Jack O'Lantern
Called New York
Everyone hail to the pumpkin dork
The midnight hour approaches... and so too does the fright-faced fiend Jack O'Lantern! Once a highly-trained soldier for the U.S. government, Jack O'Lantern is loyal only to his next payout, freelancing as a mercenary for less "civilised" nations and plotting his own criminal capers on the side. The discipline, preparedness, and swift reflexes from his former career combine uniquely with a persona that walks the line between flamboyant egotism and blood-chilling inhumanity, making him an unpredictable and formidable opponent. None can hope to match Jack O'Lantern: not his foolish enemies, nor his bungling underlings – despite being sourced from the cream of the underworld – nor even that rascally robot Machine Man. He fights without mercy... and he fights for the adrenaline rush.
Augmenting Jack O'Lantern's physical prowess are a number of gadgets. His body armour can withstand anything short of a bazooka blast and is insulated against electricity, and his flaming helmet has its own supply of breathable air. His wrist-blaster can fire bursts of flame with such intensity that they can burn through walls. Hooked onto his belt are various explosive devices including smoke grenades and concussion bombs. His pogo-platform, clamped magnetically to his boots, can hover silently for stealthy approaches or ricochet off flat surfaces for a quick getaway.
Fiction
For a time, Jack O'Lantern operated from a run-down athletic centre in Manhattan, where he would meet his freebooters at midnight. For months, he hadn't sent his men on a job, earning the ire of notorious gangster Geoff Peckman, who was tired of Jack O'Lantern's nightly combat drills.
On one night in October, Jack made a typically bombastic entrance, interrupting Peckman's griping. Spotting five new recruits among his crew, Jack hazed them by betting ten thousand dollars he could take them all on at once. When the fight began, he immediately began using his weaponry, demonstrating his lack of fair play. Having suitably introduced himself, he promised to mould them from underworld gangsters to a highly effective fighting force. He then began to explain his latest plan concerning Delmar Insurance's new super-embassy for visiting diplomats, and the millions they would make from it.
The following week, on Halloween, Jack O'Lantern dispatched Peckman to take reconnaissance photos of the super-embassy ahead of its inaugural costume ball that evening. As he was examining the shots, their meeting was interrupted when the superhero Machine Man dropped through the ceiling, and Jack immediately ordered him killed. Jack observed how ably Machine Man subdued his freebooters; though he considered the living robot could prove a worthy foe to him, his plot for the super-embassy would brook no delays, and he hit Machine Man with a burst from his wrist-blaster, sending him through a brick wall. Jack and his men fled in a truck, and Machine Man was unable to follow them.
Jack's plan to infiltrate the impregnable embassy was to simply walk in, using genuine invitations purchased from a "banana republic" unable to send their own ambassadors. At his request, he and his costumed freebooters were given a tour of the embassy as though they were prospective buyers, leaving Jack amused at their hubris. In the security centre, Jack and his men used knockout gas to take control of the super-embassy, and they immediately triggered its defence measures, trapping its invited guests within thick bulkhead doors and giving him 724 valuable hostages. His plan was to ransom these high-ranking officials back to their governments of origin.
Peckman, at a computer console, detected a disturbance in Corridor 4-C. Despite Jack O'Lantern thinking the error to be Peckman's, he nevertheless set out to investigate with a platoon, where he found Machine Man interfacing with the security system. Jack began his assault with a smoke grenade and sicced his freebooters on the rascally robot, but they were quickly defeated. Jack decided to cut and run; his attempts to slow Machine Man from chasing him down the corridor proved ineffective.
Eventually, Jack O'Lantern managed to burn through a wall into a ballroom full of visiting diplomats. Finding himself tiring and unable to outlast Machine Man, Jack threatened to throw a grenade into the crowd. Machine Man generated a charged magnetic field around him, which was ineffective against the insulation in Jack's suit... but it caused the concussion bomb to explode inward, engulfing and knocking him out, though his body armour prevented any serious injury. Machine Man reasoned that, without Jack to lead them, his men would surrender quietly.
Jack O'Lantern's capture made international headlines. As a result of his terrorist attack, the super-embassy went back to the drawing board. Jolted by Jack O'Lantern!
The quotable Jack O'Lantern
- "Only boy scouts and bunglers fight fairly! Survival is the only rule of combat!"
- "I made a science of mayhem and terrorism!"
- "If any of you mindless milksops survive, I'll mould you into the finest, most fatal band of freebooters the world has ever seen!"
- "We'll need oil tankers to cart away our profits from this little enterprise!"
- "Perhaps it's time for this grinning guerilla to make tracks!"
- "Only fools and idealists fight on... when the cause is lost!"
- "A true mercenary knows when to find the back door!"
Notes
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- Unnamed by TFUK, Jason Macendale Jr. would have a far more notable criminal career after taking on the mantle of Hobgoblin.
