Video Jack

Video Jack

by Cary Bates (script) and Keith Giffen (art)

Epic Comics (Marvel) 1987

 

'Video Jack' is a six-issue series, published by Marvel Comic's Epic imprint, over the interval from September, 1987, to September, 1988.

'Video' is set in the small Midwestern town of Hickory Haven. Normally a quiet place, as the story opens, Hickory Haven is in something of an uproar, for the corpse of a young woman has been found stuffed in the branches of a tree. Is a serial killer at work in the area ?!

The eponymous Jack is a teen-aged boy named Jack Swift. Jack's father walked out on Jack and his mom years ago, and Jack was raised as much by TV, as by his overburdened mother. 

 

Indeed, Jack lives to watch TV, whether it's live, or on VHS. There's nothing Jack would like better than to be the owner of a top-of-the-line, 27-inch, cable-ready color TV, but at $800, it's out of his league, price-wise.

 

 

Girls in Jack's High School class just don't appreciate his love for the art and technology of video:

 

Jack's best friend is a juvenile delinquent named Damon Xarnett. Xarnett's Uncle Zach is a strange man, from Romania, who likes to mutter to himself. Uncle Zach has a remarkable, high-tech video studio nestled inside his gothic mansion. 

As the first issue's plot unfolds, Uncle Zach's plan to use his video setup to bring a 'cleansing' of 'vice....depravity...filth....perversion' from Hickory Haven. Damon and Jack decide to mess around with Uncle Zach's setup at the worst possible time.....

Subsequent issues reveal that Jack and Damon can be teleported into alternate realities, each reality derived from a different TV show, simply by clicking the channel selector on Uncle Zach's strange, otherworldly remote control. Things can be hazardous in these realities, especially if it's a reality based on a well-known science fiction film.........

Will Jack and Damon ever find the means to return to their own reality ? And if they do, what evil of Uncle Zach's design will they have to confront ?

 

 

I picked up the six-issue run of 'Video Jack' hoping it was one of those underappreciated gems that came from the Epic imprint in the 1980s. Sadly, 'Video Jack' is really, really bad.

 

The writing is too ad-libbed to be very engaging: Bates and Giffen can't seem to decide if the narrative is to be comedic, an action-adventure, or some crazed amalgamation of both. This gives 'Video Jack' a cobbled-together sensibility. Efforts by these writers to satirize Hollywood and its video culture more often are lame and contrived. It doesn't help matters when Archie Goodwin, editor of the Epic imprint, shows up in the pages of the comic to lend some humorous asides. The result is nothing but severe cringe.....

The final issue of 'Video Jack' is so bad I struggled to get through it. Marvel evidently decided to draft some of its artists to contribute one- or two-page segments, evidently to rescue Giffen from imminent deadline problems. The result is cheesy and inane, falling far short of what I would expect even from a 'Little Archie,' or 'Richie Rich,' or 'Casper the Friendly Ghost,' comic.

Summing up, while Epic's holy mission of promoting 'creator-owned content' may have been meritorious, the truth is much of that creator-owned content was pretty shitty. 'Video Jack' can be passed by without penalty ! 

 

P.S. you can get another take on 'Video Jack' at this link.