Adventures of Jack Burton "Old Man Jack" Part 5 Big Trouble in Little China: Old Man Jack #5 BOOM! Studios Written by John Carpenter & Anthony Burch Illustrated by Jorge Corona Colored by Gabriel Cassata Lettered by Ed Dukeshire Cover by Rahzzah January 2018

Jack, Lo Pan, and Wang face off against the Three Storms.

Story Summary

As Jack, Lo Pan, and Wang drive across the country towards Chinatown, Wang tells them he still intends to kill them both if they are lying about knowing how to get to the Throne of Skulls to face Ching Dai. Neither Jack nor Lo Pan know exactly how to gain access, but they make up a story about needing the Three Storms. Of course, now they need to find the Three Storms.

Wang reveals that Pete, now called Yaoguai, has stowed away on the back of the Pork-Chop Express, having become oathbound to stay at Wang's side at some point in the past. Yaoguai is a good tracker and with an article belonging to Rain in Lo Pan's possession, the beast is able to track the Three Storms to a raging tornado. Jack drives into it and they find the Three Storms inside, learning that the Storms do, in fact, work for Ching Dai now. But the Storms want revenge against them for their deaths (in Big Trouble in Little China) and battle ensues.

Wang and Lo Pan destroy Rain and Lightning, but Jack has less luck with Thunder and Thunder grows to an enormous size and swallows the trio, then pukes them out at their destination, the Throne of Skulls.

Continued in "Old Man Jack" Part 6.

Notes from the Jack Burton chronology

This story takes place in the year 2020.

Characters appearing or mentioned in this issue

Jack Burton

David Lo Pan

Wang Chi

Ching Dai (mentioned only)

The Three Storms (Thunder, Rain, Lightning)

Yaoguai (Pete)

Miao Yin (mentioned only, deceased) 

Didja Know?

Big Trouble in Little China: Old Man Jack is a 12-issue limited series published by IDW in 2017-2018.

Didja Notice?

    On the Rahzzah cover of this issue, Jack is eating from a can of beans labeled with the words "consume" and "obey", a tongue-in-cheek reference by the artist to John Carpenter's 1988 cult classic film They Live. (And, in "Old Man Jack" Part 6, Jack mentions a cousin George who may be the character played by Roddy Piper in that film!).

    Jack is sitting on the remains of the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. 

Page 5 reveals that the Hell-Beast Jack calls Pete is now oathbound to never leave Wang's side. Wang calls the beast Yaoguai.

On page 7, Lo Pan claims to have known Sun Tzu. Sun Tzu (544-496 BC) was a Chinese general and brilliant military strategist, known for writing The Art of War, still studied today in military academies.

On page 12, the Three Storms inform Lo Pan that he is no longer their master, they are now indentured to Ching Dai. They remark that Lo Pan died like a fool and abandoned them, never even trying to find them in the underworld. However, Lo Pan and the Three Storms were briefly reunited in "Bad News Browns"; that story may now never have happened due to the reset of the timeline in "Second Beginning".

Lightning and Rain seem to mock Thunder for the way he died. In Big Trouble in Little China, Thunder became so angry at his foes during the final battle that his body swelled up to incredible girth and he exploded.

On page 16, Jack guesses that Thunder is sort of the "younger brother" of the Three Storms who gets purple nurpled regularly and Thunder admits that is kind of true. A purple nurple is a school yard prank where one grabs another person's nipple between their fingers and twists roughly, causing pain.