JACK THE RIPPER

Real Name: Variable

Identity/Class: Possessed Human Psychopath

Occupation: Unrevealed; Serial Killer

Group Membership: Legion of the Lost

Affiliations: Dormammu, Fu Manchu, "Terrible Tom" Garrett, James Ransom, Terdu, an unnamed group of vampires

Enemies: Chief Inspector Frederick Abberline, Bucky, Captain America, Ransak the Reject, Scotland Yard; Mary Anne Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes, Mary Jeanette Kelly (known victims), Pete Wisdomm, Predator (at least for Dr. Gregory Rossilli)

Known Relatives: None Known

Aliases: The White Chapel Killer, possibly the Mad Slayer, Red Slayer of White Chapel, Redjac, Saucy Jack, the Vampire-Man (Tom Malverne), Zaniac

Base of Operations: White Chapel, London, England (@ 1888)

First Appearance: All-Select Comics#7 (Spring, 1945)

Powers/Abilities: The Ripper exists as parasitic creatures which are released after a host's death, infecting others and transforming them into the Ripper persona, and sometimes taking his form as well. The original Ripper's spirit can also possess and control others.
The Ripper possessed a savage, bloodthirsty depravity for disembowelment and vivisection. He was supposed to have had medical knowledge in surgery and anatomy.

Height: 6'1" (variable)
Weight: 195 lbs. (variable)
Eyes: Brown (variable)
Hair: Brown (variable)

History:

(OHOTMU Horror 2005 - BTS) - In the late 19th century Dormammu sent a magical creature to possess the hunchback Tom Malverne, who hated normal people. The creature stimulated Malverne's bloodlust.

(Thor I#372 (fb)) - In an alternate future, the Zaniac, in the form of a foreign diplomat, had slain the mayor of Brooklyopolis, which sparked off a world war. The government tracked down evidence of the Zaniac into the past, possibly even back into the nineteenth century, where they suspected him of being the man known as Jack the Ripper.

(Master Of Kung Fu I#100 (fb)/OHotMU Horror 2005 - BTS) - It was revealed that Fu Manchu had unspecified intimate knowledge of every facet of the existence of Jack the Ripper or a successor. The personality of this man was saved by Fu Manchu and could be programmed into others.

(Adventures Into Terror#29) - In Victorian London, hunchback Tom Malverne watched as a vampire killed a victim. He followed it back to its hiding place in Chatham Cemetery, but he was captured by other vampires. He saved his life by claiming he wanted to be a vampire himself. The leader of the vampires stated that Malverne would be welcomed into the vampiric coven if Malverne had drunk human by New Year's Eve. If not, the vampires would come to kill Malverne.

(Doctor Strange III#23 -BTS) - Jack The Ripper killed five prostitutes in England's East End of White Chapel while under the control of Dormammu.

(Historical) - On August 31, 1888, two men walking to work discovered the slaughtered body of Mary Anne Nichols outside White Chapel's Buck's Inn. She had been completely disemboweled. As police were still trying to solve her murder, Annie Chapman was found murdered nine days later the same way on September 8, 1888 on Hanbury Street.

The case was handed to noted detective Chief Inspector Frederick Abberline who suspected that both murders were the act of one man. Meanwhile, the police station was inundated with mail suggesting clues and leads or from cranks claiming to be the killer. The only letter taken seriously was sent to the Central News Service; the author of the letter gave the name Jack the Ripper and promised to prove his identity by mailing the ear off his next murder.

On September 30, "Long Liz" Stride was found murdered, but before the Ripper could take her ear, would-be witnesses distracted him. He fled the scene and killed prostitute Catherine Eddowes about thirty minutes later. Her left kidney and intestines were missing, but the kidney was mailed to the Central News Service.

On November 9, Mary Jeanette Kelly was found dead by her landlord in her flat. She had been completely disemboweled and her intestines laid out about her. She was the last murder. (See Comments)

(Eternals Annual I#1) - The Deviant Zakka briefly brought the Ripper to the present from during the height of his killing spree. The Ripper attempted to claim a new victim, but was prevented by the Deviant Ransak, who fought him off until he was returned to his own time by Zakka's machines.

