JERICHO (Joseph Wilson)
Created By: Marv Wolfman & George Perez
First Appearance: Tales of the Teen Titans #43 (June 1984)
Role: Body-Possessor, Sensitive Artistic Type
Group Affiliations: The Teen Titans
PL 12 (172)
STRENGTH 3
STAMINA 4
AGILITY 5
FIGHTING 12
DEXTERITY 4
INTELLIGENCE 2
AWARENESS 3
PRESENCE 2
Skills:
Acrobatics 6 (+11)
Athletics 5 (+8)
Expertise (Art) 8 (+10)
Expertise (Music) 5 (+7)
Expertise (Dance) 5 (+7)
Insight 7 (+10)
Investigation 3 (+6)
Perception 6 (+9)
Persuasion 4 (+6, +8 Attractive)
Stealth 5 (+10)
Advantages:
Agile Feint, Attractive, Defensive Attack, Elusive Target, Fast Grab, Improved Defense, Improved Disarm, Improved Initiative, Improved Trip, Ranged Attack 4
Powers:
"Possession"
Affliction 12 (Will; Entranced/Compelled/Controlled) (Feats: Subtle) (Extras: Merge With Subject, Perception Range +2, Sustained +2) (Flaws: Instant Recovery, Vision Dependent) (Noticeable- Possessed Subject Can Speak) [48]
Mind Reading 6 (Extras: Effortless) (Flaws: Limited to Possessed Targets, Touch Range -2) [3]
Healing 4 (Flaws: Limited to Possessed Targets, Limited to Awakening Unconscious People For Control) [1]
Offense:
Unarmed +12 (+3 Damage, DC 18)
Mind-Reading -- (+6 Mind-Reading, DC 16)
Possession -- (+12 Perception-Ranged Affliction, DC 22)
Initiative +9
Defenses:
Dodge +12 (DC 22), Parry +12 (DC 22), Toughness +4, Fortitude +6, Will +8
Complications:
Disabled (Mute)- Joseph's throat was slashed as a child by an enemy of his father's. He cannot speak, unless he uses his power to Possess someone (and even then, they have to be unconscious). By doing this, he takes on that person's speech patterns (and he never "speaks" via thought balloons or "box monologue"), and so we never truly "hear" the real Joseph Wilson's voice.
Relationship (Slade Wilson- Father)- The Terminator is Joseph's own father. This caused the Titans to initially distrust him, especially after The Judas Contract. Slade loved his son dearly (despite not following after any of Slade's interests), but cost Joey his voice by refusing to give up any information.
Relationship (Adeline Wilson- Mother)- Addie raised Joseph after nearly killing Slade for their son's injury. Mother & son were especially close.
Responsibility (Man-Whore)- Joseph has a LOT of girlfriends. It's heavily implied that he sleeps with tons of girls in his dance troupe.
Total: Abilities: 66 / Skills: 54--27 / Advantages: 13 / Powers: 52 / Defenses: 14 (172)
Jericho- Mutton-Chopped Wonder:
-Jericho was added to the Titans in the
Judas Contract storyline, leading to a lot of suspicion (he was another kid of The Terminator's- and this is just after Slade got Terra to spy on the team!) until the team finally accepted him. He was basically George Perez' pet character, a guy who couldn't talk (or use thought balloons under Perez' orders), and so had to use body language and the writer's own word-blocks describing his actions more often than not. His empathic nature won him alot of female fans (though the mutton chops probably helped), and he was a pretty good Teen Titan considering he was added to the already-successful group. His general schtick was that he had these huge doe eyes and a gentle nature, had traditionally "soft" hobbies (music, art and ballet), and thus scored TONS of women- a 2000s-era Wolfman/Perez
Titans Elseworlds story has the Titans warning their loved ones about an impending threat to them. Most guys just told their families. The Titans had to call DOZENS of women about the danger to them, via their link to Joseph the Man-Whore.
-He had a lot of interactions with his evil father, helped the empath Raven through some tough times, and generally became a good buddy to the entire team. The character kinda got lost in the early '90s, though, and was killed after being turned to evil by agents of Trigon (the people of Azarath, corrupted by Trigon's demonic essence) and being made to take over the Wildebeest Society. His own father had to deal the final blow to Jericho (who had spoken on his own for the first time ever), as an extra tragic overtone (as his other son, Grant, had died imitating Slade, too). It's probably for the best- his costume was garish for the EIGHTIES, and his big curly blonde mop of hair, big green eyes, purple vesty things, etc. make for a pretty goofy concept, and he'd likely have been turned into an uber-badass '90s design that would probably be even worse.
