- "I fooled all London. And I could fool them anywhere, even in Gotham City, if that's where I chose to appear.''"
- ―Jack the Ripper, in a letter "from hell".[src]
Jack the Ripper (known in the comic as Jacob Parker) is the main antagonist of the DC Elseworlds comic book story Batman: Gotham by Gaslight, and its animated film adaptation. He is a fictionalized version of the infamous real life serial killer of the same name whose identity was never truly identified.
History[]
Historic Background[]
Content Warning- This section contains reference to real-life violent crimes committed to real people in real-world history
Jack the Ripper (also known as Leather Apron or the Whitechapel Murderer) was a serial-killer who operated in Victorian London. His identity was never discovered in his time and as such the true extent of his murders remains a mystery.
It is known that he murdered five women in the Whitechapel area: Mary Ann Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes, and Mary Jane Kelly (with there being six other murders, albeit not definitively linked to his person). Jack would proceeded to mutilate some of their faces and surgically remove many of their organs. In the case of Catherine Eddowes, he is also believed to have ejaculated over her murdered body.
The name Jack the Ripper originated from a letter known as the, "Dear Boss letter" which aimed at mocking the authorities but is commonly believed to have been written by an imitator separate to the killer. The name stuck however and Jack the Ripper became infamous not-only due to the grotesque nature of his killings or the fact he was never caught; but due to his M.O. implying that he had the medical training of a doctor (an upper-class and respected position in Victorian London). In the years which followed, Jack the Ripper became a legendary figure in contemporary folklore, pseudo history, and historic-fiction.
As of 2014 and 2019, tests on the mitochondrial DNA of Jack the Ripper's ejaculate fluids preserved on Catherine Eddowes provided the most likely identity for the killer in the form of Aaron Kosminski (1865-1919). Kosminski was a Polish immigrant in the then overpopulated London and was trained as a Barber (an occupation which at the time included surgical-training). Due to mental-illness, Aaron was a regular inmate of the Colney Hatch Lunatic Asylum. He was a suspect during the Whitechapel murders as he was noted for having homicidal tendencies and a strong hatred for women but was never definitively tied to the crimes. Kosminski died in 1919 at the age of 53 while locked up in the Leavesden Mental Hospital where he is documented as having suffered from hallucinations, refused to bathe and ate so infrequently that by his death he weighed only 96 Lbs.
Earth-19 (Gotham by Gaslight)[]
Jack first appears in Gotham hunting women, apparently to stop "her" from laughing at him, as he finds this unidentified woman's laughter unbearable, and something that he can only silence by killing various prostitutes. Soon, Batman happens upon him and begins trying to stop him. Later, evidence is planted in Bruce Wayne's home that pins the Jack the Ripper murders on him.
Desperate to discover the killer's identity, Bruce Wayne pores over all of the evidence in his cell, but finds nothing that the police who Jack has already fooled did not already find. Just when it looks like Bruce is about to give up, he realizes that the symbol on a knife used by Jack is identical to a symbol used by his late father and his old Civil War buddies. From this, Bruce realizes who the killer is.
After escaping from prison and becoming Batman once more, he confronts and unmasks the killer as his life-long friend Jacob Parker. It comes to light that the man who had been an old friend of Bruce Wayne's family had in fact had his parents killed in vengeance for Martha rebuffing his romantic feelings for and even cruelly laughing in his face.
However, the killing of Martha Wayne and her husband brought Jacob Parker no peace, as he continued to hear her "laughing" at him whenever he looked at a woman, and so resolved to kill as many as he could both in England and in Gotham to "silence" it. Once Bruce Wayne came back into his life, Jacob knew he had to frame him to both complete his revenge against Martha Wayne by eliminating her son, and also get his costumed alter-ego off his trail.
His tale complete, Jacob Parker is at Batman's mercy. The Dark Knight strongly considers killing him, but decides not to, and Jacob Parker is then shot dead by James Gordon and the police when they arrive in the graveyard he and Batman were, ending the threat of Jack the Ripper for good.
Other Continuities[]
Jack the Ripper has also appeared in various other comic stories published by DC Comics, often in association with supernatural characters like John Constantine, the Phantom Stranger and Etrigan. Some villains have also claimed to have been the killer, including Vandal Savage. Other accounts have also seen Jack the Ripper brought to the modern day.
Powers and Abilities[]
- Surgical Training:
In Other Media[]
- Batman: Gotham by Gaslight film: Jack the Ripper appears in the animated adaptation of the graphic novel, though his identity is changed to Jim Gordon rather than Packer. Here, Gordon is a military veteran of the American Civil War who is motivated by violent misogyny to commit his murders.