Jin
See Jinn.
Jinn
Character from Islamic mythology representing any class of spirits, being lower than the angels, and capable of appearing in human and animal forms. Jinn (also known as djin, djinn, djinni, genie or jin) can influence humankind for either good or evil, and were believed to have many special powers of creation and magic.
JLA
See Justice League of America.
Joachim
First seen in the original Star Trek television series episode “Space Seed,” this right-hand man of Khan Noonien Singh was originally called “Joaquin.” When the motion picture Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan brought the character back, the writer revised the name due to possible royalties that would be due to the TV episode’s original writers. In “Space Seed,” the character was portrayed by Mark Tobin, and in Wrath of Khan, a much more expanded character was played by Judson Scott. (Scott’s name did not appear in the film’s credits due to an unresolved issue with Scott’s agent, who wanted a bigger credit for his client.)
Joaquin
See Joachim.
Jobs, Steve
Born on February 24, 1955 to unwed parents, Steven Paul Jobs was adopted by Paul and Clara Jobs, who moved to the suburban city of Mountain View, California a few years later. Steve grew up in a neighborhood of engineers that would later become known as “Silicon Valley,” an area full of neighbors who would work on electronics and other gizmos in their garages on weekends, which shaped his interest in the field as he grew up. At age 13, he met 18-year-old Steve Wozniak, an electronics whiz kid. Five years later, when Steve Jobs reached college age, he told his parents he wanted to enroll in Reed College — an expensive liberal arts college up in Oregon. Steve spent only one semester at Reed, then dropped out, as he was more interested in eastern philosophy, fruitarian diets and LSD than in the classes he took. He moved to a hippie commune in Oregon where his main activity was cultivating apples. A few months later, Steve returned to California to look for a job, and was hired by Atari. Meanwhile, he started to take interest in Wozniak’s new activity: building his own computer board, simply because he wanted a personal computer for himself. Jobs quickly understood that his friend’s invention could be sold to software hobbyists, who wanted to write software without the hassle of assembling a computer kit. Jobs convinced Wozniak to start a company for that purpose, and Apple Inc. was born on April 1, 1976.
Apple quickly became an American success story, and made the young Apple founders millionaires. In the wake of Apple’s success, its investors decided it was time to go public, and the initial public offering (IPO) took place in December 1980, only four years after the company was launched. At age 25, Steve Jobs’ net worth increased to over $200 million.
When the Apple III computer flopped in 1980, Jobs’ reputation was put into question. Most of his hopes then rested on a project to build and launch a business-oriented computer, which Jobs called the “Lisa.” Though he stubbornly denied paternity, Jobs named the new computer after his high school girlfriend’s daughter, whom she claimed was his. Jobs refused to give any money to Lisa’s mother, despite the millions he had accumulated at Apple.
Though his passion for the project was undeniable, Jobs was thrown out of the Lisa project due to his hot temper and relative inexperience in technology or management. He felt absolutely crushed by this decision, and as a form of revenge, he took over a small project called Macintosh, a personal computer that was supposed to be a cheap appliance that would be “as easy to use as a toaster.” In 1981, Jobs became head of the Macintosh project, and decided to make it a smaller and cheaper version of the Lisa. The three years it took to develop Macintosh were some of the most productive and intense for Steve Jobs. All of the company’s hopes eventually came to rest on the Macintosh. After a very memorable TV commercial that ran during the 1984 Super Bowl, Steve Jobs introduced the Macintosh at the company’s annual shareholders meeting. The product was launched with great fanfare and for the first few months, it was very successful. However, by early 1985, sales were plummeting, while Jobs continued to behave as if he had saved Apple. This created a lot of tension within the company, especially between Steve and Sculley, who stopped talking to one another. In May 1985, Steve Jobs started trying to convince some directors and top executives at Apple that Sculley should go. Instead, the board of directors announced a reorganization of the company where Steve Jobs would remain chairman of the board, but have no operational duties whatsoever.
After four months spent traveling and trying out new ideas, Jobs resigned from Apple in September 1985, and went ahead with his plan to incorporate NeXT. Also around this time, filmmaker George Lucas sold Jobs the computer graphics division of his Lucasfilm empire in early 1986, which Jobs incorporated as Pixar. For its first five years, Jobs set a goal for the company to sell high-end computer graphics workstations for institutions, such as hospitals or even the U.S. Army. The animations group led by John Lasseter was very small at the time, but the studio won an Academy Award for its short movie Tin Toy in 1989. Still, sales of Pixar hardware were microscopic, and the company went software-only in 1990.
Jobs married his wife Laurene in 1991, but this high period didn’t last long. Jobs started focusing less on work, and more on his wife and newborn son Reed. Pixar became a software company, developing the RenderMan 3D rendering software. Its animation business was kept alive because it was the only one that brought some cash in, but in 1991, Disney signed with Pixar to make a full-feature computer-animated movie. By 1995, the movie was finally starting to take form, and Jobs became increasingly enthused by it. By 1995, NeXT had failed and shut down, whereas Pixar was obviously going to benefit widely from the Disney marketing machine and make a hit with Toy Story. Jobs took Pixar public the week following the release of the hit film, and in no time, Jobs, who owned 80% of the company, saw his net worth rise to over $1.5 billion.
After Apple lost $700 million in the first quarter of 1997, Jobs effectively organized a board coup, and was back in de facto control. In August 1997, Jobs took the stage at Macworld Boston to explain his plan for Apple: he had gotten rid of the old board of directors, and made a deal with Microsoft to settle patent disputes and invest $150 million in the struggling Silicon Valley icon. One month later, Jobs accepted Apple’s offer to become interim CEO. The few months after Steve Jobs came back at Apple – while simultaneously running a thriving Pixar – were among the hardest-working in his life. He would later tell his biographer Walter Isaacson that he was so exhausted during this period, he couldn’t speak when he came home at night.
Confidence in Jobs’ ability was restored when he introduced the iMac in May 1998. It was a hot seller, and played a key role in bringing back tons of developers to the Mac platform. Design innovations continued throughout 1998 and 1999 with the colored iMacs and the iBook, Apple’s consumer notebook. After three years in charge, Steve Jobs had brought Apple back to its status of “cool tech” icon. At Macworld in January 2000, he announced he had accepted the Apple board’s offer to become the company’s CEO, dropping the “interim” from his title. He also remained CEO of Pixar. That year, Jobs debuted his iTunes digital music file-sharing system. On October 23, 2001, he introduced the iPod, which was a commercial success from the day it debuted. While the iPod changed the music industry and the way everybody listens to music, Pixar released hit after hit (A Bug’s Life (1998), Toy Story 2 (1999), Monsters Inc. (2001) and Finding Nemo (2003)), and in 2006, Jobs and Disney’s Robert Iger appeared onstage to announce that Disney would sell music videos and TV shows on the new iTunes service. Disney soon announced its friendly acquisition of Pixar, putting $7.4 billion in stock on the table. Jobs became a Disney board member and its largest individual shareholder (owning 7% of the company’s stock). Considering its new diversity, Jobs had the Apple Computer Inc. name changed to Apple Inc. While the Mac computers still mattered, they now accounted for only a minority of Apple’s revenues already, and this decline would not stop any time soon. Apple had become the most prominent digital device company.
