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Richard Milhouse "Rick" Jones is a fictional character by Marvel Comics. He is presumed to have been named after Richard Milhous Nixon. Rick Jones's career might be summed up in one word: "super-groupie". He has appeared in nearly 400 comic books. Although not an actual superhero, Rick has acted as a sidekick to the Hulk, Captain America, Captain Marvel (Mar-Vell), Rom, and Captain Marvel (Genis).

History

Rick lost his parents at a young age and grew up at an orphanage. He first appeared in The Incredible Hulk #1. In it, Rick first gains notoriety when he accepts a dare to drive out to a bomb testing ground in New Mexico. As luck would have it, the gamma bomb that had been designed by Dr. Bruce Banner was being tested on that day. Dr. Banner pushed Rick into a protective trench, saving his life but absorbing the gamma rays that first transformed him into the Hulk.

Early days with the Hulk and the Avengers

Rick's guilt over the incident (and lack of any other place to go) led him to stay close to Dr. Banner and his alter-ego. He spent some time as the sidekick of the Hulk. For a time he even gained mental control over the Hulk. Eventually the Hulk's dangerous unpredictability forced Rick to keep his distance. When Iron Man, Ant Man, and Thor were brought together to capture the Hulk as part of an evil plan of Loki, Rick formed the Teen Brigade, a loose network of teenagers with ham radios scattered throughout the United States. Loki's plan backfired, leading to the formation of the Avengers.

After the Hulk's departure from the team, Rick remained close to the Avengers, even earning a position as an honorary Avenger. There, he became close to the recently revived Captain America. Jones' guilt soon led him to seek out Banner and the Hulk again, although he later rejoined Captain America, who trained Rick, and briefly allowed him to take the title and uniform of Bucky, Cap's long-dead partner. This was on Jones' own insistence: Cap continued to have guilty objections, noting that others have lost partners and it was time for the superhero to finally move on. This only lasted briefly, but resulted in Jones having the kind of training that enabled him to survive around superheroes to this day.

Captain Mar-Vell

Shortly after his split with Captain America, Rick joined with the Kree Captain Mar-Vell (Marvel) when he found himself drawn toward the mystical Nega-Bands. When he donned the Bands, he was immediately linked to Captain Marvel. Once joined, one would remain in a protective bubble in the Negative Zone until the other struck the Nega-Bands together or a certain amount of time passed, which would cause the two to switch places.

Soon after joining with Mar-Vell, Rick played a critical part in the Kree-Skrull War. During these events, Mar-Vell was released from the Negative Zone, while Rick was still in the regular world, without the use of the Nega-bands. The bond between the two was broken. At the height of the conflict, the Kree Supreme Intelligence briefly unleashed the Destiny Force from within Rick, which he used to summon images of various Golden Age heroes. While at full power, Rick single-handedly stopped both the Kree and Skrull fleets long enough to put an end to the conflict. Injuries that Rick sustained led Mar-Vell to bond with Rick yet again to save his life.

Jones and Mar-Vell served as a duo for several years while Rick pursued both his musical career and his love life. Eventually, the two were again freed from their bond and both placed in the "normal" universe. Rick again began to spend his time with the Hulk, and he briefly formed a new Teen Brigade. Shortly after Rick returned to the Hulk, Mar-Vell died of radiation-caused cancer. Coincidently, Rick himself contracted cancer shortly after an attempt to turn himself into a second Hulk with gamma radiation.

Shortly after contracting cancer, Rick served as a sidekick to the Galadorian spaceknight Rom during the height of the conflict with the Dire Wraiths. Shortly after the Wraiths were banished from Earth, the Beyonder cured Rick's cancer and briefly granted him super powers. Later, Rick was shown becoming a savage version of the hulk from gamma radiation when he fell into the "nutrient bath" that was supposed to fuse the separated Bruce Banner and the Hulk again, suggesting that the Beyonder not only cured his cancer but changed him so that gamma radiation would not give him cancer again.

Further encounters with the Hulk

Yet again, Rick joined the side of Dr. Banner and the Hulk. This time, however, Rick was taken over by the personality of the Savage Hulk. Banner was soon transformed into the Grey Hulk. Banner and the Grey Hulk were manipulated by Sam Sterns into siphoning the radiation from Rick into Sterns, turning Sterns back into the Leader and drastically altering his appearance.

Rick stayed with Banner and the Grey Hulk (along with Betty Banner and Clay Quartermain) for several months as they traveled the country looking for a government supply of gamma bombs. The group divided up once again after the apparent death of the Hulk at the hands of the Leader.

