![[Jackal, pre-Upgrade]](jackal08.jpg)
![[Jackal, post-Upgrade]](jackal.jpg)
Above right: Jackal, post-Upgrade.
Gender: Male
First Appearance: "The Thrill Of The Hunt"
Other Appearances: "Her Brother's Keeper," "Leader Of The Pack," "Upgrade," "Grief," "The Green," "Broadway Goes To Hollywood"
The man only known as Jackal has always been the most sinister of the group called the Pack. Cold and calculating, he is always ready with a stylish, sadistic plan to carry out his needs even as he tosses out a taunt.
He was recruited to the Pack with his sister, Hyena, months before the gargoyles' awakening, by Fox, then the Pack's leader. Unbeknownst to him, they were actually being recruited by David Xanatos through Fox to see if they were good enough to serve him. He, his sister, and the rest of the Pack were made stars on television, and had fame, money and and a fanatical audience.
One day, Fox told him and the rest of the Pack about the gargoyles, who were then made the object of a brutal hunt by the Pack. Catching them off-guard initially, the Pack was routed by Lexington and Goliath, and they all fled police capture, excluding Fox and Wolf, who were arrested.
A few months later, Jackal and his sister were told by Fox to steal the Coyote Diamond. That was merely a secondary objective. The primary one, unknown to them, was to lure Elisa Maza's brother, Derek Maza, into Xanatos's favor. They did not succeed in getting the diamond, but were told by Fox that they could kill Xanatos in retaliation for interfering. This again was another way to get Derek to stay with Xanatos. The gargoyles thwarted the maniacal duo twice in their attempts to kill Xanatos, they even managed to convert and use their own helicopter against them. The two were arrested and sent to Riker's Island along with the rest of the Pack, save Dingo.
They languished in prison for a long while, before being broken out by Coyote 1.0. Fox elected to stay, thereby achieving Xanatos's primary objective, to have Fox receive an early parole. Jackal elected to side with Xanatos, not knowing he was really Coyote 1.0 in disguise, over Wolf being the leader. They all desired revenge on the gargoyles for sending them to prison. After kidnapping Lexington, Brooklyn, and Bronx, they all waited on an oil tanker for the rest of the gargoyles. In the ensuing battle, Coyote 1.0 was revealed to be a robot. They were all defeated, and they escaped into the night.
The Pack finally resorted to robbing banks to provide them with money, and were again beaten back by the gargoyles. As they lay beaten, Coyote's head approached them in their ship, and asked if they would like to be able to give the gargoyles back some of the punishment they had taken. The Pack said yes, and Jackal himself was fitted with cybernetic enhancments. These included spike fingers that shot out like darts, extendable legs, re-attachable arms, a cybernetic eye and ear, laser and cutting blade weaponry, and various other mechanisms. Jackal, along with the newly upgraded Pack, easily defeated Hudson, Bronx, Goliath, and Elisa. He chose Wolf over the new Coyote 2.0 as his leader, as he was disgusted by his sister's fawning attraction over a robot, but was overruled by Dingo. The other gargoyles came to the rescue later on in a trainyard, defeating Jackal and the rest once again. Unknown to all, the entire battle was a game, the Pack and the gargoyles simply like pieces to be manipulated by Fox and David Xanatos.
Jackal took a more personal interest in matters in the Pack's next mission, which was to help the Emir secure immortality. The Emir called the Egyptian Jackal God of the Dead, Anubis, in a vain attempt to secure his son back. Jackal hungered for the power that the Emir craved, and when the Emir cast a spell to make his body a vessel for Anubis, Jackal shoved him out of the way and was made the vessel instead. The power of a god transformed him into a hideous combination of himself and Anubis, making him a human Jackal in form as well as name. He now also had the power over life and death itself. Jackal, already not the most sane of people, was most likely driven over the edge by such intoxicating power, and used it to age Goliath, Elisa and Angela when they tried to stop him. He also reduced Wolf and Hyena to infancy, and aged Coyote 3.0 until he was merely a rusted hulk. With no one able to stop him, he used his power to destroy a nearby Egyptian city, killing all the people in a wave of blackness. Only a quick spell which transported Anubis into the Emir stopped the massacre. Saying the stolen energies could be re-channeled, the Emir as Anubis's avatar restored the gargoyles and Wolf and Hyena to their normal selves, but could not save the city's inhabitants. As the gargoyles escaped, the temple in the Sphinx collapsed, burying the Pack and the Avatar.
Sometime after the gargoyles left Egypt, the Pack dug it's way out, and went their seperate ways. Jackal and Hyena were contracted by Cyberbiotics to rid Guatemala of it's gargoyle problem. Jackal nearly did so with a cunning plan to smash the Guatemalan gargoyles and Goliath's party by ridding themselves of the Mayan Sun Amulet which kept them from turning to stone. This too failed, and the siblings were again sent to prison.
Months later, in the Goliath Chronicles, they were hired by the Quarrymen to frame Broadway, thereby throwing gargoyle/human relations back to square one. They were thwarted by Broadway and their former leader, Fox.
Jackal currently remains at large, with his sister, Hyena, always by his side. They are a threat to the gargoyles, and anybody who looks at them the wrong way. They may have upgraded to be even deadlier.
In Greg Weisman's Master Plan, Jackal would have gone on to join the Ultra-Pack along with his sister Hyena.
Jackal as a human was extremely agile and lithe, an accomplished martial artist and acrobat. He wore a pair of gloves with razor fingers, favoring hand to hand combat. When he was cyberneticaly enhanced, he gained many new abilities, included spike fingers that shot out like darts, extendable legs, re-attachable arms, a cybernetic eye and ear, laser and cutting blade weaponry, the ability to fly, and various other mechanisms. He is sinister and cunning, cold and ruthless. He is very protective of his sister, and prefers to kill in style rather than the brutal massacres Hyena prefers. His main weakness is he is a coward at heart, and when seeing the advantage turn in other's favor, he tends to run and live to fight another day.