In the midst of this wave of success, Jobs was diagnosed with a rare kind of pancreatic cancer in late 2003. He was told that it could potentially be cured by surgery, but against everyone’s advice, he refused to have the surgery until nine months later. During those months, he tried alternative diets and treatments including acupuncture and consulting with a psychic. Only in July 2004 did he agree to have the surgery. For the next five years, he looked healthy and in 2005, Jobs spoke publicly of being “cured” of cancer during a speech at Stanford. By June 2008, Jobs appeared obviously thin, and concerns about his health started popping up again. These concerns became public in December 2008, when Apple made a shocking announcement that Jobs would not be the keynote speaker at Macworld 2009, and that he was taking a medical leave of absence for six months. Although he publicly denied it, his cancer had come back. He received a liver transplant in April 2009 and returned to Apple that summer, but his health declined again, and in January 2011, he announced he was taking a new medical leave of absence, this time without saying when it would end. At his last public appearance in June 2011, he unveiled his plans for the future Apple campus in Cupertino, then, due to increasingly deteriorating health, he resigned as Apple’s CEO on August 24, 2011. Jobs died peacefully at home on October 5, 2011 — one day after Apple’s introduction of the iPhone 4S.
John (“Lackland”)
The titular subject of a Shakespeare play, the central figure in Sir Walter Scott’s 1819 historical romance Ivanhoe, the English king who ratified the Magna Carta, and the king sometimes credited with the founding of the modern Royal Navy, John was born December 24, 1166 at Beaumont Palace in Oxfordshire. The youngest and favorite son of King Henry II, representing the Angevin line of the Plantagenet ruling house, spent his youth at the residences of his eldest brother Henry, where he learned the art of knighthood, and Ranulf Glanvil, his father’s justiciar (administrator of justice), where John learned about the business of government. John was given the unfortunate nicknames “Lackland” (a taunt first used by his father when John was young, due to the fact that, as the fourth child, none of Henry’s lands in the continental provinces were available to bestow upon John) and “Soft-sword” (for his alleged military ineptitude). “Lackland” would become an ironic name in later years, as John eventually inherited the entire Angevin Empire.
Henry II hoped to improve his youngest son’s prospects by betrothing him, at the age of nine, to his second cousin, the wealthy heiress Isabella of Gloucester. They were duly married when John was 21, but the marriage failed to produce children. His second wife, Isabella of Angouleme, would bear him two sons and three daughters. He also had an illegitimate daughter, Joan (also known as Joanna and by her Welsh name Siwan), who married Llywelyn the Great, Ruler of All Wales, from which descended the Tudor line of monarchs, which would include Henry VIII and Elizabeth I.
John’s reign was troubled in many respects. A quarrel with the Church, centered on John’s stubborn refusal to install the papal candidate Stephen Langdon as Archbishop of Canterbury, resulted in England being placed under an interdict in 1207, with John being personally excommunicated two years later. In November 1209 John himself was excommunicated by Pope Innocent, and in February 1213, the pope threatened stronger measures unless John submitted. Familial feuds figured prominently in John’s life. He and Richard clashed in 1184, following Richard’s refusal to honor his father’s wish that he surrender the duchy of Aquitaine to John. The following year, Henry sent John to rule Ireland, but John alienated both the native Irish and the transplanted Anglo-Normans. When the experiment proved itself a failure in less than six months, John returned home. After Richard gained the throne in 1189, he gave John vast estates in an attempt to appease his younger brother, yet John made several failed attempts to overthrow William Longchamp, the Bishop of Ely and Richard’s designated justiciar during the king’s 1192 capture and imprisonment by Holy Roman Emperor Henry VI in Durnstein (in modern-day Austria). This was one of the events that inspired later writers to cast John as the villain in their reworking of the legend of Hereward the Wake into tales of Robin Hood, originally set a century before John’s time. He also conspired with Philip II of France in another failed coup attempt. Upon Richard’s release from captivity in 1194, John was forced to sue for pardon, and he spent the next five years in his brother’s shadow.
Upon Richard’s death after being mortally wounded while warring in France against Philip II, John ascended to the throne on April 6, 1199. Arthur of Brittany, the son of his deceased elder brother, Geoffrey, Duke of Brittany had an arguably better claim, but Richard was reported to have announced John his heir on his deathbed. John acted promptly, seizing the royal treasury at Chinon.
The English government survived John’s reign, but it wasn’t easy: Almost immediately after taking the throne, while mediating between the rival families of Lusignan and Angoulâme, John married the Angoulâme heiress Isabella, who had been betrothed to Hugh de Lusignan. A rebellion broke out and John was ordered to appear before his overlord Philip II. His failure to do so resulted in war. Meanwhile, John taxed his land and its citizens socially, economically and judicially, proving extremely unpopular with his subjects and losing the respect of both the Irish and the French. By 1206, John had lost his French possessions of Normandy, Anjou, Maine and parts of Poitou. He returned to England, where the final ten years of his reign were occupied with unsuccessful attempts to regain his lost territories and prestige.
While he is credited with successfully putting down the Welsh Uprising of 1211, he funded his campaigns by increasing taxes. After suffering a number of new taxes, John’s barons revolted, capturing London and sparking civil war in May 1215. When the rebels seized London, John was compelled to negotiate further, accepting the baronial terms, including diminished royal power, ensured feudal rights and restated English law. John put his seal on the barons’ articles, which would later become known as the “Magna Carta” (“Great Charter”), on June 15, 1215 at Runnymede on the River Thames. The document, a declaration of feudal rights, stressed three points: 1) The Church was free to make ecclesiastic appointments; 2) larger-than-normal amounts of money could only be collected with the consent of the king’s feudal tenants; and 3) no freeman was to be punished, except within the context of common law. While it stands as a testament to John’s complete failure as monarch, the Magna Carta is seen today as a monumental document, a forerunner of the world’s modern constitutions. However, John’s hesitance to implement its principles compelled the nobility to seek French assistance. The barons offered the throne to Philip II’s son Louis. John continued to wage war vigorously, but his death from dysentery on October 18, 1216, in the midst of a French invasion in the South and rebellion from his barons in the North, enabled a compromise peace and the succession of his nine-year-old son Henry III. John was buried in Worcester Cathedral in the city of Worcester. He remains the only English king with the name John, and many believe that his reputation is a reason, influencing English monarchs to refrain from giving the name John to their expected heirs.
