9-JACK-9

Real Name: J9AC9K;
   former human identity's real name remains unrevealed

Identity/Class: Electronic lifeform;
   formerly human technology user

Occupation: Assassin, spy-for-hire

Group Membership: Thursday Night Quintet (Bess, Ernie, Max McClaren, Rudy)

Affiliations: Dekko, Harry, Zybox;
   formerly an unidentified Parisian woman;
   employers: Antares III coup leaders (Harry, others), Dekko, Sirius IV coup leaders (General Shrapp, Weevis Swimbler, Twik, Grand Inquisitor Luthor Von Clokmann), King of Sirius IV

Enemies: Doctor Walter Bismark, Lucy Chow, Jenny Weaver, Zot;
   targets: President Jim Gallo and family (unidentified wife, unidentified son, daughter Susan Gallo); King and Queen of Sirius IV. Mr. and Mrs. Paleozogt

Known Relatives: None

Aliases: Mr. 9, Jack, Sir John Sheers, Johnny, Death

Base of Operations: Mobile throughout the galaxy

First Appearance: Zot!#2 (Eclipse, May 1984)

Powers/Abilities: 9-Jack-9 is able to travel through electrical devices and communication signals such as, but not limited to, radio waves. He can travel across light years in a blink of an eye via communication signals, as demonstrated when he, on Earth, discussed taking a case from clients on Sirius IV, then materialized in his clients' room as soon as negotiations were concluded. Though he is digital and can appear as an image on any screen or in cyberspace, he can also manifest physically in the real world. His digital body is as solid as he wants it to be; he can pass through walls and bullets pass harmlessly through him, but he can grab and hold on to things if he wants to. His control over this is precise, allowing parts of him to be immaterial while simultaneously other parts are solid. He can make body parts appear in separate locations, as evidenced by the time most of Jack was directly in front of a victim while his right appeared coming through the floor behind the target. When in contact with electrically powered items he can deliver lethal electric shocks, and he can control most electrical devices at a short distance, allowing him to shut down life support systems, lock or unlock automatic doors, etc.

   Though Jack's preferred appearance is a human male of normal height, with a pitch black face and wearing a blue-tinted Edwardian-style pinstripe boating jacket, bow-tie, white trousers and spectacles, and a white boater hat, he can change this instantly at will; he was seen to materialize different clothes to ensure targets didn't notice him until it was too late, or to manifest part of his body as a giant. He presumably could change his face too, but seems to prefer not to. He sometimes manifests various limbs to resemble lightning.

   Jack has a few weaknesses. If the equipment he is currently inhabiting is shorted, for example via exposure to water, it causes him intense pain. Additionally, he cannot manifest where there are no electronics - but even such minor electrical devices as a wrist watch are enough for him to work with.

   9-Jack-9 was originally the digital avatar for "John Steers," a human hooked into an advanced computer system via electrodes attached to his head. However when Steers was slain while hooked into the system the electric matrix he projected took on a life of its own, leaving 9-Jack-9 an independent lifeform, albeit still with his human form's memories and personality.

Height: ("Steers") Unrevealed; (Jack) Variable
Weight: ("Steers") Unrevealed, but a thin build; (Jack) none
Eyes: ("Steers") Unrevealed - only seen in black and white, and always wearing glasses (except when the fell off upon his death); (Jack) usually glowing white, appearing as spectacles, but sometimes circuitry can be seen within the whiteness
Hair: ("Steers") Unrevealed as he was only seen in black and white, but a dark color; (Jack) none

Summary: 9-Jack-9 is a digital assassin able to manifest anywhere there is technology, solid enough to kill but able to pass through physical defenses and attacks without pause.

History: (Zot!#25 (fb) - BTS) - Gaining access to technology that allowed him to project a digital avatar into the physical world, capable of manifesting anywhere there was electronic or digital technology, an unidentified man became 9-Jack-9, an assassin and spy for hire; it is unrevealed whether he built this technology himself or somehow came into possession of it. At some point he used plastic surgery and altered computer records to steal the identity of the late Sir John Sheers; whether he had anything to do with the real Sir John's demise is unknown, as is whether this occurred before or after he adopted his 9-Jack-9 persona. Potential clients could summon him by typing his name, J9AC9K, into any computer anywhere in the galaxy, and he would materialized in their vicinity.

