Jenkins

Jenkins
A.K.A.	“Mr See-Thru”
Character Information
Species	Human
Gender	Male
Residence	New York City, Reality Z-25 31-H
Occupation	Investment broker Superhero
Behind the Scenes
First seen in	COMIC: Journey Into Misery
Also seen in	See list
Copyright	Paul Hoppe (?)
Index	See category

Jenkins, later nicknamed “Mr See-Thru”, was originally a depressed New York City bank employee in Reality Z-25 31-H. However, after he and his tyrannical boss Kelly were abducted by aliens, they ended up getting superpowers, with the catch that they only worked when they were in close proximity to one another (something which greatly bothered both of them, as they couldn't stand each other's company).

Description

Physical appearance

Jenkins was a Caucasian man in his 30s woman with even features. He had large, worried eyes, strong eyebrows and short brown hair. (COMIC: Journey Into Misery)

Personality

Jenkins was a timid man struggling with depression and feelings of worthlessness, largely induced by Kelly's mistreatment of him. He had no interest in wealth and power, preferring a quiet, happy life. (COMIC: Journey Into Misery) Nevertheless, when he was (briefly) killed, he did end up in Hell for unclear reasons. (COMIC: Journey Out Of Misery)

Powers & abilities

After Professor Xwumb'h experimented on him, Jenkins acquired superpowers, although they only worked proportional to how close he was to Kelly. They included a weak form of invulnerability and the ability to turn invisible at will. (COMIC: Journey Into Misery)

Biography

Gaining superpowers

By 2010, Jenkins was working for Kelly's investment brokerage company in New York City. He was struggling with serious depression and, in an effort to get Kelly to take him seriously, threatened suicide. However, she icily called his bluff and told him to go back to cleaning his desk. As they were arguing as a result of this, the building was rammed by a flying saucer. Though she tried to dodge out of its way, the two were captured and ended up onboard the ship, where they were confronted with K'orr'h, King of the Vanilla Puddings of Riegel 6. After introducing himself, K'orr'h attempted to eat them but proved unable to chew them. He spat them out, which Kelly couldn't help but make fun of.

Jenkins is experimented on. (COMIC: Journey Into Misery)

Angered at her mockery, K'orr'h ordered the two humans to be used as experimental test subjects by Professor Xwumb'h. The erratic mad scientist, seemingly not realising the inherent problem of logistics involved, performed experiments on them which, while painful, he surmised might give them superpowers; indeed they did, and, letting her anger loose, Kelly destroyed the ship and its crew in a blast of fire. She also tried to kill Jenkins in the melee, but it turned out that the superpowers he had gained included mild invulnerability. After calming down, Kelly had no choice but to take him back to Earth with her, as they were still handcuffed to each other by chains of alien metal that defied even her strength. (COMIC: Journey Into Misery)

Forming the Terrific Two

After spending some time trying to live a normal life in New York while handcuffed to Kelly, Jenkins developed a notion of the two of them becoming superheroes, under the name of “the Terrific Two”, although Kelly was not thrilled. Together, they travelled to the Mojave Desert to meet Kelly's old friend Professor Madison, a genius scientist, who managed to break the alien chains using a giant robot she'd been designing, the Rabbit.

Jenkins gets a taste of heroics fighting the Rabbit. (COMIC: Ghost in the Apparatus of the Spirit in the Shell of the Machine)

They stayed the night so that she could study their superpowers further, and the following day, the Terrific Two got their first case investigating the theft of Madison's experimental Deathray. The culprit turned out to be her assistant, Hank Richards, remote-controlling the Rabbit. Jenkins helped fend off the robot while Madison and her partner Rodney apprehended Richards himself. (COMIC: Ghost in the Apparatus of the Spirit in the Shell of the Machine)

An oasis of horrors!

Jenkins is gifted a new car by one of the strange people he just helped save. (COMIC: Oasis of Horror)

The two headed home by car, with Jenkins driving, but he managed to crash the vehicle into the one tree in the entire desert. Kelly used her flight to carry the two of them further, and they ended up finding an oasis. They bathed and rested there for a little while before being startled by a group of humanoid monsters. They took refuge in a house built near the oasis, whose seemingly human owner explained that he was being besieged by the monsters, and invited them to stay the night.