(All-Select Comics#7) - Fleeing from Captain America and Bucky, criminal "Terrible Tom" Garrett took refuge in a shack that belonged to the sorcerer Terdu, who had, via his mystic cauldron, observed the fight between the heroes and Garrett's mob. Claiming to "glory in evil," Terdu decided to use his cauldron to summon several criminals from the past to help Garrett against Cap and Bucky. The first criminal to appear was the pirate Captain Kidd, followed by Jack the Ripper, who appeared dressed in an orange jacket and pants, a blue shirt, and a green working-class cap; Terdu also summoned Frank and Jesse James, Bluebeard, Gyp-the-Blood, and three gangsters (names unrevealed) who had died in the electric chair decades earlier. Over the next few days, Garrett and Terdu directed the criminals, all of them mystically rendered bulletproof and highly resistant to injury, in various criminal activities, including the scuttling of a yacht by Captain Kidd and several murders by Jack the Ripper; reports of the latter led Captain America and Bucky to venture into town to investigate. When the criminals (including Jack, who carried a modern pistol during the robbery) set off a bank's burglar alarm, the police responded, as did Cap and Bucky. The criminals were unaffected by police bullets, but the heroes held their own for a while (Cap striking Jack with his shield at least twice) until struck from behind by Captain Kidd's belaying pin and carried unconscious to Terdu's lair, where Terdu and Garrett awaited them. Against Garrett's protests, Terdu revived Cap and Bucky so that they could die in a fair fight. Garrett attacked the heroes first with Kidd's cutlass, then with Jack's knife, but failed both times; Cap then threw Garrett at Jack and the others, bowling them over. Disgusted by the poor showing, Terdu returned all of the "historic" criminals to the past and moved to attack Cap himself; however, Cap moved out of the way and Terdu fell headfirst into his cauldron, screaming ("Agh-h! Glub...Gurgle!") as he was seemingly consumed by its contents. Thoroughly shaken and having had his fill of the supernatural, Garrett surrendered to Cap in hopes of being sent to "a nice ordinary cell for the rest of my life," and Cap and Bucky turned him over to the police.

(Adventures Into Terror#29) - Although Malverne killed many women, in brutal slayings, he could not bring himself to actually drink their blood. On New Year's Eve (presumably December 31, 1888), the vampires killed him for his failure.

Soon after Malverne was killed, a police officer commented on the ghastly crimes that had recently happened in London--the Jack the Ripper murders.

(Astonishing#18/OHotMU Horror 2005) - The vampires buried him near London and placed the title of the killer on his tombstone in place of his real name. Malverne's spirit was cast down to Hell but was able to haunt those who visited his grave. A man visiting the grave decided to dig up the body to be sure he was dead (or perhaps, more logically, to see the killer's face and identify it), but he was killed by the man in the grave before he could do so.

(Thor I#205) - Jack the Ripper was among the Legion of the Lost summoned by Mephisto to battle Thor, who swiftly defeated them.

(OHotMU Horror 2005 - BTS) - The creature within Malverne escaped and took a new host. Over the years it repeated this many times.

(Marvel Graphic Novel: Cloak & Dagger: Predator & Prey (fb) ) - Jack the Ripper (Dr. Gregory Rossilli), a physician or surgeon of some sort, rides a ship to New York, intending to leave his pursuers and his crimes behind him. However, money matters meant he needed to reopen his practice, and when he held a scalpel and saw one of his patients' throats bent back, he began killing again. He buried each one in the soil of a construction site near his office (the Holy Ghost Church), until he was accidently buried in a cave-in, and died.

(Vampire Tales#9/3) - Jack the Ripper (another unnamed host) was pulled forward in time to the alternate/potential future of Earth-7592, September 3, 2311. The Ripper initially thought he had been brought forth to kill new harlots for god, but found that there were few people on the streets at night for him to assault.

Another person, a vampire actually, David St. Francis, had also been pulled forward in time (from 1902 in his case), and had proceeded to embark on a killing spree across the city of New York, which no longer had any organized security. St. Francis had befriended yet another time displaced person from his era, Melissa Morgan. However, the Ripper was able to figure out that it had been St. Francis killing the city-dwellers, which had caused them to stay inside and hide in the evening, making them inaccessible to Jack. The Ripper slew Melissa, and then staked St. Francis (I don't think he knew he was a vampire, but I think he just preferred to use his blade against only women).

