Real Name

History: Richard M. Jones was orphaned as an adolescent and after being expelled from several orphanages for disciplinary reasons was placed into a state institution called Tempest Town. A troubled and rebellious youth, Jones soon came to the attention of the institution's chief administrator who smashed his guitar, a gift from his late father, and then had him severely thrashed. Jones ran away from the institution soon afterwards. He spent the first half of his teens drifting from town to town throughout the Southwest, trying to avoid the juvenile authorities, and doing menial work when he could get it. At age 16, he got his driver's license and managed to save enough money to buy a used car. Overhearing a teenager dare a friend to ride out with him on the desert where it was rumored an atomic bomb was going to be tested, Jones offered to take him upon the challenge. He drove his car out to the test site to discover his challenger was too timid to show up. Dr. Robert Bruce Banner, designer of the gamma bomb to be tested, learned that someone had ventured onto the test site, and believing the countdown had been delayed, ran out into the desert to warn him back. Banner managed to throw Jones into a protective trench before the bomb detonated, but he himself was bombarded with the powerful gamma radiation. This radiation would trigger a mutagenic change in Banner, causing him to turn into the raging superhuman Hulk. Feeling responsible for Banner's condition and being the only person to know that the rampaging brute was actually Banner, Jones became the Hulk's sometimes unwanted companion and ally Jones soon organized the Teen Brigade, a group of young amateur ham radio enthusiasts to help him monitor the Hulk's activities. Jones was present during the Hulk's first encounters with the army, as well as such superhuman menaces as the Gargoyle, the alien Toadmen, the Ringmaster, Tyrannus, and the Metal Master. As the Hulk grew more and more powerful and difficult to reason with, Jones finally decided to request help from the world's preeminent superhuman team, the Fantastic Four. Jones used the Teen Brigade to relay a distress call to New York, but while in transit the Asgardian god of evil Loki, who sought to use the Hulk to gain vengeance on his step-brother Thor, diverted the call to Thor. Unknown to Loki, the call was also monitored by Iron Man, Ant-Man and the Wasp. The four costumed adventurers tackled the Hulk, learned that Loki was the true culprit, and defeated Loki. Thor, Iron Man, Ant-Man, Wasp, and the Hulk decided to band together on a regular basis as the Avengers. Rick Jones accompanied them back to New York City

The Hulk left the Avengers' ranks a short time later, but Jones remained with the fledgling team, and was given honorary membership. When Captain America was resuscitated from his decades long suspended animation, he established an immediate rapport with Jones, who reminded him of his late partner Bucky. Jones hoped to prove himself worthy to take Bucky's place as Captain America's partner, but the Captain could not bear the thought of losing another partner. Alongside the Avengers, Jones faced such foes as Kang, Count Nefaria, Immortus, and the Masters of Evil. When all of the original Avengers except for Captain America decided to find replacements so they could take leaves of absences, Jones' hopes of becoming a full-fledged Avenger vanished when Hawkeye, Quicksilver, and the Scarlet Witch were elected. He decided to leave their company and return to the Hulk, who had recently been captured by the U.S. army. Using his connection with the Avengers, Jones managed to help extricate the Hulk from Army custody. However, a short time later, when he believed the Hulk had been killed, Jones revealed to Major Glenn Talbot of the U.S. Army that the Hulk was really Bruce Banner. When the Hulk was later found to be still alive, Jones realized that this disclosure, which soon became known to the public, changed Banner's life forever. Jones aided Betty Ross, Banner's girlfriend, in her attempts to help the Hulk, and became involved in Hulk's battles with such foes as Boomerang, the Hulk-Killer android, and the Mole Man, and was instrumental in convincing the Hulk to save Ross from the Abomination's clutches. However, as the Hulk entered one of his less rational phases, Jones had to be rescued from the Hulk's rampage by Captain America.