John is portrayed popularly as childish and scheming, as played by Claude Rains in The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) and Nigel Terry in The Lion in Winter (1968). Disney’s 1973 animated film Robin Hood depicted John as an anthropomorphic lion voiced by Peter Ustinov, who sucks his thumb and cries for his “mommy” whenever Robin Hood (portrayed as a fox) steals his gold.
Johnson, Daisy
Daisy Louise Johnson is the daughter of Marvel Comics’ villain Mr. Hyde and prostitute Jennifer Johnson. She was giving up for adoption and was taken in by Greggory and Janet Sutter, who renamed the seven-month-old girl Cory Sutter. The two were unaware of her parentage and raised Daisy as their own, not telling her that she was adopted. Seventeen years later, teenage Daisy had an extremely high I.Q., but was failing out of school. After being caught by police for stealing CDs, she became agitated and lost control of her body, and her natural-born powers caused a tremor that measured 3.2 on the Richter scale. She was taken to the S.H.I.E.L.D. facility in Portland, Oregon to be interrogated by Nick Fury, who informed her of her powers and her real parentage. Fury then enlisted Daisy as a special agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.
Testing determined that Daisy’s powers were not caused by a mutant gene, but were a result of her father’s chemical testing on himself, which passed down genetically to Daisy. Daisy showed a real aptitude in her training, particularly in the field of black ops. Fury noted she would have finished top of her class even without her powers.
The character of Daisy Johnson was created by Brian Michael Bendis and Gabriele Dell’Otto in their Secret Wars limited series, where she was featured as a trusted and valued secret weapon of Nick Fury’s. After introducing the character in Secret Wars, Bendis proceeded to use her as a recurring character in the Avengers franchise. This eventually culminated with her getting her own team, the Secret Warriors, during Bendis’ “Secret Invasion” event. Daisy was then handed over to writer Jonathan Hickman, who wrote the 28-issue Secret Warriors series, and took charge of her development as a character. She was featured as Fury’s most prized student, sharing a pseudo father/daughter relationship with him. Her storyline includes her development as a leader, her love affair with Hellfire and the betrayal that followed, and her ultimate ascension to run the new organization Fury created.
Daisy has the ability to generate earthquakes. Her training under Nick Fury enabled her to focus her seismic vibrations with precision, causing her targets to vibrate and explode from the inside out. She is immune to any harmful effects of the vibrations. She has also has a psychic shield, which prevents or aids her in not being harmed by psychic assaults made by those with such abilities.
She has such a fine control over her powers that she can erupt a person’s heart from the inside or induce vibrations in a person’s brain to render them unconscious, even from a distance. On the other end of her scale, she can bring down whole buildings in seconds. Training with Fury made her a superb hand-to-hand combatant, a highly skilled athlete and marksman, as well as a qualified undercover agent. She is also a leading espionage agent, adept at undercover assignments. Aside from Fury and the Black Widow, Daisy is the only known agent with Level 10 SHIELD security clearance.
Johnson, Katherine Coleman Goble
One of the groundbreaking African-American women known as “West Computers,” whose calculations made NASA’s early space missions possible, Katherine Coleman was born August 26, 1918 in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, and quickly proved herself to be a math prodigy. Attending classes at the local high school by the age of 10 years old, she graduated with highest honors from West Virginia State College (now West Virginia State University) at only 18, earning bachelor’s degrees in mathematics and French. In 1939, she was handpicked to be one of only three black students (and the only female of the group) to integrate West Virginia’s graduate schools. She would become only the third African-American to earn a Ph.D., getting her doctorate in Mathematics.
After graduating, Johnson took a job teaching at a black public school in Virginia, but in 1953, she was hired at the all-black West Area Computing section within the segregated National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics’ (NACA’s) Langley laboratory, headed by fellow West Virginian Dorothy Vaughan. In 1958, NACA was incorporated into the newly formed National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), which banned segregation. That same year, Katherine provided calculations that were included in the document “Notes on Space Technology,” a compendium of a series of 1958 lectures given by engineers in the Flight Research Division and the Pilotless Aircraft Research Division (PARD). She co-authored the report “Determination of Azimuth Angle at Burnout for Placing a Satellite Over a Selected Earth Position,” which laid out the equations describing an orbital spaceflight in which the landing position of the spacecraft is specified. It was the first time a woman in the Flight Research Division had received credit as an author of a research report.
Johnson would play an important role in NASA’s 1961–63 Mercury program of manned space flights. In 1961, she calculated the path for Freedom 7, the spacecraft that put the first American astronaut, Alan B. Shepard, Jr., in space. The following year, as NASA prepared for John Glenn and Friendship 7’s first American manned orbit of Earth, Glenn specifically asked engineers to get Johnson to run equations. “If she says they’re good,” Glenn said, “then I’m ready to go.”
After Project Mercury, she joined the Space Mechanics Division, and calculated the trajectory for the 1969 Apollo 11 flight to the Moon, and computed backup navigational charts for astronauts in case of electronic failures. Her calculations helped synchronize Project Apollo’s Lunar Lander with the moon-orbiting Command and Service Module. In 1970, Apollo 13’s aborted mission to the Moon made use of her earlier research on backup parameters and charts, enabling the crew to safely return to Earth four days later. Later in her career, as a member of the Flight Dynamics and Control Division, she worked on the Space Shuttle program and the Earth Resources Satellite, as well as plans for a mission to Mars. Her final projects before retirement included analysis of guidance and control of large flexible structures. She worked for NASA until her retirement in 1986. During her tenure, she authored or co-authored 26 research reports.
Among other honors and awards, Dr. Johnson was included in the list of “BBC 100 Women,” a list of 100 inspiring and influential women from around the globe. In 2015, President Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom, America’s highest civilian honor. The following year, NASA dedicated the new Katherine G. Johnson Computational Research Facility at the Langley Research Center. In September 2016, Margot Lee Shetterly published Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race, about the West Computers, including Johnson, Dorothy Vaughan and Mary Jackson. A motion picture based on the book was released in December 2016, starring Taraji P. Henson as Dr. Johnson.
