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| Jericho | |
|---|---|
 Jericho. Art by George Perez |
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| Publication information | |
| Publisher | DC Comics |
| First appearance | as Joseph Wilson: Tales of the Teen Titans #42 (May 1984) as Jericho: Tales of the Teen Titans #44 (July 1984) |
| Created by | Marv Wolfman George Pérez |
| In-story information | |
| Alter ego | Joseph William Wilson |
| Team affiliations | Teen Titans Wildebeest Society |
| Abilities | He has the metahuman ability to take mental control of the motor responses of another human body, after making direct eye contact with them. Soul-self (Titans Hunt storyline) |
Jericho (Joseph William Wilson) is a fictional character, originally a superhero who was a member of the Teen Titans in the acclaimed 1980s period of New Teen Titans by Marv Wolfman and George Pérez, published by DC Comics. Since the early 1990s, Jericho has been depicted as a villain.
Contents |
Fictional character biography
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Childhood
Joseph was the younger son of Slade Wilson, a.k.a. Deathstroke the Terminator. When he was a child, he was held hostage by Jackal, a terrorist who was after his father. Deathstroke refused to give Jackal the information he wanted because it went against his professional code of ethics. Deathstroke managed to rescue his son, but not before one of Jackal's men had started to cut his throat. As a result, he was rendered mute.
As a result of that incident, and the fact that Slade had lied to her, Joseph's mother Adeline divorced Slade (after attempting to kill him by shooting him, but only succeeding in blinding him in one of his eyes), and took her two sons (Joseph and his older brother Grant) with her. At some point, Joseph learned to communicate through sign language (identified in Action Comics #584 as American Sign Language) to compensate for his lost voice.
His metahuman power is a result of the biological experimentation done on his father years before, and appeared in his late teens when he tried saving his mother from an assassin. He had the power to take possession of any humanoid being he can make eye contact with. Once inside, Jericho takes possession of his target's voluntary motor functions for his own use but is unable to control the voice and mind of the target. In addition, if the host is unconscious while Jericho is in control, he can speak through the host's body—but only with that person's accent and vocabulary—and easily control the body physically. Jericho's body changes into an astral form seconds before possession. He sometimes uses the American manual alphabet letter "J" as his Sign name in order to signal to his allies that he has taken possession of a person.
Titans
Sometime later (in a storyline called The Judas Contract), Adeline and Joseph discover that Deathstroke has accepted a contract on the Teen Titans. They approach Dick Grayson to help him rescue the Titans and Joseph adopts the identity of Jericho. The rescue mission is a success but the Titans are initially wary of him because of his relationship to Deathstroke and the betrayal of Terra.
Jericho did become a member and was a loyal Titan for many years. Shortly after joining the Titans another new member, Kole, joined. Jericho immediately developed a bond with her. Sadly, this did not last long: when Jericho along with a few other Titans went on a mission to space, Kole was killed during the Crisis on Infinite Earths. After returning and discovering the tragic news, Jericho then began to feel a sad quality within Raven and sought to ease her troubled spirit.
Corruption
Unbeknownest to anyone, Jericho was possessed by the souls of Azarath, now tainted by the essence of the demon Trigon, Raven's father. Unable to possess Raven herself, the souls entered Jericho. They were weak at first, but gained strength with time and eventually merged with him.
The souls now needed individual vessels to survive and Jericho sought to acquire superhuman ones for them, taking over the Wildebeest Society and using them to abduct current and former Titans to act as vessels. Jericho also got new powers: a powerful lion soul-self and a healing ability that repaired his throat and allowed him to speak again.
In the Titans Hunt storyline, Nightwing and Troia, accompanied by some new allies, found and confronted him. During the battle, the real Jericho resurfaced and begged his father to kill him. There was no help for him and, to spare his son any more suffering, Deathstroke killed him. A statue of Jericho was later erected in the Titans Tower memorial in San Francisco.
Return
Several years later, it was revealed that Jericho's spirit had survived by jumping inside his father right before he was killed. He had lain dormant until hearing that his friend Donna Troy had been killed in battle. Taking control of his father's body, he sought out the latest group of Titans; hoping to convince them that children shouldn't be superheroes, as they could easily be killed like he was, and wanting to spare them his fate. He also killed his father's closest friend, Wintergreen, and mounted the man's head on a wall.[1]
Further demonstrating his mental instability, while in Deathstroke's body he viciously attacked his former friends, and even shot Impulse in the knee.[2]
During the combat, he jumped from body to body until Raven absorbed him. During a battle with Brother Blood, she repelled him when she unintentionally absorbed her teammates, Deathstroke and Rose into her soul-self. Jericho managed to use the bodies of Wonder Girl and Superboy against the team, but when he tried to enter Cyborg, Cyborg used his cybernetic eye to transfer Jericho's spirit to a computer file, now stored in Titans Tower. Beast Boy says that they check on Jericho every day.[3]
After the "One Year Later" jump following the events of Infinite Crisis, Raven takes the disk with Jericho's essence and, using the same ritual the Church of Brother Blood previously employed to raise her from the dead, resurrects Jericho in an undamaged body now missing the throat scars from his childhood injury. However, for reasons never explained, despite the fact he no longer has the physical damage of his old body, Joey remains unable to speak, and continues to use sign language to communicate.[4] Jericho joins this latest incarnation of the team, taking the opportunity to bond with his half-sister Rose, who is the new Ravager.[5] After possessing the body of Superboy's dangerous clone Match, Jericho moves to S.T.A.R. Labs until they can find a way to control Match.[6]