(Zot!#5 (fb) - BTS) - Assuming a price could be negotiated, Jack was willing to murder anyone, man, woman or child, with neither remorse nor malice - while he appeared to amuse himself by varying the elimination method, who he was killing mattered little to him. Even former clients weren't safe, unless they negotiated an exclusive contract in advance. Experience taught him that assassinating royalty could be trickier than the average murder, so he charged commensurately more for such jobs.

(Zot!#6 - BTS) - Though he would readily slay people who were trying to stop him finishing off a target, he otherwise wouldn't kill someone unless he was being paid to do so. Similarly, while he fully understood and even expected animosity directed towards him by friends and family of those he had murdered, and from anyone who had tried but failed to protect one of his targets, he himself harbored no resentment in return, even if they sought to kill him. 

(Zot!#23 (fb) - BTS) - His career spanned at least fifty years (see comments).

(Zot!#25 (fb) - BTS) - Outside of assassinations "John Steers" maintained a few human contacts and hobbies, including playing the fiddle in a Thursday night "jam" session with four friends, one of whom was the eccentric scientist Max McClaren. John was also a lover of fine wines, fine art and classical composers such as Chopin and Mozart, and he was in a relationship with a woman in Paris.

(Zot!#2 (fb) - BTS) - The cyborg Dekko hired Jack a number of times (presumably for jobs other than assassinations)...

(Zot!#5 (fb) - BTS) - as did the king of Sirius IV, both for spying and around half a dozen assassination jobs; Jack proved reliable, never failing any task he agreed to undertake. One of the jobs Jack took for the king was to murder a couple on Earth.

(Zot!#6 (fb) - BTS) - These were the Paleozogts.

(Zot!#8 (fb)) - They were defectors from Sirius IV who had learned from friends back home that their former monarch intended attack Earth, which would trigger a war that would devastate both planets. Believing only they were in a position to stop this assault they successfully prevented Earth's capitol from being destroyed (apparently by defusing a bomb planted there), but were located by Jack just as they completed this task.

(Zot!#5 (fb) - BTS) - Jack killed them both at the same time, and was paid handsomely for it.

(Zot!#6 (fb) - BTS) - The Paleozogts' son Zachary, then just shy of his teens, remained unaware of his parents' death, believing them merely away on a long term mission. Having been entrusted to the care of his Uncle Max (by massive coincidence the same Max who was part of the jam sessions), over the next three years Zach became a famous adventurer known by his nickname, Zot.

(Zot!#25 (fb) - BTS) - At some unrevealed point, but likely after Jack slew Zot's parents, Max somehow deduced "Johnny's" connection to 9-Jack-9, but kept this information to himself, believing no one had a chance of stopping him, so revealing what he knew would only get more people killed, himself included. Despite "Johnny's" true profession, Max considered him a "fairly nice person, all things considered." However, he began to formulate a plan to take Jack down once he deemed Zot up to the task.

(Zot!#23 (fb) - BTS) - Around a year after Jack murdered the Paleozogts the assassin was hired by rogue generals on Antares III to murder President Gallo and his wife, son and then-13 year old daughter Susan. He successfully slew the first three of these, but violent clashes outside the presidential palace caused a timely electrical blackout, sparing Susan. With the coup successful, Gallo's former Secretary of State Doctor Walter Bismark turned to Max to find somewhere safe to put Susan so Jack would never find her. Max provided access to a parallel Earth with more primitive technology, and Bismark hid the child there.

(Zot!#6 (fb) - BTS) - Roughly three years after Jack murdered the Paleozogts, Jack was hired by Dekko again, this time for a job spying on Zot.

(Zot!#2) - The Golden Key of Sirius IV, a religious artifact prophesied to be able to open the "Doorway at the End of the Universe," had been stolen and Zot was tracking it down, so Dekko hired Jack to tail the adventurer and seize the item once it was located. Zot eventually spotted the key in the hands of someone playing Survivalax, a hologram combat game played in an indoor arena; acting on Dekko's instructions, Jack waited to monitor the situation initially, but went in when it looked like the game might soon be switched off, just before Zot finally got hold of the key. Jack stalked up unnoticed behind Zot, and had just placed his hand on Zot's shoulder when someone switched the game off, also unwittingly shutting down the lines Jack was transmitting himself through. Jack vanished abruptly, leaving Zot only with a momentary impression that someone had been behind him. Reforming outside, Jack reported to Dekko that he would be happy to try again (for the usual fee), but Dekko had changed his mind about how to pursue his prize, and told Jack that his services were no longer needed for now.

