figure is already in place. The bootcuffs are done, the Green Goblin arms and legs are already in place. Much of his torso can be taken care of in overlays on a ready-made base body.
Jack has had a few variations on his costume, some making an attempt at toning down the Jack of Heartsness of it all, but my feelings are that you lean into the costume. You lean in with everything you have, and make Jack of Hearts the most awesome looking and colorful action figure the world has ever seen. In other words, you don’t put sunglasses on dynamite. That is probably not one of those sayings that will ever catch on, but it is still applicable.
