Jericho (comics)
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Jericho (Joseph William Wilson) is a fictional character, a superhero who was a member of the Teen Titans in the acclaimed 1980s period of New Teen Titans by Marv Wolfman and George Perez, published by DC Comics.
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[edit] Fictional character biography
[edit] Childhood
Joseph was the son of Slade Wilson, a.k.a. Deathstroke the Terminator. When he was a child, he was held hostage by Jackal, a terrorist who was after his father. Deathstroke refused to give Jackal the information he wanted because it went against his professional code of ethics. Deathstroke managed to rescue his son, but not before one of Jackal's men had started to cut his throat. As a result, he was rendered mute.
As a result of that incident, and the fact that Slade had lied to her, his mother Adeline divorced Slade (after attempting to kill him by shooting him, but only succeeding in blinding him in one of his eyes), and took her two sons (Joseph and his older brother Grant) with her. At some point, Joseph learned to communicate through sign language (identified in Action Comics #584 as American Sign Language) to compensate for his lost voice.
His meta-human power is a result of the biological experimentation done on his father years before, and appeared in his late teens when he tried saving his mother from an assassin. He had the power to take possession of any humanoid being he can make eye contact with. Once inside, Jericho takes possession of his target's voluntary motor functions for his own use but is unable to control the voice and mind of the target. In addition, if the host is unconscious while Jericho is in control, he can speak through the host's body--but only with that person's accent and vocabulary--and easily control the body physically. Jericho's body changes into an astral form seconds before possession. He sometimes uses the American Sign Language symbol for the letter "J" as a subtle signal to his allies that he has taken possession of a person.
[edit] Titans
Sometime later (in a storyline called The Judas Contract), Adeline and Joseph discover that Deathstroke has accepted a contract on the Teen Titans. They approach Dick Grayson to help him rescue the Titans and Joseph adopts the identity of Jericho. The rescue mission is a success but the Titans are initially wary of him because of his relationship to Deathstroke and the betrayal of Terra.
Jericho did become a member and was a loyal Titan for many years. Shortly after joining the Titans another new member, Kole, joined. Jericho immediately developed a bond with her. Sadly however this did not last long as whilst Jericho along with a few other Titans went on a mission to space Kole was killed during the Crisis on Infinite Earths. After returning and discovering the tragic news Jericho then began to feel a sad quality within Raven and sought to ease her troubled spirit.
[edit] Corruption
Unfortunately, some months later, Jericho was possessed by the souls of Azarath, now tainted by the essence of the demon Trigon, Raven's father. Unable to possess Raven herself, the souls entered Jericho. They were weak at first, but gained strength with time and eventually merged with him.
The souls now needed individual vessels to survive and Jericho sought to acquire superhuman ones for them, taking over the Wildebeest Society and using them to abduct current and former Titans to act as vessels. Jericho also got new powers: a powerful lion soul-self and a healing ability that repaired his throat and allowed him to speak again.
In the Titans Hunt storyline, Nightwing and Troia, accompanied by some new allies, found and confronted him. During the battle, the real Jericho resurfaced and begged his father to kill him. There was no help for him and, to spare his son any more suffering, Deathstroke killed him. A statue of Jericho was later erected in the Titans Tower memorial in San Francisco.
[edit] Return
Several years later, it was revealed that Jericho's spirit had survived by jumping inside his father right before he was killed. He had lain dormant until hearing that his friend Donna Troy had been killed in battle. Taking control of his father's body, he sought out the latest group of Titans; hoping to convince them that children shouldn't be superheroes, as they could easily be killed like he was, and wanting to spare them his fate. He also killed his father's closest friend, Wintergreen, and mounted the man's head on a wall.
Further demonstrating his mental instabillity, he viciously attacked his former friends, even going so far as to shoot Impulse in the knee.
During the combat, he jumped from body to body until Raven absorbed him. But she repelled him during a battle with Brother Blood and Jericho tried to enter Cyborg. But Cyborg, using his cybernetic eye, transferred Jericho's spirit to a computer file, now stored in the Titans Tower. Beast Boy says that they check on Jericho every day.
After the "One Year Later" jump following the events of Infinite Crisis, a revised line-up of Titans discovered that the computer disk containing Jericho's essence had been taken from Titans Tower. Originally believed to have been stolen by a traitor within their ranks, it was revealed that Raven had taken the disk with her when she seemingly quit the team, seeking a method to restore Jericho to a physical body and untainted mind. In Teen Titans vol.3, #40-41, Raven used the same rituals that the Church of Brother Blood employed to raise her from the dead, and Jericho emerged apparently whole in body and mind. He was immediately forced into action by Bombshell, the true Titans traitor, who had been hired by Deathstroke to retrieve Jericho's computer disk, and was now determined to complete her mission by capturing Jericho and bringing him to his father. Jericho and the Titans managed to subdue Bombshell, and Jericho joined this latest incarnation of the team, taking the opportunity to bond with his sister Rose, currently a Titans member as the Ravager. Though Jericho has apparently been resurrected in an undamaged body (the throat scars from his childhood injury being noticeably absent), he has thus far communicated only through sign language and written words; it is as yet unknown if his power of speech was restored in his return to physical form.
He seems to have few, vague memories of the time he was possessed.
[edit] In other media
Jericho has made a cameo appearance in the "Calling All Titans" episode of the animated Teen Titans series. He later meets Beast Boy and becomes a honorary Titan and has to fight off both Fang and Private H.I.V.E.. Later in the season, Jericho has a featured role in the "Titans Together" episode, as one of four heroes who endured an attack from the Brotherhood Of Evil and rallied under Beast Boy to launch a final assault against the Brotherhood. Like his early comic persona, Jericho's persona in the animated series can possess any being he can make eye contact with. He is mute on the show as he is in the comic books. However, while in Cinderblock's body, he was able to speak (though this may be due to the fact that Cinderblock has a mind in only the most basic sense.) However, his power was useless when Gizmo put a bag over his head, unable to make eye contact with anyone. He was saved when reinforcements arrived with Cyborg, Starfire and Raven. His relationship to Slade Wilson wasn't mentioned. He will be featured in a future issue of Teen Titans Go!.
Jericho- and the rest of the Wilsons- will most likely appear in the The Judas Contract movie since he played a major role in the story arc.
[edit] Trivia
When Marv Wolfman and George Perez were creating the character, the idea of making Joseph gay was toyed around with. Perez had this to say: "While Marv and I did discuss the possibility of Joseph Wilson being gay, Marv decided that it was too much of a stereotype to have the sensitive, artistic, and wide-eyed character with arguably effeminate features be also homosexual."[1]
