Young Man's Blues For Old Man Jack

by Vince Brusio

Question: what’s the one thing that people have in common as they approach old age? Answer: they’ll all tell you that life goes by too fast. Way too fast. One day you’re a pretty boy highballing’ behind an 18-wheeler rescuing a beautiful girl from a Chinese villain, and the next…well, that’s what we’re about to get into when the Big Trouble In Little China: Old Man Jack TP (APR181116) hits the streets from BOOM! Studios. It’s the latest chapter in the history of Jack Burton, and writer Anthony Burch gives us a tour of the old folk’s home where…you won’t find Jack because he’s finally got to figure out how to grow up. Fast.

Big Trouble In Little China: Old Man Jack TP (APR181116) is in comic shops August 29.

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Vince Brusio: Where is Jack’s headed these days now that he’s no longer a pretty boy? Does he still have the same swagger, or has time tempered his tongue?

Anthony Burch: Oh, he's still pretty. Jack Burton's never been much for self-awareness, so he's still a lovably arrogant buffoon. As the series moves forward, though, Jack might find his age catch up with him in the least helpful of ways.

Vince Brusio: We seem to have skipped a lot of years from when we last saw the trucker highballing’ down the highway. What’s up with the concept of “Old Man Jack,” as opposed to “Mid-Life Crisis Jack”?

Anthony Burch: When we last saw Jack in the film, he was riding off into the sunset. Alone, by choice. Which is a perfectly cool, John Wayne-esque thing to do when you're gorgeous and in your twenties, but what about when you're in your sixties? Jack spent his life getting by with nothing more than smiles and one-liners, so what happens when things get as terrible as they can possibly get — which is to say, the apocalypse happens — and Jack suddenly finds that he's got to finally, finally grow up?

Old Man Jack is, weirdly, sort of a coming-of-age story in that regard. Except the age in question is sixty-six.

Vince Brusio: According to the solicitation text, Ching Dai has broken the barriers between Earth and the infinite hells, and declared himself the ruler of all. So the story takes place after the apocalypse, correct? We don’t get to see the Terminator effect with the big fireball wiping out the cities? Do we at least get a sense and scope of the destruction? What’s the landscape look like?

Anthony Burch: The story takes place after the apocalypse has already happened. But that doesn't mean you won't see how the apocalypse came about, and find out what part Jack Burton had to play in the initial end of the world.

But yeah, Earth is now basically a wasteland where all of the devils, demons, and spirits of every culture's underworlds roam free. There are pockets of humanity spread throughout the world, but they're pretty rare. Basically, imagine Mad Max and combine it with Dante's Inferno. Ching Dai, demon god of the east, oversees all of this new world, dubbed the Hellpocalypse. He sits on a building-sized throne of human skulls in San Francisco's Chinatown, and he rules the wasteland with an iron fist.

Vince Brusio: The road to hell is said to be paved with good intentions. Now that Jack finds himself in the middle of Hell, we’ve long passed the road. We’ve already taken an off-ramp, and now we’re in new territory. So what are the intentions of those who now interact with Jack in this story?

Anthony Burch: Most people who interact with Jack don't have good intentions. For one thing, Jack's kind of a doofus — hardly the kind of guy you need in your corner in the apocalypse. Two, he may have more to do with this whole Hellpocalypse mess than he initially lets on!

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Vince Brusio writes about comics, and writes comics. He is the long-serving Editor of PREVIEWSworld.com, the creator of PUSSYCATS, and encourages everyone to keep the faith...and keep reading comics.