THE PRAISE OF ANTIHEROES: A SIGN OF SOCIETY IN DESPAIR? ENTER: GAMMA JACK—a superhero at the head of an adoring fanclub, whose dubious morals and lethal abilities have landed him on a government watchlist. a walking, talking atom bomb with an ego big enough to match his status. professional womanizer and recreational rage-baiter.
HISTORY. DEVELOPMENT. VERSES. PINTEREST.
NOTE. ok i’ll say it: media literacy is dead when it comes to gamma jack. i’ve seen a lot of bad-faith interpretations of this character in fanon. i’ve also seen incredible woobification. this is not a fanon-compliant interpretation in either direction. i’m not portraying jack as a would-be h*melander, nor as superhero baby boy jesus christ himself. this is going to be a nuanced take based on my own interpretation of what little lore is available. gamma jack is a troubled hero who was put on a pedestal and conditioned into godhood; exploited by his government so that he, in turn, would not exploit them; and whose morality exists on the spectrum of good and bad—not innocent and evil. also hi you know me. i like taking the piss out of blond white dudes and holding their flaws under a microscope xx
NAME. JONATHAN ALBERHASKY.
NICKNAMES. JACK, HASKY. rarely, if ever, john.
ALIAS. GAMMA JACK. formerly known as handsome jack.
AGE. early-to-late 20s (arc i); 30+ (arc ii); dead by 39.
STATUS. deceased. killed in combat by the omnidroid v.6.
note. what name or nickname your muse calls him by is situationally dependent. in a civilian context, strangers call him jonathan and friends call him jack or hasky. in a professional context, he is typically referred to as gamma jack—though many people still remember him as handsome jack, and some use it as a derogatory nickname.
OCCUPATION. superhero (arc i); bounces around middle- to upper-management positions in various fields, never keeping any one job for long (arc ii).
SEXUALITY. closeted bisexual. famous womanizer; secret maneater.
RELATIONSHIP STATUS. officially? single. unofficially? chronic situationship haver. committed to commitment issues.
CHILDREN. none; sterile due to radiation exposure.
[ NSA RECORDING OF GAMMA JACK, c.1946. ] yeah, i fought my fair share of villains, and they all have their own unique challenges. you know, they got their monkeys, and their giant laser robots, and their super aquatic ninjas. but i tell ya, once in a while, the real kicker is i get these dames, man. these dame villains. [ ... ]
ACCENT. none. puts on a curious northeastern / boston elite accent while masquerading as gamma jack. ( think jfk. )
HAIR. naturally a dirty, mousy blond. dyed golden blond for the entire duration of his superhero career. loose waves. mid-length. well-maintained as gamma jack; disheveled in his civilian life.
FACIAL HAIR. clean shaven (arc i); stubble (arc ii).
EYES. unnatural, highly-saturated green. emit a faint glow around the irises. in his civilian life, he wears specialized brown contacts to preserve his secret identity.
HEIGHT & BUILD. 5'11" / 180cm. obsessively maintains a lean, fit physique. visible muscle definition.
[ ... ] they got the curves, and the hair, and the big eyes, and boy! those ones, uh, they're really hard to kill. especially the ones where they come up and they're looking at you, and you're looking at them, and you feel that simpatico, you know? like, uh, she's diggin' you and you're diggin' her diggin' you—and, boy, you gotta take a jog around the block real quick and sorta get your concentration back. compose yourself, 'cuz you know, you can't get distracted by these sort of thoughts when you're going up against a super villain. [ ... ]
DEFINING TRAITS. EGOTISTICAL. PRAGMATIC. CUNNING. DISCIPLINED. CHARISMATIC. INTELLIGENT. FLIRTATIOUS. CONFIDENT. MALICIOUS. PLAYFUL. VAIN.
MENTAL. high intellect and narcissistic tendencies.
known for his stage-presence, crowd work, and PR skills.
uses flirtation as a manipulation tactic.
loves a bit of fun (especially at the height of his career, during which he is young and prone to immaturity).
tends toward provocation. he's going to say whatever he needs to say to get a rise out of someone.
in a world where superheroes are regarded as gods, jack has come to believe that meta-humans are superior to their human counterparts. this is a catastrophic character flaw that will bite him in the ass later xx
MORALITY. grey. a quintessential antihero whose ego and cynicism erode his morality. he believes in saving people, yes—but because supers are intrinsically "better than" humans and thus have an obligation to defend their weaker peers. it's a textbook case of saviourism. he also does not hesitate to kill, as he believes it to be an unavoidable byproduct of the job: an inevitable outcome that he neither laments nor enjoys.