(Journey Into Mystery II#2 (fb)) - The creature (the one which Dormammu had sent to Earth) who killed as Jack the Ripper was actually a sorcerer who did his crimes so as to gain immortality and other supernatural boons. The killings continued for several years after 1888, and took place in many countries around the world.

At some point, the sorcerer killed the woman whom Sir Guy Hollis loved. Sir Guy Hollis afterwards swore to find the killer of his lover, and soon found crimes perpetrated around the world over several years that fit the pattern of the Ripper . Sir Guy Hollis soon guessed the truth, that the Ripper was a sorcerer. One day, hot on the trail, he managed to get into a physical confrontation with the Ripper. Apparently Sir Guy Hollis did not get a good look at the Ripper's face (or else the Ripper later used mystical means to alter his appearance), but did notice the rope-like scar on the man's arm.
At some point, probably years later, Jack the Ripper set himself up in the identity of Doctor John Carmody, a Chicago psychiatrist.

(Journey Into Mystery II#2) - Sir Guy Hollis came to Chicago to investigate a series of Ripper-like slayings. He told Doctor John Carmody about his theory that Jack the Ripper was a sorcerer. Carmody, obviously knowing the truth, pretended not to believe Hollis. Later, Hollis and Carmody came to the college where Carmody worked, and found a group of students talking about the recent murders. One of the students, a long-haired man, explained very vividly his own theories as to why he thought the killer committed his crimes. Sir Guy Hollis, interested in this long-haired man's
ideas, demanded that he roll down his sleeve and show him his arm. The long-haired student refused and fled. Sir Guy Hollis went after him, pulling out his gun.

Doctor John Carmody caught up with Hollis and took his gun from him. Carmody stated that the student did not roll down his sleeve probably only because he was a addict who had track marks on his arm from shooting up. Hollis agreed, apoligized for his gung-ho attitude, and asked for his gun back from Carmody. However, Carmody then took out a knife and rolled down his sleeve-revealing a rope-like scar on his arm. Carmody was in fact Jack the Ripper and advanced on Hollis.

(Marvel Graphic Novel: Cloak & Dagger: Predator & Prey (fb) - BTS) - The Ripper's soul (the cave-in victim) was waylaid by the Predator of the Darkforce Dimension, and kept imprisoned with the spirits of other extremely evil people.

(Master of Kung Fu I#100) - Fu Manchu programmed the personality of the Ripper (unknown version) into Phillip, the boyfriend of his daughter, Fah Lo Suee, who became the Mad Slayer. (read his own profile)

(Thor I#319) - Chicago actor Brad Wolfe was bonded to a Ripper creature and transformed by radiation he became Zaniac. (read his own profile)


(Marvel Graphic Novel: Cloak & Dagger: Predator & Prey) - When Cloak, the Predator's current doorway to the human world, decides to no longer give people to the Darkforce, the Predator decides to drive Cloak insane, and released the Ripper's soul to kill people woundlessly after Cloak meets them. From his first victim, the Ripper collects a trenchcoat, fedora, and a knife, and immediately defies the Predator, deciding to collect life energies for himself, and to kill Cloak to keep the Predator imprisoned. Jack uses the Darkforce to reform the environment of NYC, making it look like his 19th century world, so he'll be more comfortable; it also helps to convince Cloak that he's going mad. Jack continues his murder spree, until he encounters Dagger, and recognizes that he could use her to forever seal Cloak's portal into the Darkforce. Dagger exhausts her light to temporarily turn Cloak human, and the Ripper goes to kill her, revealing the nature of the demon inside Cloak. Cloak opens his portal again through force of will, and sucks the Ripper into the Darkforce, where he experiences his own fears -- being dissected by
surgeons -- before being retaken by the Predator.

(Wisdom#6) - Alternate Earth versions of Jack the Ripper were summoned to Earth-616 by James Ransom until he was killed by his "allies" the Martian Masters of Earth-691. Pete Wisdom killed one of them.

Comments Adapted by Vince Alascia.