However, in the night, the "monsters" broke down one of the barricaded walls and abducted Jenkins. They explained to him that, although odd-looking, they were fairly normal and the actual owners of the house, while the farmer with the gun was the real villain. After he explained the same thing to Kelly, the two returned to the house; the villain had disappeared, living behind a bomb that Kelly disposed of. Thankful, the house's owners gave the Two their car with which to continue their journey home. (COMIC: Oasis of Horror)

Fleeing from the Bureau of Singularity

Jenkins finds a new calling as a New York performance artist while running from the Bureau of Singularity. (COMIC: Life… in the Heart of the City)

After the two returned to New York, Kelly officially decided to become a supervillain in order to fund her “expensive lifestyle”, despite Jenkins's weak protests. However, she had no time to put this into effect before the two were beset by agents of the Bureau of Singularity intent on erasing them from existence to correct a “temporal anomaly”; according to them, the two were meant to have died in space during their first adventure, and their ongoing existence was a breach of the laws of Time. Fleeing through New York, the two eventually found refuge among a community of amateur performance artists whose paradoxical eccentricity confused the Bureau's sensors, rendering the two harder to detect. (COMIC: Life… in the Heart of the City)

The Singularity War

Jenkins succeeds in saving the day. (COMIC: Singularity War)

Eventually, Kelly grew tired of hiding and captured a portal back to the Bureau's H.Q. from one of the Bureau of Singularity's agents, which she then brought to Professor Madison at the Fortress of Evening. Recruiting a team of heroes from among Captain Evening's most trusted allies, they travelled to the Nexus of Realities. Jenkins, sent ahead to scout, ended up waiting a week for the others to join him due to a strange time-dilation effect between the Nexus and Reality Z-25 31-H.

Once the team was gathered, they broke into the Bureau's headquarters, an infinitely-high skyscraper in the centre of the strange pocket dimension that was the Nexus. Jenkins, turning invisible, and joined by Madison (turned invisible by Mysto the Space-Wizard), snuck up to Floor 239 while the others created a distraction on the ground floor. Revealing themselves to the Director of Singularity, they bluffed him into thinking that they'd switched the labels on some of the tapes containing the Bureau's records of the Multiverse, and got him to sign a contract promising not to interfere in Reality Z-25 31-H again. They then told him the truth before heading off. Once back in their home universe, and safe at last, Kelly and Jenkins decided to spend some time to rest, without using their powers whether for good or evil. (COMIC: Singularity War)

A short time later, Kelly and Jenkins were among the heroes Captain Evening invited to a big party at the Fortress of Evening. Uncharacteristically relaxed, Jenkins was seen chatting with Centennia (of whom he had long been “a huge fan”) and enjoying the food as he mingled with the other guests. (COMIC: Meanwhile, On Earth)

Death and resurrection

Kelly (temporarily) obliterates Jenkins. (COMIC: Journey Out Of Misery)

Eventually, as they were having a petty argument about Pippi Longstocking, the tensions between Jenkins and Kelly reached a boiling point. Snapping, Kelly blasted Jenkins to smithereens with her powers. His soul subsequently ended up in Hell. However, Kelly, while she felt no remorse about the murder, discovered that her powers were inseparable from Jenkins's, such that with him gone, she was slowly fading back into a normal human. Finding this unacceptable, especially as a robot was attacking the city, she got Alicia and Babs to set up a ritual that allowed her to visit Hell and meet the Devil. She sold her soul to him without hesitation in exchange for him allowing her to leave Hell and bring a resurrected Jenkins back with her.

Kelly and Jenkins agree that keeping their powers would not be worth the irritation of each other's company. (COMIC: Journey Out Of Misery)

With Satanas agreeing to the bargain, the two were propelled back to the land of the living — specifically, Alicia and Babs' dorm room. There, however, they discovered their powers had not returned yet, as they needed to resync their biologies. With no time to run to Madison's lab for the purpose, Kelly convinced Jenkins to sleep with her to achieve the same effect. As soon as her powers returned, she flew off towards the robot, carrying Jenkins with her. He witnessed her immediate failure to do anything to harm the robot, which sent him into fits of hysterical laughter at the absurdity of the sequence of events. When a passerby asked him “if the world was worth saving”, he unthinkingly answered that it was, because it was all worth it for this one hilarious moment. It turned out the stranger was an agent of the Cosmic Order, and even such a simple argument for Earth's existence being worthwhile was all he needed to call off the robot.

After the dust settled, Kelly and Jenkins briefly considered sticking together to keep their powers, but both agreed that it wasn't worth it, and they parted ways, as amicably as they'd ever done anything during their time as the “Terrific Two”. (COMIC: Journey Out Of Misery)