| James Darrell Edwards III/Agent J | |
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| Men in Black: The Series character | |
Will Smith as Agent J. |
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| First appearance | Men in Black |
| Portrayed by | Will Smith |
| Voiced by | Keith Diamond |
| Information | |
| Nickname(s) | Jay J "Slick" |
Agent J (Jay, or just J) is a fictional MIB agent and one of the two protagonists of Men In Black, its sequel Men in Black II, and Men in Black: The Series. Agent J is portrayed by Will Smith in the two films and voiced by Keith Diamond in the animated series.
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In the first film, his MIB career starts out when, as NYPD officer James Darrell Edwards III, he runs down a swift, wall-climbing alien on foot. When MIB Agent K notices his potential, he recruits him into the MIB. At first, Edwards is suspicious, but he decides to join. He is registered as Agent J and his energetic, enthusiastic attitude brings humor to a bland organization. J is not fond of K's diminutive references to him (son, sport, slick, kid, etc.), but gets used to it. In his various adventures, he encounters Frank, the dog; finds out that Jeebs, the pawn store owner is actually an alien, not just a buyer of stolen goods from chain snatchers like he originally thought when he was a detective; and delivers a baby squid. Their first official mission is to stop an alien bug from leaving Earth with a tiny galaxy before the galaxy's owners disintegrate the planet. During the final confrontation with the bug, K is swallowed by it in an attempt to get his gun back, leaving J to keep him on Earth. When he starts squishing cockroaches, the bug confronts him, but before it can attack him, K shoots it from the inside. When K requests to be neuralyzed (a memory-wiping procedure), J fulfills the request and his new partner is a former morgue worker, Dr. Laurel Weaver (Linda Fiorentino), who becomes known as Agent L.
At some point between the first and second film, L goes back to her morgue career, and J has gained a reputation for neuralyzing all of his partners for, in his opinion, unsuitability to work at MIB; at the beginning of the film, he neuralyzes his new partner Agent T because he forces T to admit that he joined the agency to be a hero, something that is fundamentally impossible in the Men in Black due to the secretive nature of the organization. Other than that, he has developed into a superb and highly respected agent. When he is sent to get K back to face a new threat to which only he had details of locked away in his mind, J's temporary partner is an alien disguised as a talkative pug, Frank. J investigates a murder at a local pizza joint and meets and falls in love with an employee named Laura Vasquez. Despite the MIB's policy, J does not neuralyze her. J then heads to find K who holds the key to finding the Light of Zartha. When K is de-neuralyzed, J is once again the rookie, but for revenge, J gave K the Noisy Cricket (the tiny gun that K saddled him with in the first movie, though it does have a strong blast). The duo discover the light is Laura, and J (reluctantly) allows her to fulfill her destiny.
During the film, J has a particular enmity with the alien criminal known as Jara, whom J stopped from stealing the Earth's ozone layer.
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