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Jack of Hearts #2

Feb 1984
Bill Mantlo, George Freeman

Story Name:

Heart to Heart


Synopsis

Jack of Hearts #2 synopsis by Peter Silvestro
Rating: 4 stars

Jack of Hearts carries Marcy Kane far from the mansion, to hide out in the Maine wilderness…

…while SHIELD Agent Marins reports to Nick Fury what happened, while answering Smythe, the Hart Estate trustee’s, questions about Jack predicament. And Fury is furious to learn that they have no idea where Jack is….

Jack asks Marcy for her story, as she had mentioned “his mother’s people” though Marcy did not know his mom. Marcy reveals that she, like his mother, is an alien from another world. She employs a telecrrystal to show him his secret heritage: Jack’s mother was born on the planet Contraxia, a paradise governed by the Sun Priestesses, who announced that their sun, and therefore, their world, was dying. Commander Varga had a plan to save the Contraxians: to find another world to move to which could support life. The problem was, the Sun Priestesses had thought of this but found that all suitable worlds were inhabited and the Priestesses’ moral code would not allow genocide, even to save Contraxia, and the people agreed. So the next plan was to send emissaries in disguise to these worlds to discover whether any had a power source capable of revitalizing their sun. And here, Jack learns that his mother was one such Contraxian scientist who discovered his father’s experiments with Zero-Fluid were a likely source of power. But hey fell in love and bore a son, Jack, before she perished in an auto accident. Seeing this event before his eyes causes Jack to emit a power blast, though it could not do anything…

…except alert both SHIELD and Commander Varga as to his whereabouts…

…while Marcy concludes the story by explaining that his exposure to Zero-Fluid brought out his latent alien powers. She also admits his suspicions were true: that she was his mother’s replacement, assigned to bring back Jack and the Zero-Fluid, but something happened and she fell in love with him….

Varga and his saucers plus foot soldiers pursue Jack and Marcy, while revealing that Smythe was also a Contraxian spy out to get the capture Jack. The saucers attack Jack and Marcy in Portsmouth, wreaking havoc in that city. Marcy is beamed aboard Varga’s ship against her will, and Jack is seized by a huge robot. But then Nick Fury, Dum Dum Dugan and the SHIELD forces arrive to battle the invaders. Jack marshals all of his power and quickly takes down all of the alien forces, soldiers, weapons, ships, and…then Jack discovers he has laid waste the town. In his anger he pursues the retreating ships and shoots them down over wilderness, likewise devastating it. He pursues the last remaining ship back to its reunion with the mother ship. Marcy appears to him, asking him not to be so hard on Varga, whose actions were motivated by concern for Contraxia. And now she pleads with Jack to choose to use his power to help an alien world. And out of love for her, he agrees, boarding the mother ship for its flight across the galaxy….

And on Earth, Nick Fury wraps up Project Hart and wishes good luck to Jack of Hearts….



 

Review / Commentaries


Jack of Hearts #2 Review by (September 10, 2024)

Review: Aaaaand everything changes. This guy who fell into a vat of sci-fi goop and got superpowers? With a college sweetheart who wants to help him? He’s half alien and his gal is an emissary from a far-distant planet come to ask him to reignite a sun and save another world. Yeah, never saw that coming. And Spider-Man, in whose comic Marcy Kane appeared for years without ever suggesting she was anything more than a humorless grad student, would be floored (or is he ceilinged?) by the revelation. Mantlo’s plotting is very nice, though the art isn’t the greatest, it serves its purpose. So after all the rocketship and raygun activity, we say farewell to Earth and head for…issue #3.

Comments: Letterer Jack Morelli credited as John Morelli.



> Jack of Hearts comic book info and issue index

Elektra

Excelsioring your collection:
statue
Holy smokes, Batman!
(The Boy Wonder)

George Freeman
George Freeman
Nick Burns
George Freeman (Cover Penciler)
? (Cover Inker)
? (Cover Colorist)
Additional Credits
Letterer: Jack Morelli.

Characters

Listed in Alphabetical Order.

Dum Dum Dugan
Dum Dum Dugan

(Timothy Aloysius Dugan)
Jack of Hearts
Jack of Hearts

(Jonathan Hart)
Nick Fury
Nick Fury

(Nicholas Fury)

Plus: Marcy Kane (Kaina).