For a few weeks, Captain America permitted Jones to wear Bucky's costume and serve as his partner on a provisional basis. Despite the boy's natural athletic ability, the Captain worried that Jones would not pick up the battle skills necessary for survival quickly enough. Captain America's longtime nemesis the Red Skull had recently acquired the reality-rending Cosmic Cube and used it to switch bodies with the Captain. Unaware of the transfer, Jones approached who he thought was Captain America, and was rebuked by him. Believing Captain America to have rejected him, Jones abandoned his Bucky suit and hitchhiked out of New York. Eventually he arrived in his native Southwest where, as he would learn years later, the Supreme Intelligence of the alien Kree directed him to an ancient Kree weapons outpost utilizing a ghostly image of Captain America. In the outpost, Jones was compelled to put the Kree "negabands" on his wrists, and strike them together. By doing so, he released the Kree Captain Mar-Vell, who had recently been trapped in the anti-matter universe, the Negative Zone, into this reality while Jones took his place in the Zone. Mar-Vell needed a positive matter host to enable him to exist in this dimension, and the Supreme Intelligence selected Jones. In exchange for being sent to the void of the Negative Zone for hours at a time, Jones gained the vicarious thrill of being superhuman, due to the mental link he acquired with Mar-Vell. Jones enabled Mar-Vell to hunt down his mortal enemy Yon-Rogg, and also shared in several other adventures, including a clash with the Hulk. Due to the strange radiation in his body, Mar-Vell could remain in the positive-matter world for no longer than three hours, he also had to wait for Jones to strike the nega-bands together before he could change places with him. In the midst of trying to cope with this shared consciousness, Rick Jones began to try to make a living as a folk-rock singer, and found a manager in one Mordecai P. Boggs.

Mar-Vell eventually found a possible way out of the Negative Zone when he witnessed Fantastic Four leader Reed Richards travel into the Negative Zone through a portal he had created. Convincing Jones to change places with him, Mar-Vell stormed the Baxter Building headquarters of the Fantastic Four, and tore open Richards' Negative Zone access way and pulled Jones through. Free from their mutual co-existent state, Jones and Mar-Vell both became involved in the latest campaign in the eons-long war between the Kree and Skrull alien races, a campaign making strategic use of the Earth. Accompanying the Avengers to the Great Refuge of the Inhumans, Jones was kidnapped by a Kree soldier who made a failed attempt to recruit the Inhumans to the Kree cause. On the Kree home world in another galaxy, Jones encountered the Supreme Intelligence, deposed ruler of the Kree, who hoped to rescue its people from the costly war the new regime had embarked upon. Through elaborate machinations, the Supreme Intelligence influenced Mar-Vell to construct a Kree "omni-wave projector" which when it struck Rick Jones enabled the Supreme Intelligence to stimulate the latent psionic potential in Jones' mind. Jones then struck all Kree soldiers motionless in their tracks, and teleported all of the Avengers to the Kree home world, among other things. These fantastic mental feats, which the Supreme Intelligence claimed would one day be possible for all humanity, weakened Jones' life force drastically. In order to save his life, Mar-Vell had to agree to "merge atoms" with Jones again, consigning himself once more to the Negative Zone.

