The character first appeared in The Deadly Hands of Kung Fu #22 (March 1976), and was created by writer Bill Mantlo and artist Keith Giffen.
[1] He starred in his own four-issue mini series and has been a regular character in the Iron Man comics as well as at one point being a member of the Avengers.
The lack of control became a recurring theme with Jack of Hearts, including his stint in the Avengers where he had to spend 14 hours a day in a containment room to prevent self-destruction.
The return of Jack of Hearts and the explosion that killed Scott Lang was the launching point of the 2004-05 "Avengers Disassembled".
Jack of Hearts first appeared in the black & white magazine The Deadly Hands of Kung Fu #22 (March 1976), and was created by writer Bill Mantlo and illustrator Keith Giffen.
He later serves a brief stint as an ally and apprentice of Iron Man, becoming a regular cast member of the series during Mantlo's tenure as writer.
[3] He was later made a regular in The Avengers by writer Kurt Busiek, who explained, "I first ran into Jack in The Deadly Hands of Kung Fu in an issue drawn by Gil Kane and Rico Rival.
He is the son of Philip Hart, a scientist who created an energy source called "zero fluid", and Marie, an alien humanoid woman of the Contraxian race.
After being exposed to a vat of zero fluid, Jack underwent a mutagenic change and gained the ability to project concussive energy from his body.
Jack teamed with Iron Man, Nick Fury, Guardsman, Jasper Sitwell, Jean DeWolff, and the Wraith, and battled Midas.
[10] Jack Hart was then reunited with a college girlfriend named Marcy Kane (who was also a fellow graduate student of Peter Parker, a.k.a.
Marcy took Jack to Contraxia, where he discovered that his powers had become much stronger, and saved the home-world of his mother by reenergizing its dying sun.
The Contraxians could not find a solution for Jack's unstable powers, and he left Contraxia to wander outer space in exile.
[20] During his tenure, the Avengers teamed-up with the Justice League of America,[21] and fought the Red Skull for unleashing a biological weapon at Mount Rushmore, killing many civilians.
The zero-point energy unexpectedly reformed itself into corporeal form as Jack, who returned to life wearing his original suit for unexplained reasons.
[volume & issue needed] Jack Hart's superhuman powers are as a result of the mutagenic effect of his father's "Zero Fluid", combined with the alien genes from his Contraxian mother.
Jack of Hearts also has the ability to generate "zero energy" within his body and project it as concussive force or intense heat or as a propellant to fly.
Jack of Hearts's brain has incorporated the artificial intelligence of a computerized device called the Scanalyzer, enabling him to think with the speed of a computer and store and retrieve information with a computer-like capacity and efficiency.
These mutations were not solely caused by exposure to the "Zero Fluid", but are actually aspects of his half-Contraxian genetics brought to the fore, as Contraxians naturally have such appearances.
[16] His original suit of armor was later restored and upgraded by Moondragon after Jack was rescued from space by the Avengers and thus leading to his connection with the team.