Joint Photographic Experts Group
The Joint Photographic Experts Group (also known as JPEG) is an ISO/IEC group of experts that develops and maintains standards for a suite of compression algorithms for computer image files. “JPEG” is also used as a term referring to any graphic image file produced by using a JPEG standard. A JPEG file is created by choosing from a number of compression algorithm suites. When a JPEG is created or converted from an image based on another format to a JPEG, the user must specify the desired quality (and thus size, since the highest quality results in the largest file) of the image. Together with the Graphic Interchange Format (GIF) and Portable Network Graphics (PNG) file formats, the JPEG is one of the image file formats supported on the internet, usually denoted by the file suffix “.jpg.”
Joker, The
Unquestionably the most recognizable comic book villain in pop culture history, Batman’s archenemy The Joker is unpredictable, violent and incredibly dangerous. While in some ways, the Joker is the polar opposite of the Dark Knight, both identities were created by great tragedy, but while Batman does whatever it takes to prevent similar incidents, the Joker revels in creating chaos and destroying lives, believing that life’s a big joke and psychotically demonstrating that at any moment, it can all change.
Debuting in Batman #1 (1940), The Joker was created by Jerry Robinson, who modeled the villain after Conrad Veidt’s performance as Gwynplaine in the 1928 silent film The Man Who Laughs. The Joker was originally rejected as a villain by DC Comics editors, who thought he was too clownish to be taken seriously as a criminal. In his first dozen or so appearances in Batman comics, he was a mass murderer. He was originally meant to die in his second appearance, but the editor Whitney Ellsworth saw the potential of the character, and opted for his survival. One more hastily drawn panel by Bob Kane was added to the very end of the last page of the issue, showing the Joker had survived. In the history of DC, he has killed one Robin, crippled Batgirl, and tortured and murdered countless people—typically, just for a laugh.
Originally, Gotham City’s most notorious criminal had no backstory, but Detective Comics #168 revealed that, before his transformation, the Joker was the criminal known as the Red Hood. Accidentally falling into a vat of chemicals, his facial features were altered, making him the Joker. Much of the Bronze Age and Iron Age depictions of the Joker actually derive far less from the goofy Silver Age Joker than they do from Frank Gorshin’s eerie depiction of The Riddler in the 1960s Batman television series. Both the Bronze Age and Iron Age Joker and Gorshin’s Riddler are obsessed with matching wits with The Batman, love to lecture other people about their personal life philosophy, and will shift from eerily calm to manic at a moment’s notice — none of these were signature traits in the Silver Age Joker. Heath Ledger, who won a posthumous Academy Award for his depiction of the Joker in 2009’s The Dark Knight, was quoted as saying that his performance was inspired to a large extent by Frank Gorshin’s Riddler.
Another attempt to establish an origin story for the Joker was the 1988 independent graphic novel The Killing Joke, in which he is said to have been an engineer at a chemical plant before quitting his job to pursue a career in stand-up comedy. After he failed miserably, in desperate need to support his pregnant wife, he turned to a couple of criminals who planned to break into the plant he worked in. The Red Hood persona is given to him, signifying him as the inside man of the operation and also seemingly making him the leader, who would take the fall in the event of the operation going wrong. In the middle of planning, the police call him, informing him that his wife and unborn child have died. Stricken with grief, he attempts to back out, but his hand is forced to continue the operation. When they arrive at the plant, however, security personnel are waiting for them and, as the Red Hood runs away, the two other criminals were shot dead. Upon seeing the Batman, the Red Hood jumped over a rail, into a vat of chemicals. He washed up in a nearby waterway, where, upon the removal of his Red Hood, he saw his skin had turned chalk white, his hair green, and his lips ruby red. With this added to the previous misfortunes of his day, he had a psychotic breakdown, and as such the Joker was born. However it is suggested in The Killing Joke, by the Joker himself, that sometimes he remembers his past one way, sometimes another. This leaves the origins of the Joker, as ever, open to speculation. In Batman: Gotham Knights#50-55, there is a witness to the murder of the Joker’s wife: Edward Nygma, aka the Riddler, who claimed that the criminals used this to force the Joker (in this version, he was named Jack before the accident) into following through with the crime. The latest, and by far longest, origin story is Batman: Lovers & Madmen, followed by Batman: Dead to Rights, a compilation of several issues from the Batman Confidential series. This version of the story is told from Batman’s point-of-view. There is no mention of a wife, a normal crime-free life, or ever having been the Red Hood.
In Hollywood, a few actors have worn the makeup of The Joker: respected Latin actor Cesar Romero in the 1966-69 TV series Batman; Jack Nicholson in the 1989 big-screen film Batman, and the late Heath Ledger received accolades and a posthumous Oscar for his portrayal of the manic Joker in 2008’s The Dark Knight. The original creator of the Joker character, Jerry Robinson, was hired as one of the creative consultants for The Dark Knight, which closely followed Jerry’s stylings of the villain. In 2016, Jared Leto received critical acclaim for his portrayal of the “Clown Prince of Crime” in Suicide Squad, and Joaquin Phoenix portrayed Arthur Fleck for the 2019 stand-alone film Joker.
Jones, Davy (Davie)
A character of nautical superstition, popularized in the 19th Century, but with origins going back to seamen and pirates of the 18th century. The phrase “Davy Jones’ Locker” represents the bottom of the sea, or death, and the entry point of the afterlife, for dead sailors and pirates. Davy Jones himself is often represented as a devil, saint or god of the sea. Origins of his name are not known today, with many historians claiming that it became spread among the sailors of that age by simple word-of-mouth. During the 1630s, a pirate captain using the name David Jones sailed across the Indian Ocean, but many scholars are in agreement that he was not sufficiently famous to gain such a lasting legacy. Two of the earliest written notations of a “Davie Jones” were in the books Four Years Voyages of Capt. George Roberts by Daniel Defoe in 1726 and The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle by Tobias Smollett in 1751. Both books described Jones as the deity of death. Throughout the years, many other theories about his origins came to light, the most popular ones of which being that Davie Jones was a British pub owner who put his drunk customers into his ale locker and dumped them onto any passing ship, or that he was Duffer Jones (a notoriously myopic sailor whose condition often led him to fall off the ship). There were also several theories that Davie Jones’ name came by altering the names of older saints or spirits (Welsh Saint David, protector of sailors in times of mortal danger, or West Indian malevolent ghost Duppy, possibly combined with an “evil angel” the sailors called Jonah).
During the years when the legend of Davie Jones was at its height, many sailors refused to discuss anything relating to him. However, there is a long-standing tradition of celebrating the crossing of Equatorial line that includes paying homage to Davy Jones. Popularization of Davy Jones and his locker happened during 19th Century, with notable references in the works of Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe (in story “King Pest”), Herman Melville (in famous novel Moby Dick), Charles Dickens (Bleak House) and most famously in Robert Louis Stevenson’s 1883 novel Treasure Island.