Rick authored the book "Sidekick," an autobiographic tellin of his time spent with super-heroes. While on a book tour, he met Marlo Chandler, not realizing that she had only recently broken up with the Hulk (she had not realized this either; their relationship happened while the Hulk had been acting as a Las Vegas leg breaker under the alias of "Mr. Fixit"). Rick was kidnapped by a Skrull vessel and the Hulk aided in Rick's rescue. This started another period with Rick and the Hulk , this time with Marlo and Betty.

Rick and Death

Rick came in touch with death in several ways during this time with the Hulk. First, Rick died at the hands of the Mad Titan Thanos, along with half of the universe, when Thanos used the Infinity Gauntlet to impress Death. Rick and the others killed were brought back to life in the ensuing events.

Rick's second major encounter with death occurred when Jackie Shorr came into his life and claimed to be his mother. (It is still not known for sure whether this claim is true or not; the claim was made to several individuals. She still insists that they were only substitues for Rick.) Shorr was discovered to be insane, but not until after she killed Marlo.

Rick found a way to bring her back using a resurrection device known as the "deus ex machina" that the Leader had developed, but the Hulk destroyed the equipment partway through the process, leaving Marlo in a catatonic state. Fortunately, Rick's tender care eventually helped Marlo return to normal.

Shortly after Marlo was revived, the two became engaged and quickly married. Neither of them realized, however, that a portion of Death (the same being that Thanos had tried to impress) remained in Marlo. This piece of Death attracted many strange visitors to the wedding, including Mephisto and Death herself.

The married couple soon found success in a popular talk show called "Keeping Up with the Joneses" which was cut short when Rick was crippled by the Hulk. (This was during a time when the Hulk had been separated from Banner, transformed and brainwashed by Apocalypse into the role of the Horseman "War").

The injury was serious enough that Rick was confined to a wheelchair, unable to walk. Rick's debilitation strained his relationship with Marlo which was further strained after the tragic death of Betty Banner to radiation poisoning. The two split up shortly after Betty's funeral.

Rick joined with Dr. Banner again after Banner's reappearance, but developed serious health problems and had to be brought by the Avengers to the now-captive Supreme Intelligence for aid. This marked the beginning of the Destiny War, and over the course of these events Rick's injury was healed and he was joined with the son of Mar-Vell, Genis, who had recently taken on the title of Captain Marvel.

Captain Marvel (Genis-Vell)

Rick's connection with Genis was not quite the same as the one he had with Mar-Vell. This bond worked in about the same way as his bond with Mar-Vell, except that rather than switching to and from the Negative Zone, they switched in and out of the Microverse (formerly the home of one of the Hulk's girlfriends, Jarella). Genis-Vell's unique birth and accellerated aging left him with a lot of power and without a lot of experience, the opposite of Rick. They made a good pair, compensating for what the other lacked, and Rick took on the role of a mentor to Genis. He helped Genis become a super-hero and learn to control his cosmic awareness. As Rick's confidence grew, he also attempted to restart his relationship with Marlo.

It wasn't until this point that Marlo's connection with Death was finally revealed. Thanos aided in separating the two, but in the process Rick was prematurely aged and lost one of his arms. He was later yanked back in time to the Destiny War, where Rick ended up aiding his younger self in the conflict that led to his bond with Genis.

Marlo tried to aid the elderly Rick the way he had helped her when she was catatonic. Rick's pride, however, just caused more problems. The Supreme Intelligence attempted to restore Rick to his normal condition, but it apparently failed. With apparent lack of provocation shortly thereafter, Rick was spontaneously restored to his normal age and his arm was replaced. Rick believed this was divine aid while Genis held the more cynical view that it was a delayed reaction to the Supreme Intelligence's procedure. No definite explanation has been determined.

Rick and Genis were yanked back and forth through time. Rick ended up encountering two older versions of himself: one an aging collector surviving under the rule of the Maestro; the other a super-villain going by the name of Thanatos, who was intending to create the "ultimate Rick Jones". Thanatos was stopped (Due mainly to the fact that the elder Rick was capable of wielding Thor's hammer for things that Rick has yet to do), but it is unclear as to whether Rick will become either of these older versions of himself (Or at least some variation of them; it has been established that the specific timeline that the old Rick lived in will not come to pass due to the Hulk having been drawn into the future to defeat his future self).

