Origin
Sara Ehret is a lab assistant at Phelcorps Labs, a subsidiary of Oscorp. She was working on a form of gene therapy, a retrovirus called Lot 777, that would hopefully cure Parkinson’s Disease. While studying a sample of Lot 777, Sara accidentally infected herself with the retrovirus and fell into a coma. She was pregnant at the time and spent four months comatose. Luckily Sara got out of her coma and she gave birth to a daughter. Not much later, Sara and her husband Scott were walking with their infant daughter, Madeline, when Spider-Man came crashing out of the side of a building, caught in the arms of a super-villain. With the debris falling down around them, Sara saved her family by holding a piece of the building’s wall above their head while Spider-Man continued his pursuit of the criminal. She then noticed she had superpowers and wanted to start a career as a super-hero.
Creation
Jackpot (Sara Ehret) was created by Dan Slott and Phil Jimenez and first appeared in the Free Comic Book Day 2007 comic book. Her persona was further created by Marc Guggenheim and Salvador Larroca. Sara was only Jackpot in her initial appearance, the other appearances of Jackpot was actually Sara’s friend Alana Jobson. When Alana died, Sara again took the identity back.
Major Story Arcs
One costume, two persons
Three years later, Sara Ehret, under the name Jackpot, became a registered hero with the The Initiative where she received training in her fighting skills. However, she soon became tired of the superhero business and sold her costumed identity to someone else. Who remained to be seen. This new version of Jackpot was seen going after a truck that belonged to a criminal in a Demon Mask, filled with explosives. She managed to stop the truck before it could hit a building, witch would have caused the explosives to detonate and would have caused a disaster. She however couldn’t apprehend the villain who drove the car. During this time she also met Spider-man for the first time. After the incident, Spider-Man kept asking her what her name was, Jackpot asked him what his was. Spider-Man jokingly replied “Flash Thompson“, so Jackpot claimed her name was “Sara Ehret.” This name turns out to be a fake secret identity when Spider-Man went to the address of the only Sara Ehret he found in the phone book and found a blonde woman with short hair who tells him that she is not the hero Jackpot.
Later, Spider-Man gets really curious and tests a coffee cup with Jackpot’s fingerprints on it, it was then revealed that the fingerprints belongs to a woman named Alana Jobson. Alana had been a woman with great troubles in her life. She had feelings for a woman but tried to hide it from others. She became a social worker whom wanted to do more then just help in the small amounts she now did. Spider-Man visits her house and finds lots of drugs in her drawer. Jackpot then comes home and starts taking her costumes off, and Spider-Man sees her back with lots of bloodstains. Jackpot realises that Spider-Man was present, and she battles him at first but she then tells Spider-Man what happened. Jackpot told Spider-Man that her Super Hero license was bought from Sara Ehret after Sara decided to quit from the superhero business. To have powers, Jackpot took a number of drugs including Mutant Growth Hormones. Spider-Man tells her to quit and leaves her to think.
Jackpot later appears when Spider-Man was fighting a villain named Blindside that had the ability to blind people with just a touch. Blindside touches Jackpot causing her to go blind but Spider-Man gave her an anti-dote that stopped her going blind, Jackpot and Spider-Man finally defeat him. After defeating Blindside, something goes wrong with Jackpot, and she dies. Spider-Man took the body to Reed Richards to find out what caused the death. Reed Richards tell him that the poison that was released from Blindside that makes people blind killed her, her body couldn’t take on too many drugs so she had an overdose and died. After the incident, he brings Jackpot’s costume to Sara telling her to continue Jackpot’s work and tells her that “With great power, comes great responsibility“.
Return as Jackpot
Sara takes Spider-Man’s words to heart even though she feels it was more of a guilt trip than a motivational speech. Sara redesigned the Jackpot costume to be more practical and begins her career anew as a superhero. Six months later, Sara gets wind of an illegal drug ring in Brooklyn, New York and comes across her first supervillain, Boomerang. Jackpot is able to hold her own fairly well and even shoots Boomerang with her grappling hook. However, feeling outnumbered between Boomerang and three gun-toting thugs, she makes her exit, but not before pocketing a sample of an unknown substance the criminals were transporting.
At Phelcorps Labs, Sara has the mystery substance analyzed by Doctor Hayes and discovers it is a sweat gland. Jackpot hits the streets searching for answers and comes across White Rabbit. Spider-Man, working an investigation of his own involving the Maggia crime family, shows up and the two heroes work together to question the White Rabbit and learn she is trafficking a new drug called Ebony. The next day, Jackpot takes the sweat gland to Reed Richards to have it analysed. Richards states that her sample is similar to one brought in by Daredevil who had taken one from the Owl earlier that week. Due to the sweat gland containing recombinant DNA, Richards compared it to DNA samples he had on the superhumans and found that the sweat gland had come from the Corruptor. Reed also posits that the Corruptor didn’t willingly agree to give up his sweat glands as the procedure is extremely painful even with anesthesia. As the sample taken from the Owl has been cooked, Sara comes to the conclusion that the Ebony drug is derived from the Corruptor’s glands.
After a night of searching for answers on the Corruptor’s whereabouts, Sara returns home. As she and her family are having dinner, Boomerang appears at her doorstep having learned her identity via a fingerprint on Jackpot’s grappling hook. Boomerang stabs Sara’s husband Scott with a boomerang and attacks her, throwing a boomerang at Sara’s daughter. Sara was able to block the projectile with a kitchen chair. Using the boomerang, Sara sliced at Boomerang’s neck and escaped with Madeline to the Baxter Building.
In rage over her husband’s death, Sara asks the Fantastic Four to watch her daughter and she hits the streets as Jackpot, searching for Boomerang’s employer. After beating the information out of a number of thugs, Jackpot learns of The Rose. Spider-Man shows up and tries to keep her from going after him but Jackpot refuses to listen. Together, the two heroes track the criminal down but are confronted by the Armadillo. Jackpot is thrown out the window but is able to land on her feet only to have to fight with thugs under the mind-controlling effects of Ebony. Spider-Man helps her out after he subdues The Rose and Armadillo.
After the police arrive and the Rose is in custody, Jackpot confronts the criminal and discovers that he is Doctor Hayes. After Sara’s accident with Lot 777, the funding to Hayes’s genetic research was pulled and the doctor decided to turn to more ‘aggressive’ methods to finance his research. Afterwards, with her secret identity known by criminals and her husband dead, Sara takes Madeline and moves to Sherman Oaks, California to live under assumed identities. Madeline now goes by the name Sydney and Sara has taken on the name Alana Jobson, in honor of her dead friend.
Abilities
- Superhuman strength, durability, and endurance
- Carries grappling hook launcher
- Skilled biologist