Jericho the Villain:
-Jericho has popped up in recent years as a crazed villain, having put his essence into Deathstroke's body when the final blow was struck; when he's unleashed, he slaughters his father's best friend, Wintergreen. He was body-hopping when Raven stalled him, and Cyborg used his cybernetic eye to "capture" Jericho's soul and "download" him into a computer program. Raven then used a ritual of resurrection from the Church of Blood to give Jericho a new, non-mute body. Thus purified, Jericho rejoined the Titans alongside his half-sister, Rose "Ravager" Wilson. However, he turned evil AGAIN, having been corrupted after possessing Superboy's evil clone Match. Going mad due to the years of reckless body-hopping, he's now totally crazy, and the Justice League has to stop him from messing with the presidential elections- only the most evil impulses and strong wills of those he'd possessed were able to break free from his dissociative identity disorder. Coming back, he body-hops through various superheroes, but dissolves into nothingness after he can't take hold of Superman's alien body.
-Jericho returns via Cyborg's cybernetic eye, but has his eyes gouged out by the new Vigilante. This cures his insanity, but renders him powerless- he is now haunted by what he's done. His eyes, however, grow back (I guess because of the genetics he inherited from his father), and he turns good again following
Blackest Night (in which he has to wipe out the Black Lantern versions of his brother and mother). Later, he is cured of leprosy (WTF?) by super-science, but is disgusted by what Deathstroke had to do (supervillain team-ups and theft) to accomplish it- he and Arsenal prepare to form a new team of Titans just as continuity ends.
-In the "New 52", Jericho appears in Rob Liefeld's infamous
Deathstroke series as a villain who hates his father for abandoning the family. But then the third volume of the book erases this version, giving us a heroic one, because holy shit the New 52 was a mess. In the "Rebirth" era, he's mostly heroic, but more angsty due to parental strife and his bisexuality (yeah, so he's bi now), having sent a superhero to his death for threatening to ruin his impending marriage!
Jericho as a Whole:
-Personally, he always seemed kind of Mary Sue-ish to me, being this super handsome, popular and nice guy that everybody loved and accepted, even though he had a disability. Sounds like half the Harry Potter fanfics out there. The powers were interesting (I'll rip them off soon as I get a chance), and he had some good character, but there's trying TOO hard sometimes, y'know? The creators also briefly flirted with the idea of turning him gay, but they decided otherwise since it would have been too much of a cliche to have the artistic, wide-eyed sensitive boy being revealed as gay. Of course, I'm sure most gay fans wouldn't have minded, because he would have basically been the ONLY gay character in comics at the time, much less one in a hugely-successful book. One of the sad things is, Jericho missed out on 90% of the "Nostalgic Titans Stories", being dead or a villain and all, and so many fans don't even link him with the team any longer!
Jericho's Stats:
-Jericho's a weird mish-mash of stuff. Without his Possession power, he's merely a very capable martial artist, given some Advantages for kicking ass. He's PL 7.5/8 just doing that, but his Possession power is pretty big-time stuff. It could reasonably be statted as +15 or even +20 if necessary and still be realistic to the comics, as it was basically "eye contact, the end" and I can never recall someone actually avoiding possession once their eyes met, unless it was some crazy stunt like trying it on Trigon or Trigon-Raven (though in recent years apparently Hal Jordan pulled it off, but that's kind of the upper-tier for "Will", obviously). As it stands, Possession 12 will cover most of it. It's Perception Range, not some kind of weird, Accurate Ranged thing like in "DCA", because he literally just makes eye contact and that's it. And thank God the Power Profiles finally just bit the bullet and made a new Extra for "Merges With Subject", because adding all that Insubstantial/Immunity to Suffocation/Invisibility crap was a pain in the ass- it was a one-point Extra in 2e, and it should be the same in 3e, darn it. That was one of the only big mess-ups they made regarding the new 3e system- forgetting that a decently-common power was sort of needed without a big-ass pile of complicated stuff.
-He's got some different-type stuff going on it, which they don't give in the standard Ultimate Power description- Possessed people can speak (and usually do, dramatically), making it Noticeable (this makes it the only case I can think of where a power is Noticeable AND Subtle, since you can't "see" him take over people, and they can't speak up if unconscious), and he doesn't have to possess only conscious people; he can actually jump into the KO'd minions and then get up and walk around, or speak in their own voice. I could just leave that as a weird flavourful thing, but F it, it's a funny little side thing and I get to stat those up SO RARELY sometimes. Jericho would occasionally also remember stuff that a guy had just thought (using memories to get around a base or something), so he gets a minor, minor Mind Reading power.
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