During the 20th century Davie Jones was mentioned in many books and songs, but his most notable appearances were in Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest (2006) and Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End (2007), in which he was featured as the undying evil spirit that collects the souls of dying pirates in his legendary ship The Flying Dutchman, and his locker was portrayed as a sort of purgatory for the dead souls. In these films, the legendary character was portrayed by Bill Nighy.
Jones, Dr. Henry (“Indiana”), Jr.
The whip-cracking archaeologist who first appeared in the 1981 movie Raiders of the Lost Ark (later repackaged as Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark) became the hero of sequels, novels and a television series. According to the collective lore, the hero was born Henry Walton Jones Jr. on July 1, 1899 in Princeton, New Jersey, son of Henry Jones Sr. and his wife Anna. Traveling around the world with his parents in 1908, Jones met T.E. Lawrence (aka “Lawrence of Arabia”) and archaeologist Howard Carter, who would open the tomb of King Tutankhamun, in Cairo. In 1909, while in Nairobi, the ten-year-old met Teddy Roosevelt. In 1912, he survived the sinking of the RMS Titanic with the women and children. That summer, back in Utah, Jones acquired a certain fedora, a whip, a bit of adventure, and a lifelong fear of snakes after thwarting the theft of the cross of Coronado.
In June 1914, Indy was dragged to Constantinople as his father pursued the Holy Grail. Luckily, also joining him is Herman Mueller and together they investigate the trail of a knife believed to be linked to the legend of Cain and Abel. Their adventure was cut somewhat short when Indy’s father heard of the assassination of Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand and left Turkey. In April 1916, while Indy was heading to Europe, the family dog “Indiana” died. In January 1917, Indy and Albert Schweitzer discussed philosophy and the ethics of civilization at his jungle hospital. Seeing Schweitzer working alone to cure the ills of the locals inspired Indiana and he vows to do
By April 1920, Indy is enrolled at the University of Chicago, but more jazz than studying when he, his roommate Elliot Ness, and Ernest Hemingway work together to solve the murder of Indy’s boss in his own restaurant. They discover a connection to Johnny Torrio, Al Capone and organized crime, but are stonewalled when they are confronted by the unbelievable corruption in City Hall. That August 1920, while working for a Hollywood movie studio, Indy met aging gunman Wyatt Earp. In 1922, Indy completed his undergraduate degree and moves onto a graduate program in linguistics at the Sorbonne in France. He completed his graduate studies in 1925, and was hired for his first professorial job at London University, teaching a summer archaeology course.
In 1927, Indy left his job in London to return to Chicago. In the Windy City, he attended a lecture given by a Russian who claimed to have climbed Mount Ararat and discovered the resting site of Noah’s Ark. Indy joined an expedition to the Ararat, and his group reached the site of the Ark, but an avalanche buried the Ark beneath tons of snow and ice.
In the summer of 1935, Indiana Jones was hired by the Chinese to find a lost treasure called the Heart of the Dragon. Making his way to an Indian village, where he confronts a cult of Kali worshippers and manages to defeat the high priest of the cult, Indy recovered one of the three Sankara stones and simultaneously saved the village’s children.
Government agents intercepted a communiqué in late 1936 from Cairo to Berlin, believed to be sent by Abner Ravenwood. Indy was consulted, since he had had past dealings with Ravenwood, and was asked to investigate a Nazi dig. He learned that they were looking for the headpiece of the Staff of Ra so that they could locate the Well of the Souls, the resting place of the lost Ark of the Covenant. Indy beat the Nazis, both to the headpiece and to the Well of the Souls. Ravenwood’s daughter and Indy’s former love interest Marion became Indy’s partner in the adventure and together they found the Ark. Belloq showed up again to steal the Ark for the Nazis, but was killed when he opened the Ark to get the tablets containing the Ten Commandments. The Ark was subsequently placed into storage in a secret government warehouse somewhere in Washington.
While in Greece in August 1937, Indy recovered the shield of Perseus from a sunken ship. It revealed clues to the location of the Eye of the Fates, which could reveal the future. Indy traveled to Mount Olympus to seek the object. In 1938, Indiana Jones finally recovered the Cross of Coronado from the man who “acquired” it back in 1912. Afterwards, he returned to his job at Barnett College and there, was contracted by a collector of antiquities, Walter Donovan. He informed Indy that his father, Henry Jones Sr., disappeared while following a lead to the Holy Grail. Indiana traveled to Italy and joined forces with another archaeologist, Elsa Schneider. Together, they discovered several other clues concerning the Grail and eventually determined its actual resting place. Elsa and Donovan were revealed to be Nazi spies when Indy finally located his father. They steal his father’s Grail diary and left the father and son team captive. The Joneses escaped, retrieved the diary and barely caught up to the Nazis in the hunt for the Grail. Unfortunately, the Grail was lost when Elsa attempted to take it beyond the seal of the cave where it was found.
Indiana was hired by the U.S. government in March 1939 to lead an expedition to an iceberg near Greenland to uncover an ice-encased Viking longship. The Nazis were also interested in the ice wall, since it contained a strange disc of unearthly origin. The disc was freed, revealing itself to be a UFO, which ended up destroying the Nazi submarine before disappearing into space. The U.S. rescue team arrived to save Indy’s group from the longship, which sank back beneath the surface of the water.
Two months later, a mysterious stranger arrived at Barnett College with an ancient key, and Indiana looked up a former colleague, Sophia Hapgood. Together, they determine that the key is part of a dig that unearthed treasures from the lost continent of Atlantis. Continuing that quest, they traveled around the world, adventuring to Mayan ruins and the labyrinth of the Minotaur before finding all of the pieces of the key to Atlantis. Just as they did, the Nazis arrived, intent on plundering Atlantis for their own gains. They nearly succeeded, but ancient magic killed the Nazis and placed Atlantis out of reach once more.
In 1940, during an observation of native worshippers, many become victims of the Plague. The source of the plague is the Fourth Horseman of the Apocalypse, who had released his evils upon the world. Indy faced zombies and barely escaped an earthquake which hits the area, killing the Horseman. In 1945, in a last-ditch effort to win the war, Hitler sent agents to Britain and Ireland in search of the spear which pierced the side of Christ on the cross. It was believed that the spear would make the army that wielded it invincible. However, the Germans’ plans are thwarted by Indiana and the True King of Ireland.
