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| “ | Nobody tricks the Trickster! Nobody! | „ |
| ~ The Trickster's catchphrase. |
James Montogomery Jesse, better known as The Trickster, is the secondary antagonist of the 1990 television series The Flash.
He is a delusional serial killer who goes to Central City in an effort to make Megan Lockhart, a private investigator, his girlfriend. However, after the Flash manages to foil his plans, Jesse adopts the mantle of "The Trickster" and becomes one of the Flash's second worst enemy, behind Nicholas Pike.
He was portrayed by Mark Hamill.
Biography[]
Past[]
James Jesse was supposedly the name of a serial killer wanted in five states of the United States of America with five different names after murdering twelve women, wishing for one of them to be his girlfriend, whom he wanted to call "Prank". Eventually, after changing his identity for the sixth time, Jesse was tracked down by the Central City private investigator Megan Lockhart, who was hired by a finance company whose payments Jesse had missed. However, upon realizing that Lockhart had been following him, Jesse decided to go after her.
The Flash[]
In "The Trickster", James Jesse is first seen kidnapping Megan Lockhart, whom he tracked down to her van as she tried to contact Barry Allen. The following day, Jesse tries to cut Megan in half with a chainsaw due to her refusal to become his girlfriend at a derelict theather. However, the Flash manages to save Megan and faces James, who tries to cut him him with his chainsaw, but the Flash avoids all his attacks and knocks him into the cutting box he previously locked Megan in, leaving him for pickup by the police.
Two state troopers come to arrest Jesse, but he doesn't care and professes his love for Megan, blaming the Flash for "brainwashing" and stealing Megan from him. As the troopers escort him out of Central City, Jesse frees himself from the handcuffs, knocks the trooper sit to his side and shoots the troper driving the car, changing the route to back to Central City. Once there, Jesse buries the dead troopers out of the city's limits, sneaks into a prop warehouse and takes it as his hideout. Deciding that the Flash has bested him, James decides to don the mantle of "The Trickster".
He then personalizes his own Trickstermobile and uses it to transport a statue with the Flash's likeness before announcing himself as the Trickster to all of Central City's inhabitants present there. He then leaves the statue in the middle of the street, but Barry Allen notices that the statue was holding a bomb, dresses as the Flash and rescues two children who were curiously approaching the statue. He then kidnaps some people inside a customes shop and hangs one of them for refusing to sing with him. Megan and the Flash arrive to stop him, but the Trickster uses a smoke bomb to escape with some loot and drops marvels to cause the Flash to slip, allowing him to escape.
The next day, after Megan decides to look after the Trickster on her own, the Trickster comes to the forensic laboratory under the disguise of a FBI federal agent and distracts Barry Allen and his fellow cops, among them Officers Michael Murphy and Tony Bellows, with booby traps and a decoy in the streets, allowing him to kidnap Megan and then take Barry to his hideout. Once there, the Trickster knocks Barry out with cloroform and threatens Megan, now dressed as "Prank", to drown the unconscious and tied Barry into a glass box that is being filled with water if she doesn't admit her love for him and her hatred for both Allen and the Flash. Desperate to save her friend, Megan accepts and admits to love the Trickster, but he then tries to drown Barry anyway because they "hate" Barry. The Trickster activates his machinery to drown Barry and leaves him for dead while taking Megan with him, but Barry wakes up shortly afterwards and breaks the glass, escaping with his life.
The Trickster then takes a captive Megan to a party attended by many members of the police force, incapacitating most of them with a smoke bomb before facing Officer Murphy, whom he believes to be the Flash just like his partner Officer Bellows believes. Fed up, Murphy denies being the Flash and the Trickster gets angry for being "tricked" with a decoy, but the real Flash soon arrives and faces him. The Trickster throws an explosive cake at him and then threatens to slit Megan's throat to see if she is real or is just a trick of the Flash, but Megan frees herself and the Flash uses candles as jugglers to knock the Trickster out, to the acclaim of the guests. The Trickster is then arrested and taken by Officers Murphy and Bellows to the police van.
In the series finale "The Trial of the Trickster" , James Jesse is slated to be tried for his crimes in a highly publicized trial, which both Barry Allen and Megan Lockhart attend, but Jesse doesn't take the trial seriously, annoying his lawyer and the judge. After failing to attack Megan, Jesse is send back to jail, but during his brief stay, he finds out that he has a secret admirer known as Prank, much to his delight- The trial restarts the following day, but the session quickly comes to an end when the so-called Prank, revealed to be the judge's clerk, releases a laughing gas that incapacitates most of the people present in the court. Wearing a gas mask given to him by Prank, Jesse tries to shoot his laughing lawyer, but ends up shooting dead cop who gets on the way, leaving the court with Prank.
