Richard Jones (Earth-21399)

"How the hell did I get into this mess..."

- Rick Jones Rick Jones is a college-age reporter who formerly worked for the Albuquerque Journal, a local newspaper. When he witnessed the first appearance of the incredible Hulk, Jones became obsessed with the beast's case and made it his mission to bring the Hulk to justice for murder - ironically, a murder that the Hulk never committed.

Early Life
Rick Jones was born in Scottsdale, a suburb of Phoenix, Arizona. His father, Albert, was an abject failure - a man who couldn't hold down a stable job to save his life and who frequently had financial troubles. Despite this, Albert was an honest, hardworking man with an unbreakable optimism and who never hesitated to help a friend in need. Albert instilled into his son a strong work ethic and moral foundation that would come to define Rick's life, while his mother, a retired journalist, pushed him to excel in his education so he would grow up to be more successful than his father.

Education and Journalistic Career
After completing high school, Rick decided to follow in his mother's footsteps and become an investigative reporter. He enrolled in the University of New Mexico with a major in journalism, where he came to become a writer for both the university's newspaper as well as the mainstream Albuquerque Journal. His roommate was Amadeus Cho, a Korean-American science major who convinced Jones to run a science column on the university's major research projects (Cho was responsible for helping Jones write all the jargon correctly).

Meeting the Hulk
On the day that university researcher Bruce Banner became the Hulk, Rick and Cho were out partying with their fellow students in the typical manner - getting blackout drunk and playing games like beer pong and Mafia by the poolside. It was at that party that Rick met and lost his virginity to Marlo Chandler, a student in audio engineering whose dream was to become a producer of heavy metal music. This was, oddly enough, the beginning of their budding romance.

At some point during the party, Rick remembered that he had left some of his journalistic notes behind on campus and left the party by taxi to retrieve them. He was startled to find the campus in flames and quickly ran up to it with the intent to save anyone already trapped inside, but was paralyzed when he saw the towering figure of the incredible Hulk tearing his way through a wall and leaping off into the night, carrying the unconscious body of microbiology student Elizabeth Ross in his arms.

Pursuit of the Creature
Left without housing thanks to the university's destruction, Rick and Cho temporarily relocated to a local hotel. At first, Cho refused to believe Rick's story, so Rick resolved to return to the crime scene in the morning to try to find other witnesses. Unfortunately, the only witness he could find was Glenn Talbot, a Major in the Army who was dating Betty Ross at the time; when Rick tried to press Talbot for details on what caused the fire, the officer coldly told him, "that's classified". Things got even worse when Rick asked him about the Hulk."What did I just tell you? Don't stick your nose where it doesn't belong, kid."

- Major Glenn Talbot That last statement troubled Rick greatly. He became convinced that Talbot was intentionally trying to cover up the Hulk's existence, and decided to do something about it: He wrote an article for the Albuquerque Journal and titled it "Albuquerque University in ruins; "Incredible Hulk" kills two". Although the article was accepted and published (on the front page, no less), Rick's journalistic credibility was damaged in the process (this was before the public became aware of the existence of mutants). Rick suspects his editor only accepted the article in order to humor him.

Cho remained somewhat skeptical about the Hulk's existence, but agreed with Rick that Talbot was being too evasive and decided to help him uncover the truth behind what had happened at the university as well as the culprit, since the police weren't conducting any investigations themselves - they had ruled the university fire and the deaths of James "Jimbo" Wilson and Bruce Banner as accidents. Rick was convinced that the Hulk had killed both men and was determined to bring him to justice.

Both men knew that their investigation also required technical skill and knowledge - something neither of them possessed much of, nor were they acquainted with anyone who had them. Remembering his time at the party, however, Rick ended up recruiting his fling, Marlo Chandler, to round out the investigative trio. Marlo, for her part, took up Rick's offer out of boredom now that she couldn't access the university's studio equipment.