Marvel’s Jackpot

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Marvel’s Jackpot is the name for two costumed characters from the Spider-Man series comic books. Essentially, the first Jackpot gives up her crime fighting role for a normal life. Another woman pays her for her knowledge and superhero license and then takes her place. She comes to a sad and sticky end. Then Spider-Man convinces the first Jackpot that she has a duty, nay, has a responsibility, to the powers that she has been granted. She needs to pick up the mantle and restart fighting crime. Just a word of warning. This write-up comes with both spoilers and some comments on the adult nature of comics in the late 2,000’s. Things can get pretty dark in the Marvel Universe. It might be more fun to read the best jackpot reviews instead!

The First Marvel’s Jackpot

First appearing in 2007 in “Spider-Man: Swing Shift”, this features the young Sara Ehret, who’s a pregnant scientist working at a subsidiary of Oscorp. You’ve guessed it, she works on gene therapy trying to find a cure for Parkinson’s Disease. Unfortunately she gets exposed to a certain “Lot 777”. This is a virus that sets about re-writing her genetic code, during which time she spends four months in a coma.  Coming too, she has gained superhuman powers. Sara is then entered into a government sanctioned program for superheros in New York City. Becoming a superhero for a while is cool and all, but Sara has no interest in remaining one. All she longs for is a life of normality with time to spend with her young daughter. One day, another woman named Alana Jobson, recognizes Sara as the Jackpot.

A New Beginning For Jackpot

Ever since the Civil War/Superhuman Registration Act, Alana had dreamed of being a hero. In the end, they come to an agreement and Alana buys both the costume and the superhero licence from Sara and the two part ways. Alana embarks on a regimen of enhancement drugs in order to gain the superpowers needed for the job. She also decides to pretend to have a crush on Peter Parker. But the truth is (spoiler alert) she’s actually a lesbian and is in love with Sara.

Wanting It Is Not Enough

In her first outing to help Spider-man, she is instrumental in the death of an innocent women (crushed into a bloody pulp by a huge steel girder) and Alana blames herself. Later she is able to make amends somewhat after freezing their enemy, Sinister Six-Skrull, to death in a deep freezer.  But during this battle, she gets a dose of blindness serum from Blindside. In spite of Spider-Man’s best efforts, and an antidote produced by Dr Reed Richards of the Fantastic Four, she dies from a fatal myocardial infarction . This was bought about thanks to the combination of Blindside’s deadly serum and all the drugs she’s already taking.

Jackpot Finally Takes Responsibility

At this point Spider-man decides it’s time to investigate the real identity of Jackpot. Watch out: he’s not to be found at online jackpot sites! He makes his way to Jackpot’s home, only to find Sara Ehret. Wanting only the quiet life, she sends Spider-Man away, telling him that she is not the person he’s looking for. He later returns and confronts Sara, telling her that it was irresponsible to allow a powerless and untrained Alana to take on the serious responsibilities of Jackpot. He leaves her clutching Jackpot’s costume whilst chiding her that, ” people with powers do not have the choice of giving up their responsibilities.”

Marvel’s Jackpot: Things Can Get Pretty Dark

Forced to face her errors and weakness, Sara reclaims her superhero identity. One of her adversary’s is “Rose”, a drug dealer. In reality, he is Dr Philip Hayes, and he was Sara’s boss at the Phelcorps lab where she had her accident. After that debacle, he lost all his funding and so turned to nefarious means to eek out a living. Discovering the real identity of Sara, he dispatches Boomerang to track her down. In one of the darkest and most harrowing scenes ever put to comic book paper, Boomerang sadistically murders her husband in front of her and her daughter. Because of this, Sara is forced to change her identity and she she takes on the name Alana Jobson as a mark of respect and regret.

Jackpot Powers

The first Jackpot, as Sara Ehret, was given natural superhuman powers by the virus infection. In the “Secret Invasion-Spider-Man” #2, she is easily able to rip off the trunk of a car and throw it at a Super Skrull. She also withstood some serious punches from Skrull himself and showed no signs of any bruising. But when the Jackpot costume was worn by Alena Jobson, she relied on pills and drugs for her powers. Though these did help her with her physical and gymnastic abilities, as shown in “The Amazing Spider-Man” #549, she possessed limited fighting capacity. This was to be the ultimate cause of her sad demise.

Mary Jane Mixup

During the first year of the new characters debut, her real identity was a secret. Because she shared many characteristics of Peter Parker’s girlfriend, Mary Jane Watson, many believed Jackpot to be the same person. For example, they used the same catch phrase, “Tiger” and both sported long red hair. Even Peter Parker was unsure. In fact, when they first met, Mary Jane’s first words to Peter were, “Face it Tiger, you just hit the jackpot”.

The Jackpot Costume

Costume-wise, Jackpot choose a sporty disco-era style, a la Prince, with a green jumpsuit with bell bottoms. She accessorized with gold cuffs and wore a gold mask over her face. Her belt read “777” in honor of the substance that gave her powers. Her long red hair was later revealed to be a wig.

Maybe Marvel’s Jackpot Will Be An MCU Movie

In 2018, Variety Magazine revealed that a MCU Jackpot standalone movie was in the development stages at Sony Pictures. The success of the more adult themed “Venom”, which was another Spider-Man spin off, could see a new more mature Jackpot movie. Maybe this would hit the zeitgeist of the #metoo/female superhero/sisters are doing it for themselves – trend, along the lines of the awful Captain Marvel. And the way all the girls got together to finally defeat Thanos in Avenger’s Endgame. Talk about lame. So if Marvel’s Jackpot ever does ever hit the silver screen, let’s not assume too much and set our expectations too high.

And in here, you won’t be able to analyse Marvel jackpots, but you will be able to compare sites with jackpots!