Origin
In the reality of Earth-238, a British politician waged a political war on mutants. Sir James Jaspers had been elected into office as a member of the English Parliament because of his anti mutant and anti super heroes stance and politics, however Jaspers was a mutant himself, a powerful reality warping mutant. His political facade and motivations for the elimination of his fellow mutants and superheroes was essentially to ensure his supremacy. Jaspers seemed a gifted politician and adapt at swaying popular public opinion, with lines such as “if they were honest they wouldn’t wear masks” but whether he was always mad, or descended into madness with the advent of his mutant reality warping powers, Jaspers had lost his sanity. Jaspers of Earth-238 was so determined to rid his world of mutants, he began to move beyond drumming up anti mutant sentiment and constructed an incredibly powerful and lethal and adapting cybernetic construct known simply as the Fury. The Fury was designed to track, hunt and eliminate not just mutants but superhuman and super powered beings and it was deadly efficient in its extermination, successful in eliminating almost all super powered beings but a handful.
Jaspers had also formed an advanced technological equipped military task force charged with eliminating super powered beings, this group known as the Status Crew. Typically the Status Crew would round up powered beings to be held in concentration camps with their extermination there not long after. The Fury would deal with bigger threats. It would take less than two years for super powered beings to be on the verge of extinction. The Fury had been programmed by Jaspers to allow Jaspers to live as the sole powered being.
Unmatched in power by any other being, any potential threats ruthlessly destroyed by the Fury, Jaspers adopted the persona of Mad Jim Jaspers, a bank robber and crook paying homage to the Mad Hatter from Alice in Wonderland as well as continuing the Lewis Carroll book theme with his own bank robbing crew the Crazy Gang. It was around this time that the Omniversal Guardian Merlyn aware of not just this reality’s version of Jaspers danger to the multiverse, but the Jim Jaspers of the 616 reality who Merlyn realized possessed even greater reality warping power. Merlyn would teleport one of the few remaining super heroes of Earth-238, Captain UK Linda McQuillan, to the 616 designated reality. Importantly he would also do so whilst she was being observed by the deadly cybiote the Fury. The Earth of 238 would fall into disarray due to the mad machinations and reality warping of Jaspers. It had become known as a crooked earth. Of similar concern was that the Jaspers of 616 had begun his political ascension, a worrying sign of things to come.
Creation
Mad Jim Jaspers is a Marvel comic book character created by Alan Moore, David Thorpe and Alan Davis, initially for Marvels UK division. The character of Jaspers from Earth-238 would first appear in Marvel Super-Heroes #377 released in 1981, with the mainstream 616 reality version of the character appearing in The Daredevils #7 released in 1983. The character is in part inspired by the Hatter character from Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. The Hatter character also known for his whimsical madness. Jaspers also bears a strong resemblance to English Comedian Terry-Thomas.
Character Evolution
Despite appearing in only a handful of stories, the character of Mad Jim Jaspers holds a rather popular and iconic place within Marvel comics history. No doubt the success of the character is attributed to the fact he was created by the legendary creative team of Alan Moore and Alan Davis. Also owing his popularity due to the celebrated and iconic story arc the character plays antagonist in. This page covers both the 238 version of Jaspers as well as his 616 version. The two characters are extremely similar and appear within the same story arc, that very story arc being of the very first story arcs to explore the ideas of multiverses, omniverse and alternate realities. In many ways the 238-Earth’s Mad Jim Jaspers serves as a potent precursor to the 616 version of the character homing in the danger and threat presented by the mainstream realities version.
Interestingly popular X-Men writer Chris Claremont had planned to use Mad Jim Jaspers in quite an expansive story arc and even laid the groundwork for using the character in landmark Uncanny X-Men #300 forever backstage politics prevented the story from going on as planned. More recently in a twist the character of Jaspers has merged with that of his alternate reality version’s greatest creation, the Fury.
Major Story Arcs
The Destruction of Earth-238
Merlyn’s actions behind the scenes would continue, the Omniversal Guardian sending the 616 reality Captain Britain Brian Braddock to Earth-238 along with side kick and elf Jackdaw. Captain Britain and Jackdaw would confront the Crazy Gang during a crime spree, however when face to face with Mad Jim Jaspers himself the two would find themselves outmatched. Another agent acting on behalf of the safety of the omniverse Saturnyne had arrived to Earth-238 in order to boost evolutionary processes in order to fix the damage that had appeared inflicted on that reality. Unaware that the damage had been caused by Jaspers, the subsequent efforts to undo the damage caused by exposing Earth-238 to the Push, an artificial method of boosting evolutionary processes. This maneuver however would only cause the 238 Jaspers to unleash a devastating reality warp, the Jaspers Warp, spreading rapidly, altering reality itself to suit Jaspers mad inner workings, reality twisted and contorted to suit his very imagination.
The Status Crew, unaware this was the actions of Jaspers, would reactivate the Fury. Saturnyne would flee from the reality in the face of the Jaspers Warp, Jackdaw slaughtered by the Fury. Mad Jim Jaspers of Earth-238 would reveal himself in a flying teapot to a severely injured Brian Braddock and would explain in great deal his reality warping powers, his growing powers and the events leading up to their current predicament. Truly terrifying Jaspers would reveal a superhero graveyard to Captain UK, whilst also bombarding the hero with visions of the death and carnage he had caused. The Fury would then slaughter Brian Braddock, who would be revived in his home reality by Merlyn. The Omniversal Majestrix Lord Mandragon would sanction the universal destruction of the 238 reality in order to prevent the Jaspers Warp affecting other realities. The Jaspers of 238 had finally been stopped, albeit with a heavy price paid. However the threat of 616 version of Jaspers would remain.