[ ... ] that's one of the hard parts of the job, you know? when you come across, uh, a dame's who's really something to look at, and you just gotta let her have it—she's got to go—cuz she’s a villain. yeah, those are the bad days. [ END RECORDING. ]
ARC I. man, myth, and legend. in the glory days of heroism, supers are venerated as gods on earth. statues are erected in their image; films produced to immortalize their stories; and events held to praise their achievements. gamma jack is a favourite even amongst the favoured, worshipped by a legion of fans who are enamoured with his easy charisma and good looks. behind the public facade, however, jack is not the golden boy he presents to be. he is infamous for his womanizing, questionable ethics, and willingness to kill—or rather, his inability not to. in a post-war world that has come to fear the atom bomb, jack is considered as both a potential threat in need of monitoring and a governmental boon ripe for exploiting. young, vain, and deified to the point of self-delusion, jack is a super who fails at every turn to live up to the ideals of moral perfectionism that have been forced upon him by both private and public institutions.
ARC II. deprive him of his worship and even a god will die. following the super-ban enacted by the united states government, jack is forced into early retirement. in order to isolate him and dissuade any attempts of joint rebellion, he is relocated far away from his former friends and colleagues. jack does not adapt well to civilian life, and lives under the omniscient eye of the NSA. he acts out and gets himself fired from every job he is assigned to, forcing the NSA to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars in order to relocate him and clean up his messes. still, he does not use his powers to harm others—and he does not don the mantle of america's newest super villain, as the government has always feared he one day might. ironically, it is only under the oppressive thumb of this post-super society that he is able to prove that he really is just that: super and not villain.
DEATH. as part of syndrome's systematic culling of superhumans, jack is lured onto nomanisan island—and let's be honest: it doesn't take much. a beautiful woman and an appeal to his starving ego and he's on a plane, ready and willing to relive even a sliver of his glory days. jack is able to destroy the omnidroid v.5 before being killed by its successor, v.6, which was engineered to counter his specific powers. rip gamma jack you got syndromed
jack is a walking nuke. a bomb in a cape. a weapon of mass-destruction dressed up in spandex. his powers are radiation based and fatal by nature. he is a deadly opponent and infamously known to kill those he goes up against—if not during immediate combat, then days, months, or years later, depending on the dose of radiation dealt and the sickness it reaps.
RADIATION BURST. the ability to create controlled bursts of radiation, the effects ranging from burns to complete disintegration within microseconds. detonation can also flatten trees, buildings, and other structures.
SUSTAINED RADIATION EMISSION. when jack is not actively suppressing his radiation output, his cells undergo nuclear decay and release gamma emissions that cause significant biological damage to anything within his immediate radius.
RADIOKINETIC FLIGHT. the ability to levitate and fly. while doing so, jack emits waves of gamma radiation that cause nausea and illness in those within close proximity.
TECHNOLOGY DEGRADATION. exposure to intense radiation causes detrimental failure in high-tech equipment, impairing its effectiveness and/or rendering it obsolete.
PRIVILEGE. no, i'm not kidding. i'm so serious. not an ability as such, but a power nonetheless. only a generically attractive white guy could pull the shit jack pulls and get away with it. his privilege is protection.
correction: jack is a walking glass canon. high offensive power, low defensive capability. powerful and fragile.
RANGE. beyond a radius of 100m, the strength of his power diminishes sharply.
DURABILITY, OR LACK THEREOF. even when in peak physical condition, jack is not any more robust or resilient than an average man. he is stronger than any human, but not as strong as an athletically-inclined super.
ENDURANCE & COOLDOWN. jack is not able to detonate multiple high-intensity explosions in rapid succession. his radiation bursts, while incredibly powerful, require a lot of exertion. consequently, he needs time to recover his stamina—during which time he is particularly vulnerable to oncoming attacks.
EGO. yeah. what it says on the tin.
HISTORY. DEVELOPMENT. VERSES. PINTEREST.
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