Jack Horner (Fables)

Superherobox


caption = Jack running from Fabletown,
cover art for "Jack of Fables" #1
character_name = Jack Horner
publisher = Vertigo Comics
debut = "Fables" #1 (July 2002)
creators = Bill Willingham
alliance_color = background:#ffc0c0
alter ego =
alliances = Fabletown
aliases = Jack Be Nimble, Jack Frost, Jack the Giant Killer, Jack O'Lantern, Jack of the Tales, John Trick
powers = Due to his popularity as a character, he is virtually immortal.

Jack Horner is a fictional character in the comic book series "Fables" by Bill Willingham. His first appearance was in issue #1 of "Fables" and continued as a regular character of the series until leaving the series for his own title, "Jack of Fables". The character is based on various nursery rhymes and fables with characters named Jack including "Little Jack Horner", "Jack and the Beanstalk", "Jack and Jill", Jack Be Nimble, Jack Frost, Jack O'Lantern, and Jack the Giant Killer and others.Citation | last = Irvine | first = Alex | author-link = Alexander C. Irvine | contribution = Fables | editor-last = Dougall | editor-first = Alastair | title = The Vertigo Encyclopedia | pages = 72-81 | publisher = Dorling Kindersley | place = New York | year = 2008 | ISBN = 0-7566-4122-5 | oclc = 213309015]

Characterization

Jack is portrayed as a rather benign trickster, always looking for quick ways to make a buck. However, despite his scheming personality, he is seen as a devoted foe of the Adversary and a capable combatant in his own right, due to his years of experience fighting giants. In the series, Jack creates a film trilogy of his adventures to increase his popularity in the Mundy world making him nigh-immortal.

The characters of Jack Sprat and Jack Ketch have been established as completely separate entities from the fable Jacks represented by Jack Horner.

Fictional character biography

Pre-Fabletown

Jack arguably has the distinction of being busier than any other Fable, with his assorted escapades, including the famous beanstalk incident and his time as a giant-killer of considerable renown.

For a while he gained Lumi's powers, guiling the still naive Snow Queen into turning him into Jack Frost, the Harbinger of Winter. Growing bored with the Snow Queen and drunk on his own newfound power, Jack disregarded his power over the lands as he tried to bed different maidens. Unable to find many that tolerated his essence of cold, he traveled all over unbalancing the lives of all he crossed. Eventually, the people revolted against the four seasons, starting with Lumi who was still sick -- her illness being that she was pregnant. With her beloved townfolk turning on her, and Jack's abandonment, she developed a great resentment to all people and thus became the dreaded Snow Queen. Jack fled for four years as Jack Frost until the Snow Queen's three sisters cornered him and allowed him to live as long as he returned the Snow Queen's powers and he leave their world forever, to which he agreed. Soon after that happened,the Adversary first began his assault on the Fable Homelands. At one point, Jack was captured but apparently released when he sold out the location of the world of the four seasons, in exchange for saving himself.

Also during his wanderings he made a series of cumulative deals with various representations of the Devil and other Rulers of the Afterlife, to extend his time among the living, having died once before and becoming Jack O'Lantern for a time, and has currently bargained the soul of his firstborn with the various debts he will have to pay when his life runs out (which is not too far off unless he can find another Ruler of the Afterlife he has not already dealt with), not realizing that he has sired a son with Lumi.

Fabletown

During his time in Fabletown, Jack was generally known as a schemer, albeit not a terribly competent one. He briefly fought with the Confederate army during the American Civil War, feeling that he might be able to profit from such an adventure. He started up an online business, at about the time when the market for such things fell apart. One of his default schemes appears to involve the selling of the remaining magic beans, from the batch used to grow the famous beanstalk. However, as Jack's tendencies are well-known in Fabletown, he's never succeeded, which is fortunate as he doesn't actually possess the beans any longer; they're among the magical items held by Fabletown. Bigby Wolf, Fabletown's then-sheriff, has always been distrustful of Jack, never believing anything he says (even when he's telling the truth) and making it a point to hold Jack under suspicion whenever anything goes wrong, even going so far as to arrest him immediately on false charges.