The real name for the Ripper host seen in Cloak & Dagger: Predator & Prey was revealed in Predator's profile in Fear Itself: Fellowship of Fear (2011).

Fu Manchu's ability to recreate the Ripper's psychological state in others suggests he may have done the same to the original, or that the original might have been an agent of his, though this is not confirmed.
--Prime Eternal

Other Jack the Ripper stories:

During the seventies, the second run of JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY did an adaptation of "Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper" (Robert Bloch short story; reprinted in MASTERS OF TERROR#1). The story was published in 1972 and I would set it in 1972 absolutely, to fill up the pre-modern era (in OHotMU Horror 2005 this story was brought into continuity)
 

In Astonishing#18 where his ghost kills a guy who comes to see his grave:

--It's really a rather stupid story...see, this guy wants to prove Jack the Ripper is really dead, so he visits his grave. But...since when does Jack the Ripper have a grave? And if he did, doesn't that suppose they would know who he was?--Prime Eternal

This was at last explained in OHotMU Horror 2005. Vampire buried the original Jack the Ripper (Malverne)!
--Markus Raymond

Regarding All-Select#7:
It's anyone's guess as to which point in Jack the Ripper's history he was removed from and returned to by Terdu. In one scene Terdu referred to the criminals of the past as "Men of Evil," which might qualify as a group affiliation for Jack. ASC#7's Jack bore a much closer resemblance to an American criminal than to a Victorian one (particularly considering that golden age writing was not always subtle in its use of British accents); his dialogue in the story consisted of:

(as the police responded to the bank robbery) "It's de cops!"
(while being struck by Cap) "Yow!"
(returning to Terdu's lair with the unconscious heroes) "We got 'em!"
(offering Garrett his knife) "Use this knife! You can slit him from ear to ear with it!"
(as Cap prepared to hurl Garrett at him) "Hey!"
--Ron Byrd

Being a 1950's horror title, Astonishing#18 is non-canonical, to date, but there's no reason why it couldn't fit into the Marvel Universe. --Kyle

Can it fit together?

  1. There is a probable scenario to account for all these added accounts of Jack The Ripper. It is likely that Thomas Malverne was the employee of Fu Manchu. Malverne wanted to be a vampire, but he was prevented from drinking the blood of his victims because Dormammu forced the fragment of Zaniac into him. After his death by the vampires, the released Zaniac fragment possessed another body that went on to the United States and was collected by the Predator. Malverne’s physical body was buried under the tombstone marked just “Jack the Ripper”. However, it may be only a matter of time before someone at Marvel adds another twist. (It’s actually a shame the Ripper wasn’t borrowed by Mephisto or Satannish during their attacks on the Avengers West Coast [AWC#98-100]. It sure would have been a good place for him to show up and for Marvel to close their many contradictions.)--Will U
  2. Or perhaps Dormammu brought the Zaniac fragment to Earth and placed it into Malverne first. This stimulated his interest and bloodthirsty behavior, which caused him to be recruited by Fu Manchu. The fragment also drew him to the vampires, but though he carried out the acts, his human spirit stopped him from consuming his victims' blood. Malverne's corpse was buried in said grave, but by the time it was unearthed in the modern era, Malverne's spirit had been twisted by decades in Hell. Malverne's brain had been taken by Fu Manchu, who distilled only the killer impulses of Jack the Ripper from his mind. Many Zaniac fragments are spawned with the death of the host, and while one stayed in the version collected by the Predator, another went on to possess Brad Wolfe, the Zaniac, and perhaps yet another went on to become Dr. John Carmody.
    --To clarify, this would mean that the Zaniac fragments are/were the true Ripper, and Malverne and others were just hosts, though they did become twisted by their exposure to the essence of the Zaniac.
    In addition, the Vampire Tales story can be fit in thusly: Either it was the "original" Ripper (possibly Malverne) who was pulled forward in time, and then was returned to his own time somehow, OR it was one of the Ripper's successors, another host for a Zaniac fragment. This successor could either have stayed in that time period, or might have returned to his own time and gone on to travel to the Holy Ghost Church and meet his death.
    I personally like the idea of the Zaniac fragments, as it allows many beings to meet many fates, and allows pretty much any Ripper story to be fit into continuity. The way the Ripper used the wooden stake on St. Francis, rather than dirtying his knife on a woman reminds me of the way the Zaniac only wanted to use his knife (representing his twisted love) on women, and the brutal fists of hate on men. He compromised on Thor, because his long hair made him look like a pretty-pretty.
    Possibly, Earth-7592 might be the same timeline as the world shown by Justice Peace in Thor I#372. The once peaceful future may have needed to adopt an advanced security system to stop the Ripper's (and perhaps his further spawns') killings. Perhaps they generated this on their own, and this is the world of Justice Peace's origin (as would appear from Thor#372) or they might have enlisted aid from the Time Variance Authority and gotten Justice Peace that way.
    --Snood.