(Zot!#5) - Seeking to seize power on Sirius IV, a cabal of conspirators (Mr. Twik, Grand Inquisitor Luthor Von Clokmann, army General Shrapp and the king's advisor Weevis Swimbler) hired Jack to eliminate the king. Weevis then lured the monarch into a monitor room where Jack was waiting, disguised as an engineer. Thinking Jack an underling, the king ordered him to make it quick, prompting Jack to quip that he usually did as he turned around. Recognizing the assassin, the king tried to flee the room, but Jack made the door slam shut and sealed the room airtight. As the king begged for his life, reminding Jack of how well he had paid him in the past, Jack pointed out that he could have taken an exclusive contract to prevent this, and reminded the fearful man that none of the victims the king had ordered murdered had wanted to die either. Pushing the king down into a chair and restraining him, Jack turned off the room's life support, dropping the chamber to sub-zero temperatures and removing the oxygen. As the king died, Jack politely wished him sweet dreams and tipped his hat at his former client.

(Zot!#6 (fb) - BTS) - The conspirators decided to also have Jack eliminate the late king's wife, who was due to return from a visit to the colonies.

(Zot!#6) - The Queen returned the day after her husband's murder. Unaware she was now a widow, she was escorted to the same monitor room by Weevis Swimbler, where Jack was again waiting disguised as an engineer. As soon as the door shut, locking her in with him, Jack introduced himself to the Queen, but before he could slay her Zot blasted his way in through the building's exterior wall, having been alerted to the assassination plot by one of Twik's employees. Jack calmly asked the interloper to wait as he was in the middle of an assassination, and when Zot insisted he would stop the killer Jack seemed to take the declaration with some amusement, then abruptly vanished.

   As Zot and the Queen looked around in shock trying to figure out where he had gone, Jack's arms stretched out of a monitor screen behind the Queen and grabbed her head, delivering an electric shock, but Zot hastily shot the screen, forcing Jack to retreat before he could do more than stun her. Jack rematerialized, now in his usual garb, on the other side of the room and offered Zot a deal, suggesting he would spare Zot if the hero let him kill the Queen. Using his full name, Zot declared that he didn't make deals, but upon hearing Zot's surname was Paleozogt Jack paused, informed Zot that he recalled killing a couple of that name, and asked the shocked hero if they were any relation.

   Watching Zot reel in disbelief, Jack elaborated on some of the details, describing his victims and revealing that it had been the husband of the woman Zot was now protecting who had ordered the murders. Enraged, Zot lunged for Jack, who simply discorporated, continuing the conversation from the safety of a monitor screen. Jack insisted he had no reason to lie, but Zot accused Jack of making the story up just to anger him. Calming himself, Zot declared that unlike Jack's normally helpless victims he was going to be a real challenge for the assassin. Silently lunging out of a desk monitor, Jack caught Zot off guard, grabbing his throat to throttle him; only then did Jack break his silence, agreeing that Zot had been such a challenge that he had earned Jack's personal touch. The adventurer was clawing helplessly at the hands constricting his windpipe when another wall of the room was blown in as Zot's friend Jenny Weaver arrived, prompting the exasperated Jack to tell her to take a number as he was busy. Jenny swiftly shot Jack several times, but the blasts passed harmlessly through his insubstantial body, even as he continued to strangle Zot. Noticing rain coming into the room through the hole Zot had created earlier, and water pooling in the abandoned engineer's cap Jack had been wearing as part of his disguise, Jenny grabbed it and emptied the liquid into the monitor Jack was projecting from. Screaming in agony, Jack's form was disrupted, his color scheme inverting to a negative of normal, before he rallied sufficiently to concede a "Touche" to Jenny and disappear.

(Zot!#7 - BTS) - Zot took the Queen to the Sacred Cathedral on Shotaro Island, where church traditions barred electronic devices of any kind, meaning Jack could not reach them. Similarly, as a sacred site, the conspirators could not be seen to forcibly enter it.

