While reading Jackpot I kept thinking of the line from Mean Girls, “Stop trying to make fetch happen.” Mary Jane is now a superhero, sure, but does it work? And also, who wants this superhero entirely based on one line of dialogue she said once? That dialogue is incredibly famous, of course, but it also required some convoluted backstory to get those powers into her grasp. Regardless, Marvel is publishing the one-shot Jackpot #1 this week to tie into the “Gang War” event. Is it good?
Jackpot #1 is fairly mediocre for a superhero comic. It’s not bad, but it also doesn’t do anything all that impressively. It drops us into a fight between Jackpot and Francine Frye, aka Electro. It’s your standard “you’re probably wondering how I got here” start. We then cut to MJ and her new boyfriend, Paul, who is going through grief counseling due to their losing their adopted kids, who were never real at all. It never probes their relationship too deeply and instead simply reminds us of their dynamic.
Part of the problem with this comic is it never dares to evolve or probe anything too deeply. The “Gang War” event is more of a background element, for instance, and the reason Mary Jane must suit up as Jackpot. The usual tropes of heroes saving the day not because they want to but because they must are relayed, and there’s more than one bad guy to beat down.
This scene is more of a reminder of their current status, which is kinda depressing.
Credit: Marvel
Jackpot’s powers are also vague and confusing. If you were a casual fan who didn’t know a thing about Jackpot, you’d assume her power is tech-based without any chance involved, which is what made her powers compelling in the first place. When she does use her powers, they sort of just work, sometimes in confusing ways. At one point, I think she uses vines to help slow down Armadillo, but that’s just a guess. There’s another moment where MJ should plummet to her death, but she somehow grabs onto a rail. Given she’s using her very non-superhero body to do this, you’d think she’d react in a way any of us would if falling to our deaths, but it’s treated like no big deal.
Joey Vazquez draws the superhero fights well, although the stakes and danger are always low. If you know Electro, you know she’s not a murderer, and it’s unclear what Electro is up to. They fight, Paul and MJ craft a plan that doesn’t work, and then they fight some more. However, Vazquez draws an excellent Spider-Man who pops into the story briefly.
Jackpot is a very basic superhero yarn. There’s fighting and, primarily, a reminder Jackpot exists. The lack of character work or any real ramifications of the events in this story mattering makes this a relatively easy book to skip while we wait for Jackpot to have any relevance at all.
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