• When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.

Video Jack

0
David Swan1

743 views

Based on number of journal views it seems like a lot of people are losing (or never had) interest in Mr. A so I'm switching to something else. I'll return to Mr. A later.

Video Jack was a six issue limited series from 1987 published under Marvel's EPIC line. Keith Giffen and Cary Bates are given co creator and plotting credits with Bates doing the scripting and Giffen the penciling. I would have been 17 when the comic first came out.

The story opens in the town of Hickory Haven with the discovery of a young girls murdered body found stashed in a tree. Afterwards we are introduced to our main protagonist Jack Swift and his less than savory best friend Damon Xarnett. Jack asks a girl named Doreen to his house telling her he just got cable hooked up and his VCR is back from the shop. He suggests an evening of Max Headroom and Back to the Future. Mind you this is not some throwback to the 80's. Max Headroom was literally on the air when this comic was published and Back to the Future, released in 1985, would have been a popular rental. Doreen declines saying when she wanted Jack to ask her out the operative word was OUT.

Let me go through this quickly. Damon's uncle Zach is into melding black magic and technology and comes up with a plan to change Hickory Haven into the town from "It's a Wonderful Life" using a VCR, a huge satellite dish and planetary alignment. He just cannot stand what Hickory Haven has become over the years and wants to change it into an idealized form. Unfortunately for him, on the way home from the video store he gets attacked by the same serial killer who did in the young girl and is left bleeding in an alley. Jack is flipping through channels when the cosmic alignment occurs and rather than getting "It's a Wonderful Life" Hickory Haven is transformed into MTV, kinda.

* to younger readers: MTV used to be a music video channel not whatever it is today.

In issue 2 Jack leaves his home but as he walks through the front door his clothes change into stereotypical 80's attire with fingerless gloves, jeans, studded wristbands and radical glasses. Also his dog Kojak has become an intelligent puffball with googly eyes. Jack discovers a wall of static that he suspects is the boundary of Hickory Haven. His mother arrives sporting a shaved head and green lipstick and sentences him to BR duty. Turns out BR duty is Book Reading duty which seems a weird punishment since books are apparently verboten. While reading Huckleberry Finn, Jack is interrupted by a group of M.T.V.'s (Mobile Tactical Vanguard -- see the cover of issue 2) who accuse him of having a book. Jack flees and comes across Doreen who is naturally all 80's upped. Here it becomes apparent that Hickory Haven didn't merely transform, it somehow has an entire history as if it was always this way. So far Jack appears to be the only one aware that the town has changed. Doreen knows Jack but she knows the MTV version of Jack as if he has been RADICAL all his life. We also find out Uncle Zach survived his encounter with the serial killer.

Jack makes his way into some ventilation system and arrives at an abandoned library where people are "audioizing" books. I'm not sure if this is seen as terrible but given the fact that we have so many audio and digital books nowadays the future appears to be now. It turns out the M.T.V.'s work for someone called "his awesomeness" and Jack makes his way to Damon's house to get help. Damon's room is now blank white as if separated from reality and Damon (now with a perpetual shadow across his face and a massive toothy grin) sits holding a remote. It turns out Damon and his awesomeness are one and the same.

I was hooked on Video Jack when I bought it in 1987. It has a cool 80's vibe with lots of pop references and it felt like a story where anything can happen. There was intrigue, humor, awesome 80's style and some wonderful Keith Giffen artwork. Giffen is interesting in that his art went through a dramatic change and Video Jack is from his coolest most stylized period. Unfortunately Giffen was going through a tough time in 1987 following an article in The Comic Journal accusing him or cribbing his art style from an artist named Jose Muñoz, an accusation he sorta accepted as true. Personally I don't care because I loved Giffen's art but he later backed off and developed a more sedate style.

When I originally bought these comics I purchased the first three issues and STOPPED. Why? I honestly don't remember but it wasn't until decades later that I bought the last three issues and sadly discovered they were way below the standard set by the first three. I will continue with issues 3 and 4 in a later journal.

13544.thumb.JPG.9b096c86746e033da773ae8230b935e7.JPG

To see old comments for this Journal entry, click here. New comments can be added below.

0



0 Comments


Recommended Comments

There are no comments to display.

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now