| Jokers for a Just Society | |
| Biographical Information | |
| Official Name | Jokers for a Just Society |
| Aliases | JJS |
| Type | Militant activists |
| Purpose | Joker's rights movement |
| Operational Information | |
| Base of Operations | Jokertown |
| Place of Formation | Jokertown |
| Event Participant | 1976 Great Jokertown Riot 1987 WHO Tour |
| Origin | |
| First Appearance | Wild Cards |
The Jokers for a Just Society is a militant activist movement of jokers founded by Gimli.
History[]
The Jokers for a Just Society were founded in the late 1960's as a radical movement for social justice. Following Gimli's volatile temperament, the JJS took a militant stance on joker's rights which frequently brought them into conflict with more moderate voices for social change and sometimes New York City's law enforcement departments.
One such conflict in which they had a notable presence was the 1976 Great Jokertown Riot, which started out as a protest march, but soon turned violent when the JJS and other jokers clashed with the police. Clashes lasted for several days, and the death toll steadily rose. Eventually JJS member Sondra Falin, otherwise known as Succubus, had her mutation thrown out of balance by the heaving throng and was violently torn apart. This broke Puppetman's influence over the mob and caused him to withdraw from the conflict, and soon the JJS withdrew to lick their wounds.
Several members of the JJS, again following Gimli's lead, launched an ill-fated kidnapping of Senator Hartman in Berlin during the 1987 WHO Tour. The bold plan was executed with the assistance of the German militants known as the Red Army Fraction, along with an agent of the KGB, and each group came into the shaky alliance with a different agenda. The Red Army Fraction sought to secure the release of the Palestinian terrorist, al-Muezzin, to serve Russian interests, and Gimli was demanding ten-million dollars in cash to fund the jokers' rights movement.
The Jokers for a Just Society and their Red Army Fraction allies brought Hartmann to a tenement building in a Turkish district near the Berlin Wall and held him there while they presented their demands, unaware that the Puppetman side of Hartmann was beginning to stoke the fires of their mutual fear and mistrust. The plan went awry when money secured from a third party by Hartmann's delegate acquaintances proved to be from the German Political Police who used the opportunity to launch a sting operation. Aardvark and three bystanders suffered gunshot wounds, while a policeman went down to Gimli's blow.
Retreating back to their Berlin hideout, the internal bickering flared into a full-blown argument, prompting Gimli and the two uninjured JJS to pick up Aardvark and leave. Aardvark never survived the ordeal, and soon Gimli was left wondering how the situation had deteriorated so badly.
Suspecting that there was more at play with Hartmann than most people knew, and wanting revenge for the Berlin fiasco, Gimli entered into another arrangement with his KGB contact, Georgy Polyakov. Their target was again Gregg Hartmann, and this time Polyakov had the JJS house the Syrian ace Kahina, who likewise had a need to gain retribution on Hartmann for his actions in the Middle East.
Unbeknownst to any of them however, Gimli had been infected by a mutant strain of the wild card virus when he came into contact with the Sleeper during Croyd's "Typhoid Croyd" phase. Gimli seemingly drew a black queen, and without him the Jokers for a Just Society faded into obscurity.
Known Members[]
Minor Names[]
- Calvin
- File - A man with hard-edged metallic skin.
- Flicker - A man who looks like a human strobe light switching on and off.
- Gargantua
- Lambent - A man with a phosphorescent glowing skin.
- Marigold - A woman with pustules covering her visible skin.
- Tinhorn
- Zona