Almost 15 years later, at the height of the Cold War, Indy meets rebellious young Mutt Williams, who has a proposition for the adventurous archaeologist: If he’ll help Mutt on a mission with deeply personal stakes, Indy could very well make one of the most spectacular archaeological discoveries in history: the Crystal Skull of Akator, a legendary object of fascination, superstition and fear. Soviet agents are also hot on the trail of the Crystal Skull, which they believe can help the Soviets dominate the world. While on the hunt for the skull, the archaeologist meets Mutt’s mother: Indy’s old love Marion Ravenwood. She reveals that Mutt’s real name is Henry Jones III. After returning home from Peru, Indy is reinstated and made an associate dean at Marshall College, and he and Marion are married. By the 1990s, Indy, now in his nineties, is still lecturing, though his cane and eyepatch limit his adventures.
The Hollywood role of Indiana Jones was first played by Harrison Ford in Raiders of the Lost Ark. In Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, River Phoenix played young Indiana in flashback scenes, and in the TV series The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, Jones was played by Sean Patrick Flanery, with George Hall as the elderly Jones. In 1993, Ford reprised his legendary role for a guest appearance on the series.
Jones, Jonathan “Johnny”
Once the most feared pirate to ever sail the Mushroom Seas of the Mario Brothers world, the shark character Johnny Jones appears in the game Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars. When his ship was attacked and pulled down into the Briney Sea by giant squid King Kalimari, Mario met and defeated him. Afterwards, Johnny surprisingly befriended Mario. Later, when Yaridovich confronted Mario, Johnny was there in seconds, ready to help. Johnny then got his wish when the Star Road was repaired, he found a friend and his ship sailed once more in the first annual “Star Road Day Parade.”
Jones, Jughead
Born Forsythe Pendleton Jones lll, Jughead’s first appearance was in Pep Comics in 1941. The rather casual character from the Archie comic series is referred to as Jug, Juggy or, typically, Jughead. Known for his trademark “S” sweatshirt and beanie hat, he is often depicted lying around or eating. He has shown little to no interest in girls, often saying, “I find food to be a better companion.” Even though he demonstrates unhealthy eating habits, his athleticism has been proven on several occasions. Oftentimes, he is seen running from Ethel or racing to the front of the lunch line at Riverdale High. Despite his outward demeanor, Jughead is also very intelligent. He is often shown outsmarting and tricking Reggie Mantle, and during the toughest of times, he often speaks out, fixing the situation with a few simple words. At school, he tends to stay out of trouble, but he frustrates the teachers with his nonchalant attitude. They find it odd that he does well in school without putting in any type of serious effort.
Jughead has quite the obsession with food. In almost all of his appearances he is eating or about to eat something. Despite his eating habits, he remains the same size, only sporting a rather enlarged stomach after eating a big load. Pop Tate’s Chocklit Shoppe is a frequently visited by Jughead, where he often accumulates large tabs.
It is rare to see a comic issue that doesn’t show Jughead wearing two signature items: his sweater and his crown-shaped beanie. To this day, no one knows what the letter “S” on his sweater stands for, as Jughead refuses to reveal it to anyone. On one occasion, Jughead received the painful news from his parents that the family was moving out of Riverdale. Thinking he would never see his best pal again, Jughead decided to reveal the secret behind the “S” to Archie, but just as he was about to, Jughead’s father interrupted him to tell Jughead that they were no longer moving. His hat features a dot and a dash, Morse code for the letter “A.” No explanation is given for this, either.
Jughead is the drummer of the musical group The Archies. His custom-made bass drum can store food. In one story, Jughead was originally the guitarist, but he soon falls in love with the drum, and his principal Mr. Weatherbee switches Reggie from drum to guitar, and Jughead from guitar to drum. Drum enthusiasts may note that Jughead’s drum kit is drawn inaccurately in a majority of issues, as the hi-hat, snare drum and small/medium toms are often out of position, the bass drum is wider than longer, and the crash and ride cymbals are often missing. Even Jughead’s style of holding the drumsticks is awkward.
Jughead’s best friend is Archie Andrews. They often bail each other out of trouble, although Jughead is the one doing the bailing most of the time. Jughead also really likes Betty Cooper, but in a strictly platonic way. Betty often cooks Jughead meals and confides in him when she has trouble with Archie. Jughead often advises Archie to date Betty instead of Veronica Lodge. He also has a love-hate relationship with Veronica. Veronica claims to dislike him because of his laid-back demeanor and smart-alecky comments, but it is revealed that after sharing an onstage kiss, Veronica fell in love with Jughead, though it was short-lived.
Jughead’s family includes his father Forsythe Pendleton Jones Jr., his mother Gladys, and his sister Jellybean. He has a dog named Hot Dog.
Jones, Terry
The often high-pitched and female-impersonating founding member of the Monty Python comedy troupe was born Terry Graham Parry Jones on February 1, 1942 in Colwyn Bay, Wales. He spent most of his upbringing in Claygate, Surrey, and was educated at the local primary school before moving on to the Royal Grammar School in Guildford. Here, Jones got involved in every activity going from the Army Cadet Corp to rugby (eventually becoming his squad’s captain). After being turned down by universities in Manchester, London, Bristol and Exeter, Jones was offered an interview by Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, and an exam at St. Edmund Hall, Oxford, from which he received an offer that he accepted. In 1961, Jones entered Oxford to study English Literature. There, Jones became involved in the undergraduate magazine Isis, eventually becoming the designer. This brought him into contact with the Oxford thespians, and before long, Jones became actively involved in the college theatre scene.
With a friend, Jones started the Experimental Theatre Company, performing a wide range of material from Brecht to cabaret. In his second year, Jones wrote a revue show for the Edinburgh festival, after which the show moved to the LAMDA theatre in London, then to the Phoenix. Returning for his third year, Jones began writing with Robert Hewison and future co-Python Michael Palin, and they wrote the production Hang Down Your Head and Die, a comic look at the death penalty set in a circus ring, with Jones playing the condemned man. This ran for 11 days at the Oxford Playhouse, then for 6 weeks at the Comedy Theatre in London. A year later, Jones and Palin wrote for and organized The Oxford Revue that played at the 1964 Edinburgh Festival. While Jones’ first production had been satirical, The Oxford Revue was much more Python. It was at the end of the show that David Frost introduced himself and all but offered Jones and Palin a job. While writing for The Frost Report, Jones and Palin were introduced to Graham Chapman, Eric Idle and John Cleese.