In a matter of months, Mar-Vell was reoriented sufficiently with the symbiotic relationship to reestablish mental contact with Jones. Glad that Mar-Vell had not sacrificed himself for him, Jones permitted Mar-Vell three hour intervals in the positive-matter world once again. Sharing space like this, the two became involved in further exploits, notably a journey to Titan while fighting against the mad Titanian Thanos, a journey to Earth's moon in battle against the Lunatic Legion, and a journey to the home base of the Watchers. It is during this time that Captain Mar-Vell was exposed to the nerve gas which would give him cancer and eventually kill him. Also during this period of co-occupancy, Mar-Vell's and Jones' minds began to lose their separate identities. Not only were they now able to tap one another's memories, they could also affect the transfer between bodies without striking the nega-bands together. While on the planet of the Watchers, they somehow used their increased mental capabilities to enable both selves to coexist in positive space. Now able to merge and unmerge at will, the two went forth for Mar-Vell's home planet Hala after Rick Jones' singing career flopped. On Hala, the two became involved in another power struggle between Ronan and the Supreme Intelligence, and learned that the Supreme Intelligence had engineered their symbiotic relationship from its inception so that it might one day be able to absorb Rick Jones' mind to stimulate the Kree's evolutionary potential. Thwarting the Supreme Intelligence's plan, the two set forth for Earth again, only to have their relationship regress to where one of them had to remain in the Negative Zone again. This somehow occurred when Mar-Vell inadvertently passed too close to a hole. A short time later, Rick Jones was freed from the Negative Zone when the power mimicking Super-Adaptoid was tricked into taking his place there. Jones and Mar-Vell were finally free to pursue their own destinies, and met infrequently before Mar-Vell died of cancer.

Rick Jones soon got involved with his old friend the Hulk once more, and was determined to help cure the Hulk as he was unable to help Mar-Vell. In trying to keep tabs on the green behemoth, he learned that the Teen Brigade he had formed while he was a teenager was still in operation and had in fact become an international ham radio club. When Jones and some of the new generation of Teen Brigadiers had been captured by the superhuman Corruptor, Jones attempted to contact the Avengers for help. But just as his distress call to the Fantastic Four had been diverted years before to those who would form the Avengers, his call to the Avengers was diverted to five other superhuman beings. These adventurers formed the Rangers at the exploit's end, but the Rangers never attained the success the Avengers did. In close association with the Hulk and his human self Bruce Banner, Jones began to think of them as separate individuals even as he and Mar-Vell had been. He soon realized that to cure Banner, the Hulk had to die, and that was what Banner was working toward. Finally, during one of the Hulk's long absences, Jones decided to expose himself to the radiation of Banner's gamma ray projector in a rash attempt to transform himself into a second Hulk. Because Jones lacked the unique capacity to mutate from gamma ray exposure that such beings as the Hulk, Leader, and Abomination possessed, he instead contracted radiation poisoning. Although certain treatments managed to put the degenerative condition into remission, Jones had done permanent damage to his cellular structure. Ironically, Banner found a way to cure himself without eliminating the Hulk completely and possessed his normal intelligence as the Hulk and as Banner. Shortly after the intelligent Hulk was granted a presidential pardon for his past offenses, Jones left him, feeling the Hulk no longer needed him.

A few months later, Jones checked himself into a hospital in Atlanta, Georgia, for treatment when his radiation-induced cancer flared up. While there, he got involved in the war against the alien Dire Wraiths when a Wraith killed the physician treating him. This led him into an association with the Galadorian spacekngith Rom, who was Earth's foremost champion against the Wraiths. Jones was instrumental in helping Rom organize Earth's superhuman champions against the Wraiths and took part in active combat against them. When the Wraith menace was finally ended, and Rom left for his homeworld, Jones moved in with Brandy Clark, Rom's human paramour, and Cindy Adams, an adolescent orphaned by the Wraiths. The three lived together for several weeks until they encountered the omnipotent Beyonder who sought to understand human desire. The Beyonder granted the three of them their fondest wish: Jones to be cured of cancer, Clark to be reunited with her beloved Rom, and Adams to have her parents brought back to life. Healthy and alone again, Jones went off to seek new adventures.

Jones continued to involve himself in the Hulk's life, and was inadvertently exposed to gamma radiation, which succeeded this time in transforming Jones into a version of the Hulk. The radiation was drained by the Hulk's archenemy, the Leader, via a pyshic bond in order to restore the Leader's super-intelligence. Jones acted as bodyguard for Dr. Banner for some time until his disappearance at the hands of the Leader.