For about four years towards the end of his time in Fabletown, Jack was romantically involved with Rose Red. They were known for their raucous parties and general irresponsibility. When Rose was apparently murdered, Jack was quickly picked up as a possible suspect, although it was eventually revealed that the two had conspired to fake her death in order to get her out of an engagement to Bluebeard that the two had set up for financial gain. Once the plot was discovered, in a chain of events that briefly included Jack becoming a prince, and everything had been sorted out, Rose dumped Jack and moved up to the Farm, where she refused to see him, telling him that one of the main reasons that she hooked up with him in the first place was that he irritated her then-estranged sister Snow White. With the thawing of her relationship with her sister and her new responsibilities as administrator at the Farm, she no longer had any time for him.

With the election of Prince Charming to the position of Mayor, Jack came to the conclusion that Fabletown was finished. Stealing the contents of one of the late Bluebeard's treasure rooms, an amount of money in the region of two and a half billion dollars, he left Fabletown in the company of a Lilliputian named Jill who had assisted him with the theft. (The Jill of the nursery rhyme "Jack and Jill" was revealed in Fables #59 as being a different fable who had also relocated to Fabletown.)

Nimble Pictures

Jack, with Jill in tow, headed for Hollywood, where he used his wealth to set up a new studio called Nimble Pictures, taking the alias of John Trick. His principal aim was to shoot a trilogy of films about himself, which he felt would increase his popularity among the mundanes, making him more powerful. He stayed in Hollywood for around five years, until Jill, fed up with his treatment of her, managed to call Fabletown and ask them for help. Fabletown engineered a takeover of Nimble Pictures, with Jack's right-hand man, Moss Waterhouse, as the new head of the studio. Beast came to Hollywood where he explained to Jack that the Fabletown authorities wanted Jack's head. Beast, however, disliked bloodshed and told Jack to leave, taking just a small amount of money with him, and that he never wanted to see Jack again. Jack, with no options remaining to him, agreed. The narration notes at this point that Jack would never be seen in Fabletown again.

The Golden Boughs Retirement Community

Jack began to hitchhike, with no particular destination in mind. He was picked up by a van which, he quickly learned when they put a gun to his head, had been looking for him specifically. Despite attempting to escape en route, Jack ended up in the Golden Boughs Retirement Community, effectively a high-security prison populated entirely by Fables. In fairly short order, he slept with Goldilocks, briefly saw Alice, was severely beaten by Paul Bunyan and met the head of the Community, a man named Mr. Revise.

Revise informed Jack that his goal was to rid the world of magic, an aim that he'd nearly achieved before the Fables arrived hundreds of years earlier and that Jack, with his movie trilogy, had also disrupted. Jack immediately swore to escape from the place, asking the other Fables there who was with him. With assistance from the Tooth Fairy and the fairies of A Midsummer Night's Dream, he and dozens of other Fables escaped The Golden Boughs. He also learned that Goldilocks was a spy for Mr. Revise, though his logic was convoluted (he reasoned that since all of Revise's assistants wear glasses & Goldilocks wears glasses, she must work for Revise). Once again he is hitchhiking across the country, with no particular destination in mind. Arriving in Las Vegas, he uses the Pathetic fallacy and his fame as John Trick to rebuild his wealth again, marrying a rich heiress and "talking" the casino equipment into letting him win.

Unfortunately, his new bride's family had a very powerful enemy -- one who performs rituals and appears to feast on some lucky winners' brains. She dons a royal queen's attire with Clubs (as the playing-card suit) as her main accessories. Some say she may be Lady Luck herself. Jack became widower when a bomb killed his father-in-law and new bride, and fried Jack himself. He recovered from his injuries a very rich man, as all of his departed wife's fortune is now his own. After a confrontation with Lady Luck, however, it seems that she is taking her revenge on Jack by bestowing the best of luck to the patrons of Jack's new casinos, costing him millions of dollars. Even worse, Jacks sidekick ,the Pathetic Fallacy, called Mr. Revise exclaiming that he wanted to go home and informed them of both their whereabouts. Jack, not to be outfoxed, found out that his casino manager "Dan" worked under the orders of Lady Luck. Threatened to be bludgeon to death "Dan" revealed to Jack that Lady Luck appeared from the land known as Americana and transpired with Belgians to find all the luckiest gamblers so she may feast upon their luck (brains). Jack the found Lady Lucks Ritual site and hatched a plan.