When Jones graduated, he landed a job as a copywriter for Anglia Television before moving to the BBC as a script editor. It was here that he was put into a six-week director’s course (which he failed to complete, due to a severe case of peritonitis). Despite this, Jones became a production assistant, before being recruited as a joke writer for Late-Night Line-Up by producer Rown Ayres. Here, Jones joined his old writing mates from Oxford, Michael Palin and Robert Hewison. Before long, Hewison dropped out, and Jones and Palin were admitted into the hallowed circle of writers for The Frost Report. In addition to this, the Jones-Palin team was also contributing to other shows, such as The Late Show and A Series of Birds. From here, Palin and Jones moved on to LWT’s series Do Not Adjust Your Set (with Eric Idle and Terry Gilliam), as well as writing for Broaden Your Mind and the BBC production of Marty (along with Cleese and Chapman). At this point, producer Barry Took suggested that this group of writers get together to produce their own show, and Monty Python was born.
From the start, Jones and Palin were instrumental in toning down the clever, word-based sketches that were a hallmark of Cleese and Chapman, with the more visual style first seen in The Oxford Revue. Jones also started sitting in at the editing sessions, helping to shape the show. After having creative difficulties with director Ian MacNaughton on the first Python film … And Now For Something Completely Different, Jones and Terry Gilliam co-directed the troupe’s next film, Monty Python and the Holy Grail. From there, Jones’ directorial career took off, to include Monty Python’s The Life of Brian and Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life, before trying his hand in the outside projects Personal Services and Erik the Viking. Jones also collaborated with Palin to write the successful series Ripping Yarns.
During the post-Python era, Jones also became a respected children’s author, with stories such as Curse of the Vampire Socks, Fantastic Stories, Nicobonimus and The Saga of Erik the Viking (originally written for his son Bill). During the 1980s, Jones also wrote a regular column in the daily newspaper The Guardian, covering subjects such as the concentration of media power, the poll tax, nuclear power and the ozone layer. Jones was also responsible for the popular children’s cartoon series Blazing Dragons, which ran from 1996 to 1998, and was subsequently turned into a computer game for the Sega Saturn console (with Jones providing some of the voices). With Palin, Jones also wrote Dr. Fegg’s Encyclopaedia of All World Knowledge. More recently, he has written a number of bitingly satirical and hard-hitting opinion pieces for The Observer and The Guardian, many of which have been published in his book Terry Jones’s War on the War on Terror. Jones has also built something of a career as a medieval historian. His first book, Chaucer’s Knight: Portrait of a Medieval Mercenary, challenged the popular idea that the knight in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales was a noble pillar of society, suggesting that he was instead a brutal mercenary. A subsequent book Who Murdered Chaucer? speculates that the disappearance of Chaucer from historical records after 1400 was due to his being murdered by Archbishop Arundel, or even King Henry IV, for being a politically inconvenient critic.
As well as these serious academic volumes, Jones has written history books in which he demolishes the standard rose-tinted views of the ancient world we normally hear about. His series of Hidden Histories films (Hidden History of Egypt, Hidden History of Rome, Hidden History of Sex & Love) are light-hearted look at the diets, hygiene, careers, sex lives, and domestic arrangements in the ancient world. Jones’ book and series Medieval Lives (which saw Jones reverting to form and dressing up in women’s clothes!) reveals that medieval kings were more cruel, damsels were less helpless, knights were less chivalrous, and peasants less downtrodden and diseased than Renaissance and Victorian historians would have us believe. Jones’ last book and series Barbarians was about the history of the Roman Empire as seen by the Celts, Germans, Greeks, Persians and Africans. It showed the Romans as more barbaric than the “barbarians” they conquered. Recently, Jones has been directing an opera based on libretto he wrote called Evil Machines (based on story by the same name that he also wrote, about machines who fight back). It opened in January 2008 in Lisbon, Portugal.
Of all the Pythons, Jones has been the one who has consistently kept the Python flame alive, and kept the team together, however loosely. It was Jones who was behind their last big gathering, in Aspen. Along with Michael Palin, he is one of the Pythons with a career that has far exceeded where he started.
Jones married Alison Telfer in 1970, and they separated in 2004, after which he was attached with Anna Sonderstrom. He has two children with Telfer, Sally (b. 1974) and Bill (b. 1976), and a daughter Siri (b. 2009) with Sonderstrom, whom he married in 2014. The legendary British wit passed away on January 21, 2020.
Jor-El
A DC Comics character created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, the father of Kal-El (known on Earth years later as Superman) debuted in More Fun Comics #101 in 1945. Son of Jor-El the First and Nimda An-Dor, Jor-El was born into a family of very prominent position in society on the planet Krypton. The members of the El family were bastions of the scientific world. During his youth, Jor would be mentored by the scientist Non, a relationship that he would keep strong for years to come. He eventually struck out on his own, delving fully into the realms of science and becoming a respected member of the Kryptonian Science Council in his own right. Following in the footsteps of his creative ancestors, Jor-El invented a hovercraft, and made a number of useful discoveries that he contributed to society, though his most lasting discovery was that of the Phantom Zone. He lived a healthy life with his wife Lara Lor-Van and his son.
During his research, Jor-El made a startling discovery: Krypton’s core was unstable, and if it was allowed to continue on its current course, it could result in the destruction of the planet. Alarmed, Jor-El shared this information with both his brother Zor-El, and his former mentor Non. Zor-El would take the warning to heart and begin his own preparations, leading to first his daughter’s, and later his family’s, arrival on Earth. After having his findings further confirmed, Jor-El took them to the council. Sadly, the Science Council was unmoved by Jor-El’s words, branding his findings ludicrous and ordering him to never speak of them again. Jor-El continued to attempt to rally support, until finally he was accused of causing undue panic, and threatened with exile to the very Phantom Zone he had found.
Though the majority of Kryptonians did not believe him, a few took his words to heart. Among them were General Dru-Zod (also known as General Zod) and his lieutenant/lover Ursa. Learning of Jor-El’s discovery, Zod and Ursa realized that he spoke the truth. They offered to work with Jor-El, but, sensing the greed behind their actions, he declined their offer of allegiance. When their insurrection failed, Jor-El was chosen to be their jailer. Zod viewed Jor-El’s inaction as a betrayal, and made him the target of his hatred, and as Zod was consigned to the Phantom Zone, he vowed to take over Krypton and make Jor-El and his son kneel before him.
Abiding by the will of the council, Jor-El spoke no more of his findings. Instead, he began to work on a way to save his son. Using his technology to attempt to find a suitable world for his son to be raised on, Jor-El sent a probe to Earth to learn of its inhabitants. The probe made contact with Thomas Wayne, and sent a holographic transmission of Wayne’s consciousness to Krypton. Jor-El learned that the people of Earth were not perfect, but were essentially a good and kind race, who would raise the child right. Meanwhile, Thomas Wayne would use the technology in the Kryptonian probe to revitalize a failing Wayne Enterprises, and years later, the alien technology would form the basis for much of Batman’s crime-fighting technology.