In case you’re here looking for research on the historical Jack the Ripper and are a bit confused by the info here, this entry covers material submitted over the years for the fictional, Marvel Comics version of Jack the Ripper in an attempt to reconcile them. Scotland Yard has yet to incontrovertibly prove the Ripper’s identity (if they ever will be able to), but that doesn’t stop many would-be crime-busters and tabloids from trying to solve the case.

The most popular candidates:

HRH Prince Albert Victor, Duke Of Clarence- A reputed homosexual whose crimes were allegedly covered up by Sir William Gull, artist William Sickert and a royal coachman named John Netley. A contrary theory names James Kenneth Stephen, the Duke’s tutor at Cambridge who was a homosexual and woman-hater.

Montague John Druitt- A failed lawyer who drowned himself in the River Thames in December 1888. The fact the Ripper’s murders stopped with his death has seemed as incontrovertible proof as his guilt. (See comments below)

Dr. Thomas Neill Cream- When he was hung in 1892 for poisoning women, he reportedly cried out, “I am Jack the... ” just as he dropped to his death. Unfortunately, Cream was in prison in the United States during the Ripper’s carnage. Efforts to prove Cream was illegally released early for him to have actually been the Ripper proved groundless when it was revealed that Cream was visited in prison by the executor of his father’s will in 1889.

George Chapman (real name: Severin Klosowski)- A wife poisoner whom Abberline believed was the Ripper. Although he later retracted the accusation, many believe he was actually correct.

Michael Ostrog- Homicidal Russian doctor who was later institutionalized. His whereabouts during the Ripper murders have never been verified.

Aaron Kosminski- A Polish Jew who lived in White Chapel. He was taken to a lunatic asylum for his hatred of women and great homicidal tendencies.

Dr. Roslyn D’Onston Stephenson- An esoteric author who reputedly confessed to having committed the murders as part of a Black Magic ritual. He vanished in 1904.

Dr. Herbert Stanley- On his deathbed, Stanley confessed to being Jack the Ripper, and the story ended up in a Spanish journal. Unfortunately, no such person is listed anywhere in the Medical Records of the General Medical Council Of Great Britain.

Dr. Alexander Pedachenko- He claimed that he was really Michael Ostrog and that he was a Russian barber surgeon connected to the Russian Secret Police.

Frederick Deeming- After he was arrested in 1892 for killing two his two wives and children, Deeming boasted that he had already killed five prostitutes in White Chapel. Although he was already in prison during the Ripper murders, a plaster cast was made of his face after death was displayed as belonging to Jack the Ripper. The cast was reportedly later used to create wax figures of the killer.

Walter Sickert- A recent theory parallels the Ripper with this painter’s morbidity and violence. Coincidences abound in Sickert’s hand writing samples and the Ripper letters. In fact, saliva found on the envelopes of the Ripper letters could have been compared to Sickert if he hadn’t been cremated.

Jill the Ripper- A theory used to propose the fact that the murders were caused by a deranged mid-wife.

(Most data here found from The Complete Jack the Ripper by Donald Rumbelow)

Traditional Ripper lore usually identifies only five murders in 1888, but some researchers also believe he may have been active much earlier. On April 2, 1888, Emma Smith was found dead at 18 St. George Street and on April 7, 1888, Martha Tabram’s body was found on the landing of George Yard Building. On July 17, 1889, eight months after the last recognized Ripper killing, Alice McKenzie was also found dead Ripper-style in Castle alley on July 10, 1889. Another woman, never identified, was found under a railroad arch on Pinchin Street. Another, Frances Cole, was found in Swallow Gardens on February 13, 1891. While superficially resembling the Ripper murders, no actual connections to the Ripper have ever been made.

www.casebook.org is a comprehensive site that covers a potpourri of Jack the Ripper material.