Prank takes Jesse to Clarxe Toys, a toy store, and reveals herself as Zoey Clark, the daughter of the late toymaker Mr. Clarxe who became a fan of himself during his crime spree in Central City. Jesse accepts Clarke as his new "Prank" due to Lockhart refusing his advances and accepts her assistance in his plot to get back at the Flash for imprisoning him, declaring that the Trickster is back and now with Prank. The couple go to the WCCN Stage 2 station and murder the newscaster before the Trickster announces on live television that the Flash, Megan and everyone involved in his trial are gonna pay. The Flash and Megan to the studio to stop him, but the Trickster incapacitates the two with a sneezy powder and has Prank throw a box of chattering teeth at Megan, distracting the Flash to escape in a truck that leaves a pink gluey substance on the road that traps the Flash, allowing them to capture him.
The Trickster and Prank take the Flash to their hideout and torture him with an electric chair. During the torture, the Trickster threatens to murder Prank if she unmasks the Flash, as he doesn't want to know who the Flash is before proceeding to brainwash the Flash with his brainwashing device, putting Prank aside due to no longer needing her. This later allows the Trickster to cause as much chaos and destruction he can all over Central City while the Flash commits random acts of vandalism. Prank feels left out and demands the Trickster and the Flash to wait for her, but the Trickster resolves to leave her as a decoy bound and gagged in their hideout before deciding to announce a trial for Central City: among those who he wants to try, the Trickster includes his lawyer, his judge and his prosecutor. He has the Flash declare them guilty as the jury and sentences the three "criminals" to death by hanging. However, Megan and Tina McGee arrive to the rescue, managing to make him get back to his senses, breaking free from the Trickster's brainwashing.
The Trickster distracts the Flash by holding his lawyer hostage before throwing her aside and escaping. He takes his bike, but it explodes thanks to Tina rigging it before entering the court. Fortunately for the Trickster, Prank arrives with a getaway truck and insists him to get in so they can escape. The Trickster wonders why did she rescue him after leaving her behind to be arrested, to which Prank replies that she loves him. Surprised, the Trickster assures her that their relationship isn't gonna work out because he isn't good for her, before cruelly telling that he can't miss her if she doesn't go away as he throws her off the truck. As the police arrest Prank, the Flash chases after him and the Trickster drops an explosive car, but the Flash manages to get into the truck and stops it, demanding the Trickster to give up.
Undeterred and with nothing to lose, The Trickster lights a bomb and tells the Flash to join him in Hell. Unable to turn off the bomb, the Flash resolves to rescue the Trickster and leaves the truck to explode. Subsequently, Jesse is arrested and sent back to prison, but this time, he is given a maximum security cell to ensure he doesn't escape again. Behind bars once more, Jesse jumps around his padded cell while restrained with a straightjacket as he demands to be released. Losing whatever little sanity he still had, Jesse promises to make his cell his own fortress becayse no one tricks the Trickster, mocking the jailers for believing that it can contain him.
It's unkown what happened with the Trickster afterwards, but it can be assumed that Jesse stayed in prison for the rest of his life, though it's plausible to assume that he may have escaped and faced the Flash in other occasions as one of his common foes, yet never succeeding. In the Arrowverse crossover "Elseworlds", the Monitor comes to Earth-90 and wipes it out, leaving its Flash as the sole survivor, so if he was still alive by 2018, the Trickster was likely one of the thousands victims of the Monitor.
Trivia[]
- The Trickster was one of the two villains from the 1990s The Flash show to appear in more than one episode, the other being Nicholas Pike. All other villains only appeared in one episode and nothing more.
- That said, there were originally plans to bring The Trickster back to the show if it had been renewed for a second season. Had that happened, the second season premiere would have had the Trickster teaming up with Captain Cold and Mirror Master to take the Flash down.
- Mark Hamill later starred as the Trickster in the 2014's The Flash TV series, in which John Wesley Shipp played the part of the Flash's late father Henry Allen. Shipp previously appeared on the past series as Barry Allen/The Flash, so his kidnapping at the hands of the Trickster was likely to reference the rivalry of their past portrayals.
- The Trickster is first seen in the 2014's series in a cell similar to the one that the past Trickster last appeared in. Interestingly, some images of the 1990's Trickster were used to explain the early criminal career of the 2014's Trickster.
- Despite the show's short run, the Trickster is commonly considered the secondary antagonist of the show due to being one of the most commonly faced enemies of the Flash. While the Trickster appeared in the same amount of episodes as Nicholas Pike, Pike is considered the main antagonist due to him being the reason Barry Allen became the Flash due to killing his brother, making him more personal than the Trickster.
- The relationship between the Trickster and Prank resembles somewhat that between the Joker and Harley Quinn, which was first featured in Batman: The Animated Series one year after the cancellation of The Flash. Interestingly, Mark Hamill voiced the Joker in that show and went on to reprise the role in further DC Comics animated productions, leading several DC fans to consider that his portrayal of the Trickster worked as some kind of "prototype" for what the voice he would later employ for the Joker.