(Zot!#9 (fb) - BTS) - Other aspects of the cabal's conspiracy began to fall apart, including Zot and Jenny being publicly seen passing through the Doorway at the End of the Universe and the unintended death of Prince Drufus, whom the cabal had intended to be their puppet ruler. Since the citizens of Sirius believed that whoever passed through the Doorway would become their world's prophesied savior, when Zot and Jenny returned the conspirators decided they needed to know what the pair had seen, and thus instructed Jack to capture both them and their allies now gathering in the Cathedral alive.

(Zot!#9) - Needing a means to enter the technology free Cathedral, Jack possessed Zot's robot butler, Peabody, who had been allowed special dispensation to enter the temple because of Zot's new prophesied status. Once inside, Jack revealed himself and took everyone prisoner at gunpoint. Now able to enter "peacefully," Von Clokmann and his forces restrained the captives; Jack watched dispassionately as the priest prepared to execute Zot's friends, but before he could do so Jenny's brother Butch burst in at the head of a small army of De-Evolutionaries (a.k.a. Devos, a radical Sirius IV religious group with technology capable to turning people into chimpanzees). Having already fulfilled his contractual obligations and having grown tired of the conspirators' ineptness, Jack observed with open amusement and even praise as Butch's forces rapidly overran Von Clokmann's, turning the cleric and all his men into apes. The now simian Von Clokmann tried to get Jack to assist, but Jack told the ape that he didn't business with losers, and that he'd had quite enough of both him and the conspiracy, adding that after he left the priest would never see him again...if he was lucky.

   As Butch's minions tied up Von Clokmann's defeated forces Jack called out to Zot, cheerfully stating that he hoped the adventurer had enjoyed the whole experience half as much as he had. Straightening his bow tie, Jack confirmed to Zot that he had been telling the truth when he claimed to have slain Zot's parents, adding that though it had only been a job to him he didn't expect that detail would make Zot any more forgiving. However Zot responded that he recognized Jack had only been a tool of the king. Jack then calmly added that he would kill Zot one day, but Zot responded with equal calm that while that might happen, Zot would take Jack with him. Unperturbed by Zot's bravado, Jack merely responded "You'll try," then vanished, promising to see him again.

(Zot!#9 - BTS) - Jack obtained Shrapp's share of the promised payment for his services from the general, but learned from him that Weevis would be unable to pay his share since he had lost access to the Royal Treasury when Drufus died.

(Zot!#9) - Shrapp tricked Weevis into going to the same monitor room where Jack had killed the king and attacked the queen, telling the former advisor that he had someone for Weevis to meet. When Weevis found that this was Jack, he pleaded to Shrapp for mercy, stating that he couldn't pay yet, but Shrapp ignored his cries and shut him in with the assassin.

(Zot!#10 - BTS) - Zot tricked Shrapp into admitting he had hired 9-Jack-9 to murder the king, unaware his words were being broadcast live across all of Sirius IV, thus ending the last conspirator's attempt to seize power.

(Zot!#13) - John Sheers was taking part in a Thursday Night Jam session at Max's home when Jenny and Butch came over to visit Zot. Max explained to his fellow musicians, including John, that the siblings came from another reality's version of Earth, a world with less advanced technology than their own (and the same one that Susan Gallo had been hidden on).

(Zot!#17) - At Max's request the Thursday Night Quintet, including John, played a number of Zot's favorite musical numbers at Zot's birthday party, and thus was present when Dekko crashed the party.

(Zot!#18) - John watched with curiosity as the insane Dekko gave Zot a box of chocolates, then vowed to destroy the universe once they were all eaten. Zot thus deliberately dragged this out as various party-goers, though not John, tried to reason with Dekko, but ultimately the cyborg's threat proved to be an empty one, as he merely went catatonic, lost in his own mind, when the last chocolate was eaten.

(Zot!#23 (fb) - BTS) - Somehow the Antares III coup leaders, who now ruled the planet,...

(Zot!#25 (fb) - BTS) - and specifically their leader Harry,...

(Zot!#23 (fb) - BTS) - discovered that Susan Gallo had been hidden on the parallel Earth and hired Jack to locate and kill her.