Rick and Marlo again split when Marlo became romantically involved with Moondragon. Shortly after, Genis' cosmic awareness reached its peak and caused him to go insane. Although Rick continued to try to guide Genis, he was fairly unsuccessful. Genis quickly became a callous, homicidal maniac who believed that he was a god. Genis even destroyed the universe and rebuild it (allowing Rick to survive. In the rebuilt reality, Genis again lost his mind. Rick developed an ability to mentally attack Genis through their psychic bond, but it always hurt Rick right back. For a time, Genis used the psychic link to control Rick to a degree, and 'convinced' Rick to kill himself on a whim. Just as easily, he decided to bring Rick right back to life.

In part due to Rick's influence, Genis' madness calmed to a point where he was able to maintain a veneer of sanity, although he could still be somewhat unpredictable at times. He created a recording studio for Rick, earning him a large sum of money through Internet-based sales of a song that he had written for Marlo. This song also provided the catalyst for the two to reunite again. Marlo also ended up breaking off her relationship with Moondragon.

In a surreal chain of events stemming from Rick's awareness that the Captain Marvel comic series was ending, Rick and Genis were separated again. Rick was reunited with Marlo at last report.

Runaways

Rick was recently revealed to be the mysterious benefactor of the group Excelsior, comprised of former teenage superheroes dedicated to reforming other superpowered kids from following down the same path. Their first targets are the underaged Runaways who have been patrolling Los Angeles in the wake of the supervillain power vacuum attracting new criminals since the Runaways defeated their evil parents, the Pride, who once controlled the city.

Partial appearance list

This list is not intended to be complete. Rather, this list is intended to indicate time periods where Rick frequently appeared throughout a series of issues of a book. There may be other issues in which Rick appeared that are not listed, and there may be a handful of individual issues within a specific series that Rick did not appear in. For a detailed and complete appearance list, see the Marvel Chronology Project.

Other notes

  • Rick has been a regular or recurring character in numerous series from Marvel, including The Avengers, Captain America, two or three Captain Marvel series (depending on how you choose to count them), Rom, the Avengers Forever limited series, and, most commonly, The Incredible Hulk (and the related Tales to Astonish).
  • When Marvel characters are being "matched" to their equivalents in DC Comics, Rick is, therefore, usually associated with the Justice League of America's former mascot Snapper Carr. Rick shared his form with Captain Mar-Vell, in homage to the character's DC Comics namesake.
  • When Rick first appeared at the gamma bomb test site, he was playing a harmonica. It was later established that he had been playing the song "That'll Be the Day" by Buddy Holly.
  • During Jones' most recent string of appearances in The Incredible Hulk, a fan campaign was started to give Rick Jones his own trading card. Although this campaign (which for a long time consisted of one persistent individual) was less than successful, Jones did receive a Marvel value stamp in the back of one issue of the Incredible Hulk. Also, a baseball card of Jones (along with cards of Marlo, Betty, and the Hulk) was printed on a page of an issue of The Incredible Hulk in which the Hulk briefly joins a baseball team.
  • In the alternate future that the Maestro comes from, Rick has a great-granddaughter named Janis. Rick has chosen the name himself, naming her after Janis Joplin. In the present, Rick has not yet had any children. However, one version of Janis traveled back in time to shortly before the time Rick was handicapped by the War Hulk, and she is still believed to be in this time period.
  • Thanatos originally appeared in Spider-Man 2099. It was only established years after the series was cancelled that Thanatos was actually Rick Jones. Thanatos' plan to create the "ultimate Rick Jones" author Peter David's attempt poke fun at the Ultimate Marvel universe. Shortly after this story finished, another issue of Captain Marvel had the cover text The Ultimate Captain Marvel, and it imitated the cover style of the Ultimate books.
  • Much as both Captain Marvels have shown a "cosmic awareness", Rick is said to have a "comics awareness", and he is able to recognize the fact that he is within a comic book, although he has only once directly acknowledged this fact. This technique of comic books has often been used in the Deadpool series and is called breaking the fourth wall. When the most recent Captain Marvel series had its last issue, Rick was able to use this ability to tell that the series was coming to an end, and he pushed for several of the loose ends of the series to be resolved. This ability was primarily created for the needs of this one issue, and it seems unlikely that it will see future usage.
  • It was revealed in Runaways V2 Issue #4, that Rick in addition to writing his book "Sidekick," he has apparently also released a few music singles. This fact is also evident in an early 2000's issue of "Avengers", in which Ant-Man said "He owns both (Rick's) albums", prompting Rick to respond "So you're the one".

See also

Amateur radio in popular culture

External links

Avengers members | Fictional musicians | Hulk supporting characters | Marvel Comics supporting characters | Fictional orphans | Fictional sidekicks

Rick Jones | Rick Jones

 

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the "Rick Jones (comics)".

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