The Hulk reappeared as Mister Fixit, a Las Vegas "leg breaker," and Jones tried to reacquaint with Banner's life. Jones met Fixit's ex-girlfriend, Marlo Chandler, and the two began dating.

Jones published a best-selling book regarding his biography as a super-hero's sidekick, gaining national acclaim. This brought him to the attention of Jackie Shorr, a woman who worked at the orphanage where Rick Jones grew up. She approached Jones and claimed to be his mother, eventually convincing him and his friends of the fact. At an opportune moment, however, Shorr drugged Jones and kept him trapped in her basement. When Betty Banner, Banner's wife, and Marlo came to Shorr's house to investigate, Shorr stabbed Marlo to death and the heroes escaped. Distraught, Jones sought help to revive his girlfriend, and was answered via a psychic link with the Leader. The villain used his advanced technology in reviving Marlo, and after several weeks in a coma-like state, she recovered completely. Shortly thereafter, Marlo and Rick were married.

The couple was approached to co-host a TV talk show, "Keeping Up With The Joneses," which was a moderate success. Eventually, however, Marlo decided to separate from Rick, unable to deal with her husband's constant adventures with superheroes.

When the Hulk was abducted by the villain Apocalypse and turned into one of his Horsemen, War, the villain Absorbing Man took Jones and Betty Banner to Egypt to talk the Hulk out of this new role. The Absorbing Man and the Juggernaut fought the Hulk, who succeeded in defeating them both. He was about to kill them when Jones tried to stop him. The Hulk swatted Rick aside, and Rick slammed into the wall of a pyramid, leaving him paralyzed from the waist down.

Jones soon became the target of the time-traveling Immortus, who was determined to keep humanity (and especially Avengers) from expanding into space-- a prospect of which would have disastrous prospects in nearly 50% of all the possible multiverses. Jones was struck with a mysterious malady that left him comatose as energy similar to the Destiny Force permeated his cells. The Avengers were forced to seek help from the Supreme Intelligence, at the time a prisoner on the moon. Jones was saved from an assassination attempt by Immortus' counterpart, Kang the Conqueror, and the Supreme Intelligence and the mystic Libra jumpstarted Jones' Destiny Force again, healing his disabled condition and pulling together members of the Avengers from various eras, including a future version of the son of Captain Mar-Vell. Jones and the Avengers eventually learned of Immortus' motives and confronted him and his masters, the Time-Keepers. Ultimately, Jones used his Destiny Force to confront the armies of the Time-Keepers and to destroy their ultimate weapon, the Chrono-cannon. The effort left Jones near death and, to save his life, the future Captain Marvel reluctantly merged his form and life force with that of Jones, similar to what the original Captain Mar-Vell had done with Jones years earlier.

When Jones returned to earth after the encounter, the present-day Captain Marvel was surprised to find himself automatically taking his future self's place in the symbiotic relationship with Jones. The present-day Captain Marvel assumed the altered appearance and enhanced powers of his future self in the process, but was still greatly distressed to be trapped in a shared existence with a man he despised. Jones was no happier about it, but the reluctant duo was forced to adjust to their new situation. The experienced adventurer Jones has often served as mentor to the novice hero Captain Marvel.

Marlo had since set up residence in Los Angeles, California, opening a comic book store. Jones returned to Los Angeles as well, hoping to resume their relationship while keeping his situation with Captain Marvel a secret. Soon, however, Marlo discovered his secret and after a period of adjustment, rekindled her romance with her husband.

Height: 5 ft. 9 in.
Weight: 165 lbs.
Eyes: Brown
Hair: Brown

Strength Level: Rick Jones possesses the normal human strength of a man of his age, height, and build who engages in moderate regular exercise.

Known Superhuman Powers: None. Although Jones possesses latent unlimited psionic potential, as according to the Supreme Intelligence all mankind does, he needs a powerful catalyst to unleash it such as the omni-wave projector or the nega-bands.