It's worth noting that the name Jack the Ripper was only applied to the murderer after a letter and then a postcard were sent, purportedly from the killer, to the Central News Agency, each signed by "Jack the Ripper". Many now believe that these were fakes arranged by a headline hunting journalist at the agency, possibly one Tom Bulling. Lending credence to this theory was the fact that another letter in different hand-writing was sent in a package which also contained a human kidney (such as had been taken from the fourth victim, Katherine Eddoes) to George Lusk, head of a local vigilance committee (think neighbourhood watch), and this letter was not signed Jack the Ripper. Speculation suggests this was the real killer, somewhat annoyed by the ludicrous nickname he had just been lumbered with. - Loki

Flank McLargehuge points out that in the Predator & Prey GN: The Predator had this energy globe that he was watching Cloak through, which showed some of the 'butchers' he'd collected -- it didn't include Jack, so he might have others up his sleeve. There was a cowboy, a Roman (centurion? Gladiator?), a convict in the old-school black and white striped pajamas with a ball and chain around his leg, a Nazi soldier, and a woman in what looks to me like a U.S.S.R. military uniform.

Jean-Marc Lofficier made a comment with regards to our Jack the Ripper entry.

I have to confess my undying admiration for the job you did in reconstructing and amalgamating all these various versions of Marvel-Jack into a coherent whole. Bravo!

In my case, I was aware of Malverne, and the Jack I inserted in VISHANTI was definitely meant to be Malverne, I can confirm that.  My theory is merely that his blood lust was manipulated by Dormammu for his own necromantic ends. It wasn't even implied that Malverne was even aware of Dormammu's schemes.  Wheels within wheels as it were.

I was NOT aware of Zaniac and had completely forgotten about the Jack in Kirby's ETERNALS (which I did know about).  My bad.

With the fingerprints of the Masters of Obscure all over it Jack the Ripper got an entry in OHotMU Horror 2005 and most of the above explanations and non-canonical stories, thus turning them canon, were included.
--Markus Raymond

Profile by Will U.

Image provided and profile edited by Kyle Sims and Snood, with additional info supplied by Ron Byrd, Flank McLargehuge, Prime Eternal and Per Degaton.

CLARIFICATIONS: Jack The Ripper is not to be confused with:

Appearances:
All-Select Comics#7 (Spring, 1945)
Astonishing#18 (October, 1952)
Adventures into Terror#29 (March, 1954)
Journey into Mystery II#2 (December, 1972) - Ron Goulart (writer), Gil Kane (pencils), Ralph Reese (inks), Roy Thomas (editor)
Vampire Tales#9 (February, 1975)
Eternals Annual#1 (1977) - Jack Kirby (writer/pencils/editor), Mike Royer (inks)
Thor I#372 (October, 1986) - Walt Simonson (writer), Sal Buscema (pencils), Bret Blevins (inks), Ralph Macchio (editor)
Master of Kung Fu I#100 (May, 1981) - Doug Moench (writer), Gene Day & Mike Zeck (pencils), Gene Day, Mike Zeck, John Beatty & Bob McLeod (inks), Jim Salicrup (editor)
Marvel Graphic Novel: Cloak & Dagger: Predator & Prey (February, 1988) - Bill Mantlo (writer), Larry Stroman (pencils), Al Williamson (inks), Carl Potts (editor)
Dr. Strange III#23 (November, 1990) - Roy & Dann Thomas (writers), Jackson Guice (pencils), Mark McKenna (inks), Ralph Macchio (editor)
OHotMU Horror 2005 (October, 2005)
Wisdom#6 (July, 2007) - Paul Cornell (writer), Manuel Garcia (pencils), Mark Farmer (inks), Nick Lowe (editor)

First Posted: 07/19/2003
Last updated: 10/12/2013

Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.

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