Beginnings of a Mad Man
With the presumed death of the 238 version of Mad Jim Jaspers by the entire destruction of his reality. The Fury of Earth-238 was the sole survivor of that reality. Left alone in a void, the powerful cybiote sensed that Brian Braddock was alive somehow, despite the Fury having killed him. Identifying that Braddock was alive somehow, Fury was able to adapt the powers necessary in order to teleport between realities, traveling to Earth-616 in order to fulfill his obligation to destroy all super powered beings, starting with Captain Britain whom it could sense was alive. Captain Britain awakened from a long slumber to find the Earth-616 James Jaspers leading an anti-superhero campaign throughout England with the aid of Henry Peter Gyrich and Sebastian Shaw. Jaspers soon won a landslide election on his anti-superhero campaign and became the Prime Minister. Events soon followed those of Earth-238, and Jaspers unleashed an attack of the mighty Jaspers’ Warp on London.
The Fury soon arrived on Earth-616 and engaged Jaspers, recognizing him as a different master than the one he was forbade from killing. The Fury managed to kill Jaspers after an extensive battle the Fury theorizing a weakness with Jasper and his ability to warp reality, and subsequently warping him to a void between Universes where his reality-bending powers did not take affect. After the battle, the weakened Fury was destroyed by the only hero to escape Earth-238, Captain UK. Jaspers’ powers are thought to be responsible for the creation of the deformed and often super-powered children known as the Warpies. Sir James Jaspers is later seen in the series as a prosecutor in an anti-mutant trial, though it is not made clear if he has been revived or if he is simply an after-effect of continuous reality-bends.
Some years later, a large-scale reality warp originating on Earth-616, caused by the Scarlet Witch’s House of M story arc, resulted in the recreation of the exterminated Earth-616 Jaspers and Fury as a single combined being. Mad Jim Jaspers retained his mutant powers after M-Day.
Die by the Sword
Alive and well again after so long Jaspers revival does not escape the attentions of Roma or Merlyn. Roma sends the Captain Britain Corps to take out Jaspers, however its a suicide mission and temporary solution at best. Jaspers is able to defeat them and decides to transform two of them into copies of the Fury. Unbeknownst to Jaspers the Fury part of the merged pair is starting to assert himself gradually more and more and this action of turning Captain Britain Corps is an example of this. More and more Coprs members would be sent to oppose Jaspers as he made his way to Roma’s Starlight Citadel, however they were easily dealt with by Jaspers and his newly growing collection of Corpsman turned Fury copies.
During the battle in which hundreds if not more Captain Britain Corpsman were destroyed by Jaspers he slowly started to realize the machinations and influence of the Fury on his mind and body. Before he could consider this further he would be attacked by the Exiles, Blink, Mimic, Sabretooth and Thunderbird. The Exiles were no real threat against Jaspers but that pause allowed enough time and opportunity for the Fury to begin its inner battle with Jaspers and again the alternate reality Jaspers’ greatest creation would become the more powerful 616 Jaspers greatest foe with the two battling again for dominance, this time within the same body. Taking advantage of this unique inner conflict the Exiles member Blink would use her power of teleportation to seemingly destroy Jaspers.
Powers and Abilities
Mad Jim Jaspers possesses incredible reality warping powers. The extent of Jaspers warping abilities was both impressive as far as the ease of which he could warp and defy physical laws but also the scale of warping. Within the Jaspers Warp, a rapidly increasing reality warping wave emanating from Jaspers, he was essentially omnipotent. The Jasper Wave of the Earth-238 Jaspers had threatened to engulf the 238 reality and potentially spread to other realities. The Earth-616 Jaspers possessed considerably greater reality warping power. The danger of the Jaspers Warp is evident in that it threatened to engulf his total reality in mere days increasing in size and speed exponentially before the reality was destroyed under the authority of Dimensional Development Court. As such the nature of reality warping powers Mad Jim Jaspers can make himself super strong, super fast, super durable to virtually any level. Transform himself, transform others, increase or decrease the size of objects including himself, manipulate matter and energy up to near limitless degrees, manipulate and bend time, create life, teleport, heal instantaneously among virtually any other ability limited only by Jaspers imagination. One of the few limitations was that Jaspers needed a medium of reality to work through and in the absence of reality was essentially depowered. Also the Fury of his own creation appears to be able to resist the effects of Jaspers reality warping by adapting. The Fury as a creation of Jaspers also speaks well of Jaspers intelligence as far as robotics and engineering. He is considered a genius, albeit one whose sanity seems impaired.
Jaspers is incredibly durable and resilient, and appears to be able to survive without a physical body. Jaspers can even chose to ignore physical damage and reconstitute himself from any form of injury, no matter the degree or extent. The Mad Jim Jaspers of Earth-616 was considerably more powerful than the Mad Jim Jaspers of Earth-238, with Merlyn considering him a threat to the Omniverse. At some time after his physical death, Jaspers inadvertently merged with the Fury, enhancing Jaspers senses and perceptions but also affecting his personality and ability to think, so in some ways limiting Jaspers.
Physical Characteristics
- Height: 6′ 0″ (variable)
- Weight: 155 lbs (variable)
- Hair: Black (variable)
- Eyes: Blue (variable)