(Zot!#24 (fb) - BTS) - Jack's agreement for Susan's assassination included an instruction that if any rebels were present when he located her then he was first to deliver a short statement first about the futility of their rebellion, and suggest they surrender lest they die like the Gallos had. 

(Zot!#23) - Having transited to the parallel Earth via undisclosed means, Jack wandered the planet hunting for his prey. He wandered down the third rail of a subway, passed along traffic signals, appeared on the computer monitors of startled users, and slid down telephone wires. At one point he peered out of a microwave oven at Jenny Weaver; unlike the others who had glimpsed him during his wanderings, she recognized with horror that the assassin 9-Jack-9 was loose on her world and alerted Zot. Max and his friend Bismark realized Susan Gallo needed to be evacuated back to Antares, where they hoped the resistance could protect her by housing her in a chamber designed to be impervious to the killer. Zot was sent to retrieve her, but to get Susan from the parallel Earth and then transport her swiftly to Antares, they had to risk using a specially constructed gateway whose substantial power requirements would almost certainly draw Jack's attention. The initial phase of the mission was successful, with Zot bringing Susan back to his Earth, and the portal was switched off while the co-ordinates were re-set for Antares III. Unfortunately Zot and the others didn't realize Jenny was wearing a wrist watch until too late; the gateway had been constructed away from other technology to give Jack no way to access it, but the watch had been sufficient. The gateway suddenly activated and Jack's giant arm stretched out of it to grab up Susan and pull her in; a technician tried in vain to switch it off, finding the controls locked, and was electrocuted by Jack for his troubles. Zot and Jenny leapt through the portal after Jack and his victim, clearing the gateway only moments before it explosively overloaded.

(Zot!#24) - The trip through the portal brought Jack and Susan to a rebel base on Antares III; to prevent them from cutting the base's power while he was delivering his prepared statement about the futility of their rebellion, Jack stood in front of the main power switch, holding Susan as a shield not for himself but the lever. Zot and Jenny appeared moments after them, but Jack continued his speech even as Zot pleaded for Susan's life. Noting that he had returned to their world to complete his assignment to kill all the Gallos, just as he completed all his assignments, Jack then told the rebels they had fought in vain and urged them to abandon their fight. When the rebels rejected this proposal Jack began to slowly electrocute Susan, taking his time to intimidate the rebels. Realizing he could see the power switch reflected off a metal panel above Jack, Zot seized his only chance and fired, bouncing his shot to strike the lever. With the power abruptly cut, Jack was temporarily dispelled; Zot hastily snatched both Jenny and Susan and flew off with them. Jack rallied within seconds, transferring into a rebel fighter jet and giving pursuit. At the base one of the rebels radioed the jet, telling it to return, and was shocked when Jack responded shushing him, saying that he was concentrating. Returning his attention to his quarry, Jack fired missiles at Zot, who dodged the explosions only to strike a tree, knocking him and his passengers out of the sky. However, just before Jack could bomb them, the jet was destroyed by an explosive arrow fired by Susan's cousin, Sergeant Lucy Chow, a rebel leader who had been heading to the base to meet them.

(Zot!#24 - BTS) - Though he was miles from other technology and might otherwise have been trapped or perhaps even destroyed with the jet, because the rebel radio signal was still open Jack was able to escape before his vehicle crashed. He somehow learned where Chow was intending to take her cousin (possibly the rebels had foolishly kept computer records of their hideouts within walking distance), to the remnants of a destroyed army barracks, and waited for them to arrive.

(Zot!#24) - Though the base had been destroyed, the underground power cables were intact, and when Susan curiously investigated a power box, Jack electrocuted her with so much voltage that her entire body was incinerated to ash within seconds. Jack then appeared to congratulate the group for having held him off for as long as they had, especially as they could not have anticipated the ways he had managed to circumvent their efforts to stop him. Consoling a distraught Jenny, Zot swore he would get Jack for this; unconcerned, the assassin merely responded that he knew Zot would say something like that eventually, and with a final "Be seeing you," he vanished.

