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Adventures of Jack Burton
"Old Man Jack" Part 7
Big Trouble in Little China: Old Man Jack #7
BOOM! Studios
Written by John Carpenter & Anthony Burch
Illustrated by Jorge Corona
Colored by Gabriel Cassata
Lettered by Ed Dukeshire
Cover by Greg Smallwood
March 2018 |
Egg Shen is rescued, but then arguments
ensue about how to proceed.
Story Summary
Centaur-With-Knives takes our motley crew into the Throne of
Skulls and they rescue Egg Shen and retrieve Egg's mystical
book. But the book is locked shut and the key is missing. Jack
recalls that Thunder was wearing a strange necklace piece that
may have been the key. After an argument about how to proceed,
the gang reluctantly agrees to let Jack try to talk Thunder into
handing over the key, as the two "understand each other".
Egg teleports Jack into Thunder's presence
and Jack actually manages to talk the elemental being into
handing over the key, but the rest of the gang teleports in
right at that moment and Lo Pan blows Thunder's head off. They
have obtained the key, but Jack is furious with Lo Pan.
With the key, Egg is now able to open the
book and he finds the ritual for banishing Ching Dai, but it
means killing the flesh bridge that brought the demon to Earth
in the first place...that being Jack Burton himself.
Continued in
"Old Man Jack" Part 8.
Notes from the Jack Burton chronology
This story takes place in the year 2020.
Characters appearing or mentioned in this issue
Demon-ox guard
Demon-horse guard
Centaur-With-Knives (dies in this issue)
David Lo Pan
Jack Burton
Wang Chi
Pete (Yaoguai)
Egg Shen
Thunder
(dies in this issue)
Ching Dai (mentioned only)
Rain
(mentioned only, deceased)
Lightning
(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 pages 4-6, Jack and friends are confronted by a mass of
ying ling. In Chinese folklore,
ying ling are the ghosts of dead fetuses.
On page 10, Egg remarks that Ching Dai is an all-powerful demon
who's the size of the
Statue of
Liberty.
On page 12, Lo Pan tells Jack to let the adults handle taking
down Ching Dai, adding, "Why don't you go eat your hot dog
donuts, or whatever it is you do." Jack then sounds interested in the
idea of hot dog donuts. Possibly, Lo Pan is referring to the
Thai dish called donut sai krok, a savory donut in the
shape of a log filled with hot dog (or other) sausages.
On page 15, Egg asks the rhetorical question, "Does the Pope
poop in the woods?" This is a merging of two classic humorous
rhetorical questions, "Does a bear shit in the woods?" and "Is
the Pope Catholic?"
Also on page 15, Jack tells the others he believes he can talk
Thunder into giving up the key to Egg's mystical book because
the two of them "understand each other". But Lo Pan retorts,
"Is this gonna be like the time you tried to talk Thunder into not
killing us? You know, that time he completely ignored you and
still tried to kill us?" This refers back to events in
"Old Man Jack" Part 5.
But, in fairness to Jack, Thunder did seem to be listening to
him and might possibly have been of help if Wang and Lo Pan had
not right then destroyed Thunder's brothers Rain and Lightning.
On page 17, Jack tells Thunder he's useless, "You might do
something useful by accident, but you're not Curly, you're
Shemp." Curly and Shemp were characters in the Three Stooges
short films during different times. Both characters were ditzy
and could generally only be counted on to screw things up. Curly
was the more popular of the two with the general audiences.
On page 18, Jack says that when he feels like a pawn in the game
of life he says "Screw it, I'd rather play Texas Hold 'Em." Jack
is said to have a fondness for
Texas Hold 'Em poker in
Big Trouble in Mother Russia
and
"The Jack is Wild".
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Adventures of Jack Burton Episode Studies