Jor-El decided that Earth would be the perfect home for Kal, especially after his discovery of the effects of a yellow sun on Kryptonian physiology. He then set about building a rocket for Kal’s journey. Jor also began preparations to ensure his son would be properly educated, and that the knowledge of Krypton would survive. Just as he completed his preparations, Krypton began to shake itself apart, as Jor had predicted. The scientist sent his son to the planet Earth. Years later, an adult Kal was able to view his parents through Lex Luthor’s time-space communicator. Back on Krypton, seconds before its destruction, Jor-El and Lara see their son alive and well on Earth, and know that their efforts were successful. Through his actions, Jor-El had not only saved his son, but sent Earth her greatest protector.
Jor-El possessed Kryptonian physiology, and thus was able to exhibit their powers, such as solar energy absorption, heat vision, super-hearing, and enhanced vision (including electromagnetic spectrum vision, microscopic vision, telescopic vision, x-ray vision and infrared vision). He was invulnerable and possessed incredible stamina levels, as well as superhuman strength, speed, reflexes, agility and, as his son does on Earth, could blow great gusts of wind from his mouth. He had advanced knowledge of Kryptonian history and was proficient in scientific engineering. Like others of his race, he was vulnerable to kryptonite.
Jor-El was portrayed by Marlon Brando in the 1978’s Superman: The Movie, and in Superman Returns (2006), he was digitally recreated to play the “phantom” of Jor-El. In the CW television series Smallville, Jor-El’s role as nearly the same in the comic books, but he doesn’t have a psychical appearance. His voice (provided by actor Terence Stamp, who had portrayed Zod in Superman: The Movie and Superman II) can be heard at first in the ship, then in a cave, and later, in the Fortress of Solitude.
Jordan, Hal
The alternative identity of Green Lantern was created by John Broome and Gil Kane, after DC Comics editor Julius Schwartz began bringing in a new science fiction age of comics by revamping the superhero genre. He first appeared in Showcase #22, published in October 1959. His first appearance signaled the reboot of characters away from the magic- and supernatural-based stories of The Golden Age of Comics, replacing them with science fiction-based stories. Along with the newly reimagined The Atom, The Flash and Hawkman, this was a landmark moment which many consider to be the beginning of the Silver Age at DC. Replacing Alan Scott’s magic-based Green Lantern was Hal Jordan, wielder of a ring of alien origins and part of an intergalactic police force, protecting his assigned sector of the universe.
Born into a military family, Hal’s father Martin was a test pilot for Ferris Aircraft when Hal was young. The two shared an especially close bond, as well as a love of flying. Martin was killed during a test-flight gone awry, with both Hal and Carol Ferris watching. As a result, Hal’s mother forbade him from frequenting airfields or having anything whatsoever to do with the world of aviation. In accordance with this ultimatum, Hal promised not to join the Air Force. After high school, Hal was returning to Coast City after a visit to Metropolis University. On the same flight was Clark Kent of Smallville. When their plane hit heavy turbulence, spinning the plane out of control, Hal helped to keep the passengers calm while Clark secretly stabilized the 707. Hal and Clark would remain friends. Hal enrolled in college and earned a degree in Aviation Engineering. Afterward, he did break his promise to his mother, enlisting in the Air Force and serving under Capt. Richard Davis, who would become his mentor.
Hal was considered one of the best young pilots, flying his first combat missions during the Korean War. Years later, when he learned his mother was dying, Hal planned to visit her, but his brother Jack said his mom had no interest in seeing him. Knowing that the reason his mother refused to see him was due to his being in the Air Force, he enacted a plan to get discharged as quickly as possible, punching his commanding officer. He was summarily dishonorably discharged, and went immediately see his mother, but she passed away just before he arrived at the hospital. With his degree, Hal rejoined civilian life, designing a flightless trainer for Ferris Aircraft Corporation. He became Ferris’ top test pilot, but was passed over for the astronaut program, after which he was interviewed by Clark Kent for Metropolis’ Daily Planet.
Hal’s most important personal relationship is with Carol Ferris. As the inheritor of the family business at Ferris Air, she is his boss, but over time the childhood friends grew to love each other.
While testing a flight simulator, an energy field surrounded Hal and took him to Abin Sur, a member of an intergalactic peace-keeping force called the Green Lantern Corps. On the verge of death, Abin Sur’s power ring sought out his successor, the most fearless being in the entire sector. The ring reached Earth and found two Earthlings, Hal Jordan and Guy Gardner. Hal happened to be closer to the crash site, so he was chosen. Despite some character flaws, Hal Jordan was given the power ring and its power battery. He journeyed to the planet Oa, home world of the Green Lantern Corps, and trained with Sinestro, a Corps member that would later become one of Hal’s deadliest enemies. He became the Green Lantern of Sector 2814 (Earth’s sector) and formed many relationships among the superhero community. Hal is considered the greatest Green Lantern of them all.
Joule
In the International System of Units (SI), the standard unit of work or energy, equal to the work done by a force of one newton when its point of application moves through a distance of one meter in the direction of the force. One joule is equal to 10(7) ergs and one watt-second. Abbreviated J or j.
Joust
Quite the unique video game, Joust was introduced into arcades in 1982 by Williams Electronics, Inc. Players used a joystick to control direction, and a “flap” button to control their character’s altitude. During gameplay, each player controlled a different knight, who rode a different mount when facing each other in mid-flight combat. The first player controlled a yellow knight on a flying ostrich, while the second player controlled a light blue knight who rode a giant stork. Meanwhile, three enemy knights rode giant buzzards of different colors. Other enemies included the “unbeatable” pterodactyl and The Lava Troll, a giant hand that reached out and grabbed from one of two lava pools at the bottom of the screen. If a player’s feathered mount flew too close to either of the lava pits, The Lava Troll would reach out, grab it by the legs, and pull both animal and rider into his fiery home.
Each time an enemy knight was defeated in a joust by ramming him atop his head, he turned into an egg. The eggs had to be captured before they hatched, because if an egg hatched, the knight would have to face a more difficult foe. A Bounder became a Hunter, a Hunter became a Shadow Lord, and so on. After the egg hatched, a new mount would fly out to pick up the newly-hatched enemy knight. A player could also collect an enemy knight before he mounted his “steed.” At higher levels, platforms collapsed and disintegrated. Occasionally, there would be an Egg Wave, during which the player had to grab all the enemy eggs before they hatched. The difficulty level increased with each play level.
JPG/JPEG
See Joint Photographic Experts Group.
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