After threatening Lady Luck mid-ritual, Ready to feast on another lucky patron (Who had once possessed Lady Lucks greatest source of power, a Golden Horseshoe she herself created) she was shocked to see a plastic mannequin in his place. Adding insult to injury, it was at this time that Mr. Revise's agents has arrived under the Pathetic Fallacy's information, which was planned by Jack from the beginning. In printing the comic, a page of dialog in which Pris Page was holding a gun to Lady Luck was accidentally omitted. In this scene, Ms. Page tells Lady Luck, while in the past, she has been able to escape due to her good fortune, her sister Hillary, researched and found on eBay for 50 dollars, a Golden Horseshoe. She further explains how they melted it down and coated the gun she was holding and the bullets themselves.

Lady Luck was then taken away while Jack and the Pathetic Fallacy looked on in the distance. Unfortunately, Jacks celebration was short lived when back at his casino, his lawyer informed him of "Dan's" murder. He was beaten to death with a golf club that has Jack's prints on it. (Jack was seen handling the club earlier when he interrogated "Dan." Apparently, due to a "moral turpitude" clause in Jacks inheritance, if he committed a vile act such as murder his assets would be forfeit to a trust controlled by the family lawyer, who now it seems framed Jack for "Dans" death. As the police entered, Jack scrambled to escape and the Pathetic Fallacy ordered all the casino slot machines to hold back the police while they escaped. As they drove away, Lady Luck's intended meal caught up with his friend, who was now carrying the golden horseshoe. Hating the luck it brought him, he threw the horseshoe away, bouncing it off of Jack's car window (which caused Jack and the Pathetic Fallacy to crash), and landing the horseshoe in a pickup belonging to one of Mr. Revise's agents, with Lady Luck in the van next to it, both heading to the retirement community. Jack and the Pathetic Fallacy escape the crash unharmed and were last seen hitchhiking onward to their next adventure.

tory Arc Cycles

In the story arcs of the "Jack of Fables" comics, a pattern is repeats itself. It can be seen in the Hollywood and Las Vegas arcs, and in a story of his days as Jack Frost that he tells to his fellow fugitives, John Henry, Pecos Bill and Alice of Wonderland. In each story, he achieves great wealth and position by underhanded means, with at least once beautiful woman by his side. In each case, his greed, impulsiveness and/or infidelity costs him everything and leaves him -- yet again -- a fugitive vagabond on the road. His narration of these events suggests he does not have enough insight to blame himself for his repeated falls from a high position.

chemes

Jack has initiated many attempts to get rich by underhanded means. In addition to those mentioned above, his schemes have included:
*Raffling off a fake map of the locations of magic beans which he had lost.
*Stealing Nimblin's Seven League boots to win the Boston Marathon
*Showing mundies old photographs of himself to convince that he was a vampire, then accepting their money to bite them and make them immortal. This never made it off the ground. Jack conceived the plan while in Bigby's presence; the sheriff immediately realized what Jack was thinking about and threatened him with a century in jail.
*Stealing Santa's naughty and nice lists, which he would then sell to the IRS and various law-enforcement agencies.

References

Time top 10 comics in 2007 [http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/top10/article/0,30583,1686204_1686244_1692139,00.html]

External links

* [http://www.billwillingham.com/ The Official Bill Willingham Homepage]
* [http://www.wizarduniverse.com/conventions/la/003928681.cfm Bill Willingham at Wizard World L.A.: Writer Bill Willingham discusses the legend of Fables and his other current and upcoming projects] (video)
*PDF| [http://tci.homestead.com/files/tci3__jj_page_for_web.pdf Excerpt of interview with cover artist James Jean from The Comics Interpreter #3] |946 KiB Vertigo site with comic based on character [http://www.dccomics.com/graphic_novels/?gn=6711]

References