BIOGRAPHY - Page 2
Jack briefly returned to action after hearing Dollar Bill’s unwelcome announcement for a membership drive in the dynamic Defenders. The friend of the team never asked the team themselves if they wanted new members before nearly twenty 
heroes showed up on their doorstep. Jack of Hearts and Captain Ultra spent the try-outs flirting with Hellcat, until they each got distracted by how ridiculous their outfits were. The whole afternoon was a fiasco and the “Defenders-for-a-day” soon left, every last one of them. [Defenders (1st series) #62-64]
Jack’s body continued changing, and he recognized that the dead cells blackening the left side of his body were spreading. With the help of Stark, Jack became reacquainted with S.H.I.E.L.D., and “Project: Heart” was born. At Hart Mansion, Agent William Martins of S.H.I.E.L.D. was assigned to serve as Jack’s “butler.” In addition to his S.H.I.E.L.D. training, Martins was also a top radiologist who had worked with Phillip Hart in the past. In exchange for Jack of Hearts’ service as a S.H.I.E.L.D. asset, Martins also worked with Jack to study his condition and assess the radiation poisoning he appeared to be suffering from, thanks to the Zero Fluid. S.H.I.E.L.D. and Stark International also developed the “neutro-mist,” a chemical agent which temporarily inhibited Jack’s Zero Power enough for him to remove his armor for an hour or so at a time.
Jack was happy for the company, and he was eager to assist S.H.I.E.L.D. after learning the Corporation had reformed since the el Tigre fiasco. Still coveting the Zero Fluid formula, the Corporation formally invited Jack into a trap against their top assassin, Hemlock. [Marvel Premiere #44] He survived the encounter and also their next bait against the electronic Machinesmith. The living robot had captured Ben Grimm and brainwashed him using alpha waves, but Jack of Hearts managed to destroy the control helmet, freeing the Thing and defeating the Corporation once more. [Marvel Two-In-One #48]
Martins’ research confirmed Jack’s radiation poisoning was terminal, making Jack of Hearts more reckless and pressured to make his mark as a super-hero before he died. While at the inter-agency training facility known as the Farm for S.H.I.E.L.D., Jack overheard a report that Project: Safeguard was under attack. Safeguard was Washington’s alien alert department, and Jack of Hearts decided to intercede. Unfortunately, Jack found himself in the middle of the Wraith War. Alien shape-changers called Dire Wraiths had infiltrated the world population, including scientists at Safeguard. Rom, a noble Galadorian Spaceknight, had pursued the evil Wraiths to Earth, armed with an Analyzer and Neutralizer that revealed their true forms and then banished them to Limbo. Unfortunately, to the un-enhanced human eye, it appeared as if Rom was murdering 
normal human beings. Witnessing Rom’s “rampage,” a furious Jack of Hearts attacked the “killer robot.” Rom’s Analyzer revealed he could not use his Neutralizer against Jack of Hearts without neutralizing his life-giving energies and killing him, something Rom was honor bound to avoid. Left unable to defend himself adequately, Rom was forced to flee from Jack of Hearts, leaving the young hero to believe he had foiled a deadly attack on humanity, rather than abetting in one. [Rom #12]
Jack of Hearts grew restless over time, however. The Corporation was dismantled after an encounter with Captain America and the Hulk, leaving Jack without a mission in life. Meanwhile, his radiation poisoning grew steadily worse. Jack’s Zero Energy levels became more powerful, and the radiation produced ate away at his body. Project: Heart not only failed to find a means of arresting his condition, its scientists also determined Jack’s ultimate death would release his stored-up energies in one burst, threatening to unleash a miniature star on Earth and destroy everything around him. Jack became bitter and reclusive, and began to see Project: Heart as his jailers instead of his support team. Indeed, Hart Mansion was modified to monitor Jack’s energy levels constantly and pump out neutro-mist from concealed vents whenever his power became “dangerous.”
Jack eventually grew tired of his babysitters and concealed the fact that he had become resistant to the neutro-mist at normal levels. He broke quarantine at Hart Mansion and fought his way through S.H.I.E.L.D. to seek his freedom. Facing his own imminent death, Jack decided to 
reconnect with Marcy Kane, one last time, at her graduate studies program in Empire State University. With a concentrated dose of neutro-mist to dampen his powers, and make-up to hide his scars, Jack Hart sought out the last person alive he felt might still care about him. Jack had barely begun to explain his disappearance to the furious Kane, however, when S.H.I.E.L.D. tracked him down.
