Jack Serious (She-Hulk/Nosferata foe)

Real Name: Dr.John Cereus

Identity/Class: criminal psychopath, Nosferata's arch-nemesis

Occupation: Chief of Staff of Dorkham Asylum, former psychology professor at Goth University

Affiliations: Controlled inmates at Dorkham Asylum, former colleague of Dr. Timothy Hayes

Known Relatives: none

Aliases: The Serious One

Base of Operations: Dorkham Asylum, Visigoth, Massachusetts

Appearances: Sensational She-Hulk#19(1990) (19(fb), 19,20(dies)

Powers: none. His appearance his a result of exposure in his Serious Gas and a crowd of mind-condensed people for a full week. He is a trained psychologist, used Serious Gas, an hallucinogen, to kill crowds of people. It just made She-Hulk goofy. He also controlled the inmates of Dorkham Asylum, although they turned on him when given the chance.

History: In 1969, Dr.John Cereus was a psychologist who opposed the mind-expanding philosophy of Dr. Timothy Hayes and others. He thought to condense the minds so as to not allow room for suffering to fit in , and to re-conceptualize the self as disposable ingredients in the industrial process. He conducted an experiment involving packing one hundred naked people in a vat meant to hold ninety, and exposing them to his mind-condensing vapor, Serious Gas. As a result of a faulty welding, he fell down into the vat, where he was trapped for one full week.

His appearance was altered, as was his sanity. Most of the hundred experimental subjects ended up as inmates at Dorkham Asylum, where he became Chief of Staff. Angered at his inability to achieve stardom for his theories, he stalked and killed Timothy Hayes and his wife, right in front of their daughter Purple. Over the next several years, he altered his gas and began to use it kill crowds of people at restaurants, gas stations, liquor stores, and a newsstand.

When She-Hulk and Nosferata, the now-adult Purple Hayes, interrupted the arrival of a truckload of his Serious Gas, he vowed revenge. He sent Three Face to exposing She-hulk to the gas. When she wasn't killed, but just immobilized and euphoric, he had her brought in for experimentation. When he found he couldn't get a blood sample due to her tough skin, he decided to kill her via electrocution. Nosferata arrived in time to save her. When Nosferata learned that Serious had been the one that killed her parents, he fled, only to fall victim to another faulty welding. He fell to the ground floor of the asylum, where the inmates attacked and killed him

Note: What clued Nosferata in on Jack being her parents' killer was when Serious captured her, and planning to shoot her, he said, "Does Satan dance the Funky Chicken 'neath the Harvest Moon?" When questioned on it, he said, "Nothing important...just something I said in an alley 21 years ago and haven't repeated until now." She remembered the quote.

Anyway, this character was pretty much a "Timeslip"...What if Steve Gerber had created the Joker.

Last updated: September 6, 2001.