Later Jericho, still trapped in Match's body, seemingly escapes from S.T.A.R. Labs in visible distress and asking for his friends' help.[7] The Titans manage to help him escape Match's body, but it soon becomes apparent how much the experience twisted Jericho's mind, leaving him bent on the Titans' destruction.[8]
Jericho, briefly escapes the Titans to plague the Presidential Election of 2008 of the main DC Universe, going so far as to use Green Lantern's body to fight the Justice League upon being discovered.[9] The will-based powers of Hal prove to be his undoing, as Hal is able to push Jericho out of his body. Jericho is brought to the JLA Satellite for safe-keeping. Mento mindprobes Jericho, discovering that he is suffering from a particular and severe form of dissociative identity disorder, caused by years of reckless body-hopping. Unable to purge his mind of the lingering echoes of the personality he had to submerge when taking possession of an individual, he has his mind overruled by the most evil and strong willed patterns, causing him to take on a criminal, ruthless personality opposed to his former gentle self. The JLA decides to send him back to S.T.A.R. Labs, hoping for a cure.[10]
Jericho manages to escape the JLA, and returns to the Titans, inhabiting Nightwing's body. The JLA arrives to reclaim him, and he starts jumping into the bodies of whoever tries to capture him. This backfires when Jericho jumps into Superman's body. Although stronger than he once was, Jericho found himself unable to control Superman's alien body. Jericho briefly manages to gain control of himself over the evil impulses, and seemingly vanishes into nothingness.[11]
Deathtrap
He later returns, having entered Cyborg's body. He uses Titans Tower's defenses to try to kill the Teen Titans, but their new member Static uses his electrical powers to short out the Tower's systems, creating feedback that knocks Jericho out of Cyborg.[12] Jericho escapes once more and, spurred on by the multiple personalities inside him (particularly that of his father), sets into motion a "Deathtrap" scenario.[13] Jericho unsuccessfully attempts to murder both the Teen Titans and the Titans (his former teammates), who apprehend him. While in police custody, he is confronted by the new Vigilante. Determined to end the villain's rampage permanently (but having promised Rose Wilson that he would not kill him), Vigilante gouges out both of his eyes, rendering him unable to use his possession abilities. The trauma of the incident causes Jericho to revert back to his true personality, but he is left haunted by the various personalities in his mind.[14]
In an Teen Titans tie-in to the Blackest Night crossover, Jericho is seen in possession of Ravager member of the Black Lantern Corps and Jericho's sight has been restored.[15]
Powers and abilities
Jericho can possess a person after making eye contact with them; his body turns insubstantial and enters the subject. While he is possessing, Jericho has access to all of that host's powers including physical, mental, and magical, and is also able to tap into their memories. Jericho's victims stay conscious and may even express themselves vocally, but they are not able to control the actions of their bodies as directed by Jericho.
However, this power is most effective on human or meta-human bodies; when Jericho once possessed Superman when the hero's mind was briefly transferred into the body of a crippled, angry scientist, he was unable to maintain control for long, although it was still long enough to allow the Titans to reverse the transfer. He is skilled in hand to hand combat able to keep his own with his father himself.
Jericho's power depends on eye contact with living beings; if he is blinded, or the being he attempts to possess is not a natural creature, his power fails (in this way, he was tricked by his teammate Cyborg during a training exercise, when the latter closed his natural eye and Jericho failed to take possession by attempting to contact his artificial eye).
When possessed by evil, Jericho had a powerful lion soul self and healing ability and was a criminal mastermind
In other media
Jericho appeared in the "Calling All Titans" episode of the animated Teen Titans series. He meets Beast Boy and becomes an honorary Titan and has to fight off both Fang and Private H.I.V.E.. In the next episode, "Titans Together," he is one of four heroes who endured an attack from the Brotherhood of Evil and rallied under Beast Boy to launch a final assault against the Brotherhood.
Like his early comic persona, Jericho in the animated series can possess any being he can make eye contact with. He is mute on the show as he is in the comic books. However, while in Cinderblock's body, he was able to speak (though this may be because Cinderblock has a mind in only the most basic sense). However, his power was useless when Gizmo put a bag over his head, unable to make eye contact with anyone. He was saved when reinforcements arrived with Cyborg, Starfire, and Raven. His relationship to Slade Wilson wasn't mentioned.
Sexuality
When Marv Wolfman and George Pérez were creating the character, they toyed around with the idea of making Joseph gay. Perez had this to say: "While Marv and I did discuss the possibility of Joseph Wilson being gay, Marv decided that it was too much of a stereotype to have the sensitive, artistic, and wide-eyed character with arguably effeminate features be also homosexual. Joseph has had romantic connections with women Raven and Kole."[16]
References
- ^ Teen Titans, Vol. 3, issues #1-#6 "A Kid's Game", September 2003 - February 2004
- ^ Teen Titans, Vol. 3, issues #4 "A Kid's Game", December 2003
- ^ Teen Titans, Vol. 3, issue #12, "Family Lost", August 2004
- ^ Teen Titans, Vol. 3 issue #40 "Titans Around the World, Part 3", December 2006
- ^ Teen Titans, Vol. 3 issue #41 "Titans Around the World, Part 4", January 2007
- ^ Teen Titans, Vol. 3, issue #46 "Titans East, Part 4", June 2007
- ^ Titans #6
- ^ Titans #7
- ^ DC Universe: Decisions #3
- ^ DC Universe: Decisions #4
- ^ Titans #10
- ^ Teen Titans Annual #1
- ^ Titans #12
- ^ Vigilante (vol. 2) #6 (July 2009)
- ^ Teen Titans (vol. 3) #77 (November 2009)
- ^ Gay League - Jericho
External links
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