(Zot!#25 (fb) - BTS) - Though Max suspected the computers that "John Sheers" used to generate Jack were located in Sheers' home, he couldn't be certain, and any move against that location would prove fatal if the machines were in fact elsewhere. As such Max fitted Zot out with specto-filter goggles that could see Jack's power beacon, which would enable him to track it back to source but only once he had a starting point to follow. Since that required Jack being near Zot to start with, Zot needed to goad someone into hiring Jack to go after him. Thus Zot joined the rebels on Antares III, and within a few weeks he turned the tide of the conflict, bringing the rebels right to the doors of the dictators' palace.

(Zot!#25) - With the rebels only minutes away from their gates, and with their own troops having failed every attempt to kill Zot, the Antares III dictators contacted Jack and asked him to eliminate the adventurer. Agreeing for triple the fee he had charged to murder Susan Gallo, Jack located Zot as the hero was already racing through the palace corridors, but the second the assassin appeared Zot activated a portal that returned him to Earth. Jack instantly followed, using the gateway as his anchor in order to appear as a giant while he tried to snatch Zot out of the air, but Zot had anticipated this; knowing Jack could not manifest too far from whatever technology he was inhabiting, Zot swiftly flew beyond Jack's range, then, as the giant faded away, the adventurer activated his spectro-filter goggles and spotted Jack's power beacon shooting up into the sky, confirming he was operating out of Sir John's British estate. Zot used a frictionless trans-Atlantic subway system that used no electrical equipment to race to Britain, ensuring Jack had no means of attacking him until he emerged at the British end of the tunnel, but once there Jack began commandeering flying cars, jumping from one to another as he tried to ram Zot out of the air. When Zot dodged all of these, Jack took over a police cruiser and fired its guns at Zot, but he managed to stay ahead of it until he was over Sheers' house; unwilling to open fire on his own home, Jack released the cruiser. Despite Zot now closing in on the man behind the digital avatar, Jack remained cocky, even giving Zot directions to his exact location after Zot smashed his way into the building. The moment Zot entered the chamber Jack snared him with cables and began electrocuting him, but kept it below an immediately lethal dose so he could deride how long it had taken Zot to try to avenge his parents, speaking simultaneously with his human form and from a minitor. Fighting against the pain, Zot seized one of the cables, ripped it up and threw it round John's (human) neck, forcing him to cut the current rather than electrocute himself. Instead John manifested Jack's avatar in the chamber and began firing lightning bolts at Zot as the adventurer flew round the chamber dodging the blasts. Focused on his target, Jack didn't realize until too late that tracking Zot had caused him to turn to face his own human form, and thus Jack ended up blasting John with a fatal charge. Jack stopped firing as quickly as he could, but it was too late, and the Jack avatar watched in horror as John took a few stumbling steps in his direction before collapsing onto the chamber's power switch, turning everything off, including Jack. Having not intended to kill anyone, even the assassin, Zot checked John for a pulse, but found to his sorry that the man was dead.

(Zot!#25 (fb) - BTS) - To Jack's surprise however he found himself still active, his electric stamp upon the ether proving more permanent than his human "shell." Even without its operator, the matrix known as Jack survived, retaining his old memories and personality. He watched unnoticed as medics came and zipped up John's corpse into a body bag, and as he transited the Galac-Net he checked the Antares III dictators' Siriusian bank accounts where they had hidden away their ill-gotten gains, finding that those accounts had been impounded as the dictators were now in custody. If dying had not already dissuaded Jack from persisting in trying to kill Zot, the knowledge that no payment would be forthcoming even if he succeeded sealed the decision.

(Zot!#25) - Jack visited Harry in his cell on Antares III. At first the terrified former dictator feared Jack had come for his payment and would kill him once he failed to provide it, but Jack reassured Harry, stating he wouldn't try to collect for a job he had failed to complete. Rather, he was there simply to say hello, as Jack had realized he didn't have many friends. Harry asked if Jack could get him free, offering to pay the assassin with Siriusian cash, but Jack informed Harry about the seizure of those supposedly-secret accounts. Accepting his fate upon hearing this, Harry asked Jack what death was like, and Jack admitted that in his case at least it wasn't all that different - he could still roam the galaxy and control the machines of the living, still enjoy his paintings and favorite classical composers, but admitted he would have to forego the wines he had been saving, then realized with regret that he had also lost his Parisian girl. Noticing Jack's moment of sadness, Harry tried to rile the killer up against Zot, blaming the adventurer for both their misfortunes, and suggesting that Jack kill the teenager for his own sake, since he didn't need money anymore. At this though Jack rallied, laughing at the idea, and reminded Harry that he never worked for free.