Even more neutro-mist couldn’t calm Jack down at this point, and he donned his armor to confront the S.H.I.E.L.D. watchdogs. Spider-Man (a friend of Marcy Kane’s as Peter Parker) was passing through and supported the underdog against what appeared to be armored goons. By the time the web-slinger slowed down enough to hear S.H.I.E.L.D.’s explanation, Jack’s anger and energy levels had risen too high for him to listen to Spider-Man, S.H.I.E.L.D. or even Marcy telling him to calm down. Jack of Hearts was virtually suicidal by this point, preferring to die free rather than be caged again. Spider-Man used his know-how around the campus chemistry lab to temporarily snuff Jack’s powers. Marcy found a resigned Jack waiting in the demolished lab for his escorts and offered to help him search for a cure. [Marvel Team-Up (1st series) #134]
It took time for Marcy to wrap up her graduate studies and join Project: Heart, though, and Jack’s depression made him actively suicidal. And yet, until the radiation poisoning did its work, he found he could not die. Jack of Hearts expelled massive amounts of energy, destroying a bridge, aggravating a storm, but he still could not exhaust his Zero Power. When Marcy finally arrived, Jack was maudlin and hopeless, trapped in an energy-dampening dome called the Playpen which once contained the radioactive mutant, Nuklo. Jack lashed out at Marcy in order to avoid having hope dangled in front of his eyes. The next morning, Dr. Kane was trying again to reach Jack when Hart Mansion came under attack from alien invaders. Marcy released Jack of Hearts from the Playpen so he could help defend the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents. Jack held off the flying saucers until S.H.I.E.L.D. reinforcements arrived but, instead of returning to Hart Mansion, he scooped up Marcy and fled into the wilderness. [Jack of Hearts #1]
Out in the woods, Jack confronted Marcy about something she had said in passing earlier. Marcy Kane revealed she was actually Kaina, from the planet Contraxia, and Jack’s mother had also been from her world, making Jack half-alien. Using telecrystal projections, Kaina explained to the incredulous Jack how Contraxia’s sun was dying, forcing her people to abandon their outer colonies and leading to overpopulation at the homeworld. The ruling Sun Priestesses convinced the population to reject a plan by Commander Varga to populate other habitable worlds, because it would go against their Code to commit the genocide necessary to make room on worlds already sustaining life. Instead, top Contraxian scientists set forth to find new sources of energy in the universe that might re-energize the sun. Jack’s mother, Marie, was just such a scientist. She met Phillip Hart of Earth and fell in love with him while encouraging his research into Zero Fluid. After she died in a car crash, her promising reports stopped reaching Contraxia, and so Kaina was dispatched to Earth to follow up on Marie’s progress.
Jack’s exposure to Zero Fluid had a unique effect on his half-alien physiology. The blackened light side of his body didn’t represent dead cells, but was a natural representation of his Contraxian heritage. Furthermore, as the living embodiment of Zero Power, Jack of Hearts potentially contained the force necessary to save all life on his mother’s homeworld. Kaina admitted she had 
deceived Jack but claimed to truly love him and asked him for his help preserving Contraxia. Meanwhile, Varga and his faction of Contraxian Survivalists had grown impatient and arrived on Earth to seize the Zero Power by force. When the Survivalists captured Kaina, Jack of Hearts followed their ship into space and submitted himself to them, agreeing to travel back to Contraxia and aid their sun, however he could. [Jack of Hearts #2]
When they arrived on Contraxia, Jack of Hearts made quite an impression on the people and the Sun Priestesses. Varga attempted to claim political credit for Jack’s arrival and demanded the boy and his power be sacrificed if necessary to save Contraxia’s sun. The people once again honored the Code to work with Jack to save Earth’s sun, not force him, but Varga’s Survivalists continued to pressure him to overthrow the Priestesses for the good of all Contraxia. Kaina took time to introduce Jack to his mother’s world while their scientists ran tests on how to extract Jack’s Zero Power for their benefit. While they discovered Jack of Hearts could not be separated from his power, their scientists believed by launching Jack into the heart of the star a transfusion of Zero Power energy would occur, saving them all. The Sun Priestesses left the decision in Jack’s hands whether to journey into the sun himself, dying so Contraxia might live.
Jack privately decided to make the sacrifice, but Varga and the Survivalists refused to leave the decision up to him. They attacked Jack and Kaina to force his hand and claim credit for having done so with the people. Varga was making compromises to his honor but was ultimately a noble man. He simply couldn’t believe any man would ever willingly give up his life. However, his 
lieutenant Smythe was amorally dedicated to amassing political power for the Survivalists and murdered the Sun Priestesses to ensure only the Survivalists’ version of history survived. Trapped by Smythe’s actions, Varga went along with the ploy. They used neutro-mists on Jack and presented him before Contraxia, claiming he killed the Sun Priestesses and tried to flee, letting Contraxia freeze. At Varga’s urgings, the people of Contraxia put aside the Code and voted to sacrifice Jack of Hearts to their sun. [Jack of Hearts #3]
Jack of Hearts was bitterly willing to continue his sacrifice if only to save Kaina as the rocket carried him towards the sun. Unfortunately, Smythe had stowed Kaina aboard the rocket to remove the last witness of the Sun Priestesses’ fall. This finally broke Varga, who intended to intercept the rocket to save Kaina, only to be stabbed and cast out in his ship by the treacherous Smythe. The mortally wounded Varga still docked with Jack’s rocket and freed him and Kaina. Instead of 
fleeing, Jack sealed Kaina in Varga’s ship and jettisoned it, keeping the rocket on course to revive the sun. Varga willingly burned up beside Jack of Hearts as the ship entered the sun but, even as the rocket dissolved around them, Jack did not burn. Jack of Hearts only grew stronger as he absorbed radiation from the star and released his Zero Energy into its core, reigniting it.
Having passed through the heart of a star and only emerged more powerful, Jack of Hearts now had a presence akin to a god. Jack weathered an attack by Smythe and the Survivalist fleet as he flew back towards Contraxia. He shrugged off their weapons and the sheer heat of his wake 
incinerated all of his foes. Contraxia had been artificially freezing as their sun cooled, but Jack of Hearts superheated the globe as he returned. Temperatures climbed, ice melted, flooding the cities. Forests burned, and other catastrophes of Biblical proportions accompanied the return of the half-breed son the people of Contraxia chose to sacrifice for their own benefit. Jack and Kaina were briefly reunited, but Jack of Hearts was now so powerful, Kaina couldn’t even approach him close enough to touch. No longer able to safely exist on a single planet, Jack of Hearts resigned himself to life alone in space, the only place where a man-sized star could live free. [Jack of Hearts #4]