(Zot!#26 (fb) - BTS) - 9-Jack-9 befriended another of Zot's foes, the mad supercomputer Zybox. Wishing to free his old friend and former client Dekko from the insane asylum where he had been incarcerated, allegedly because he didn't want to see a great artist languish (and possibly at least partially motivated by a desire to mess with Zot), 9-Jack-9 enlisted Zybox's aid in altering Dekko's records to get him released into Max's custody. 

(Zot!#26) - Jack and Zybox sneaked into Dekko's room at the asylum, and the assassin agreed to pose for Dekko while he painted Jack's portrait, which resembled a circuit diagram. When Dekko mentioned that being locked away had not been conducive to his creative process, Jack pointed out that Max's house would be a much better setting. Dekko complemented Jack, stating that death suited him and that losing his soul was a most aesthetic touch, a sentiment Jack concurred with. This last raised a query from Zybox, since the artificial intelligence desired to accumulate all information and had previously concluded that if there was even a slight chance that possessing a soul might confer knowledge otherwise denied then it had to obtain one, and had been on a quest to do so. Zybox therefore asked Jack whether all beings with souls preferred to keep them, to which Jack affirmed that most did, but that he and Dekko were exceptions. Dekko concurred, saying he would give Zybox his soul if he could, but noted that since it had been nothing but trouble it might be better for Zybox to get a new hobby. Zybox then took his leave of the pair. After he departed Dekko commented that he was an "Odd fellow." Jack agreed, adding that Zybox was "Odd, yes, but very powerful," and warned Dekko to beware of him.

(Zot!#26 (fb) - BTS) - On New Year's Eve, 9-Jack-9 contacted Max to say that Dekko would be released into Max's custody in time for his annual party, and that he intended to drop by too. Presumably motivated in part because Dekko had been a friend before going insane and possibly in other part because he didn't want to get on Jack's wrong side, Max agreed, but asked Jack to make his own visit a short one.

(Zot!#26) - A few seconds behind Dekko getting to Max's, Jack arrived in a flash of electricity, materializing in the path of a Devo who had been running around turning some of the party-goers into chimps. As the Devo cowered in terror, believing Jack to be Satan, the assassin asked Max if the man was being a nuisance, but Max responded that the Devo was harmless and requested Jack let him go. Zot walked over and offered Jack a frosty "Hello"; ignoring the obvious hostility, Jack wished his old opponent a "Good evening" in response. Before anything further could be said though, two more of Zot's foes, Dr. Bellows and the Blotch, crashed the party, making a literally explosive entrance. This distracted Zot's friend Josh, who was at that moment trying to fix Peabody, causing the malfunctioning robot butler to throw a lemon meringue pie it was holding.

(Zot!#27) - The pie passed harmlessly through a slightly confused Jack's head and struck Zot full in the face. Jack then watched with mild interest as Bellows and Blotch's attempt to rob the party swiftly fell apart thanks to their own ineptness.

(Zot!#27 - BTS) - Jack hung around for an unspecified amount of the remainder of the party, then departed without causing any trouble.

Comments: Created by Scott McCloud.

   Per Zot!#23 9-Jack-9 was first spotted by someone fifty years prior to that comic. However, given his power to move unseen through technology that he could have been operating for years prior to anyone other than those who hired him and those he slew seeing him, so he could have been operating much longer. It's unclear whether he was also using the identity of Sir John Sheers for that long. While his human form didn't look sixty plus (I'm assuming he didn't become a killer until at least his teens), human life expectancy in Zot's reality could be much longer than in ours, or possibly "Sheers" wasn't the first person to play that role. 9-Jack-9 may have been an identity handed down from killer to killer, a Sith-like master and apprentice deal.

Appearance checklist (not including reprints): Zot!#2, 5-6, 9, 13, 17-18, 23-27

CLARIFICATIONS:
9-Jack-9 should not be confused with:

• Nine-Crocodile, Aztec Ace foe -- Aztec Ace#2
• or any other "9" or "Jack" characters

First Posted: Circa 05/11/2003
Last updated: 16/10/2022

Any Additions/Corrections? Please let me know.

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