An elite member of MI-6, Jack Tarr becomes known as Black Jack and follows orders from his commanding officer, Sir Denis Nayland Smith. Together they team up with Martial arts master Shang-Chi to take on Fu Manchu.
From Warfare to Espionage
Jack Tarr grows up in the Cold War and joins the British Foreign Service. Working in Hong Kong with fellow agent Anna, they get involved in a romantic relationship after the war ends. Anna allegedly runs away, with the Foreign Service Office claiming she vanished without an explanation, leaving Tarr with a broken heart. After completing his service, he goes on to work for the British intelligence known as MI-6, and later Freelance Restorations.
Trained as a Secret Agent
Black Jack Tarr trains with the British secret service, MI-6, where he learns hand-to-hand combat and gains skills in the use of firearms.
Empire of Enemies
Tarr often helps Smith track down the notorious crimelord, Zheng Zu, AKA Fu Manchu, and battles his many minions. While Fu Manchu escapes his clutches on numerous occasions, Tarr reluctantly allies with Fu Manchu’s son, Shang-Chi, who renounces his father’s ways.
Secret Agent Allies
Tarr is a loyal operative of Sir Denis Nayland Smith of MI-6. Tarr follows Smith’s orders even when he tells him to ally with the Chinese vigilante, Shang-Chi. While Tarr was distrustful of because of his family ties to Fu Manchu, he joins with Smith to enlist Shang’s aid against various threats posted by Fu Manchu. Tarr nicknames Shang “Chinaman,” originally as a racial slur, but over time he came to respect Shang and it became a term of friendship. He eventually acknowledges his racism and abandons the nickname at Shang’s behest.
When Black Jack Tarr serves with the British Foreign Service, he works with fellow agent Anna and after the Cold War ends, they share a romantic relationship. Though she disappears without explanation only to return 30 years later with a vengeance, expressing hatred towards Tarr for dedicating himself to Smith instead of her, leaving Tarr heartbroken again.
Tarr also works with other MI-6 agents, Clive Reston and Leiko Wu, and together with Smith and Shang, they often face Fu Manchu and his legion of Si-Fan assassins.
Later, after frustrated with MI-6, Tarr and his friends leave and join Smith’s new mercenary team, Freelance Restorations, operating from Smith’s castle, Stormhaven, in Scotland.
A Special Agent’s Account
When it was thought that Shang-Chi killed Smith’s friend Dr. Petrie, Smith’s sent Tarr after him. The two battled, with Shang knocking Tarr off a balcony and escaping before Tarr could follow. Later, Tarr escorted his boss Smith to meet with Shang to discuss how to defeat Shang’s father, the crime lord Fu Manchu. Tarr made a bigoted comment against Shang being Chinese, claiming that he himself was the only weapon Smith needed against Fu Manchu. Though Smith disagreed and allied with Shang, and together, they opposed Manchu.
Later, Black Jack reluctantly joined Smith to seek out Shang’s aide once again to penetrate Fu Manchu’s headquarters. Shang advised against it, and the pair went ahead alone. Both Black Jack and Smith failed in their infiltration when Fu Manchu captured them, requiring Shang to come to their rescue. Once Shang liberated them, Black Jack criticized him, and Fu Manchu escaped.
Black Jack started to warm up to on a mission to the Amazon when they and Smith get wrapped up in unraveling Fu Manchu's plot to collaborate with a former Gestapo agent Wilhelm Bucher. On their way traveling by boat down a river, they get attacked by a band of Fu Manchu’s bullies, and Black Jack fought them off. Their guide through the Amazon, Raymond Strawn, ended up slaughtering the attackers which bothered Tarr who recognized how Strawn relished in it. They came upon Fu Manchu’s ship, but Strawn fired his weapon at it, ruining their element of surprise. Strawn then revealed himself to be Bucher and tangles with Shang, leading the latter to dive off the boat and Bucher escaping. Meanwhile, Fu Manchu planned to obtain plans for a Nazi secret weapon, a nuclear missile. Smith and Tarr traveled for Bucher’s compound, and when they arrived, they inadvertently distracted Shang, which resulted in a knife in the chest by Bucher. Shang went after Bucher and shocked to see him alive, he fell down the side of the weapon, which was a missile, and apparently plummeted to his death. Successfully keeping the missile out of Fu Manchu’s reach, Tarr, Smith, and Shang searched for Manchu but miss him as he flies off in a helicopter.
Later, when Shang’s half-sister kidnapped Smith, Black Jack allied with his fellow agent in MI-6 and friend Clive Reston, and they sought Shang’s help to recover him. Shang had other ideas about how to rescue Smith and left Black Jack and Clive behind. By the time they arrived at Smith’s location, Shang had liberated him.
When Smith sought a valuable artifact called the Golden Dragon, Tarr came upon Shang seeking the same thing though for different reasons. Smith wanted to retrieve the secret documents stuffed inside the statue before the agent from Red China gets to it first, said Tarr. Shang informed him that there’s more to the statue than meets the eye and that literal magic is afoot, but Tarr dismissed the idea until they saw a golden dragon flying above them. They discovered that the golden dragon guised itself, changing its cloaks within the eyes of those who seek it, where one person would see great beauty, another transferable wealth. When Tarr and Shang tracked the statue down, it ended up being a fake. They encountered others who sought the treasure, some from other countries whom Tarr saw as enemy agents. Shang called him out for his prejudice, and Tarr finally admitted how dumb he acted towards those born in different places than himself.
After Smith’s team helped stop Fu Manchu’s plans to disrupt the moon’s orbit, Shang confronted Smith, saying he had had enough of MI-6’s deceit and death. Tar, Leiko, and Reston agreed with Shang, and the four friends quit. Tarr and Shang traveled to the shady warehouse of Oriental Expediters, Ltd., where they encountered and fought back the hooded men and the electronic power of Lancaster Sneed, AKA Shockwave. Tarr took a shot at Shockwave but the culprit escaped. Meanwhile, a bomb placed by a brainwashed Doctor James Petrie destroyed Smith’s office. Smith then sent Tarr and Reston to Zurich to provide back-up to Shang to face off Shockwave’s employers who turned out to be Petrie and the Oriental Expediters led by Shang’s half-sister, Fah Lo Suee. Prepping for his flight to Zurich, Tarr grabbed some extra shells from his office, and a bomb exploded, propelling him backward and putting him in the hospital for several days. After Tarr recovered, he and his friends later became embroiled in an attempt to obtain the plans to a neutron bomb held by the South Seas pirate Kogar.
When Chinese scientist Chow wanted to defect to Britain, Smith directed Tarr to escort him back to London for fear of a hit on Chow’s life by the Black Demon Sect. Tarr met up with Shang at his family’s home in Long Island, New York, the Murder Mansion, and asked for Shang’s company; Shang agreed. Though before Smith tasked Tarr, Tarr received a note signed “Anna” telling him to meet her at Lincoln Center—Anna was the only woman who ever broke through Tarr’s thick shell and the only one who tore him apart, and it was 30 years prior. With the note, he also received a locket which had given to Anna, providing proof to Shang that it wasn’t a trick. Tarr recounted his tale of love and heartbreak, and they entered the mansion only to be trapped inside by an unseen force. Tarr and Shang navigated the house with caution as Tarr had previously placed a dozen death traps all over the place. They ventured to the control room, dodged dangers, and faced off with the Black Demon Sect, who they defeated with some of Tarr’s traps. They found a nude portrait of Anna that Tarr had never seen and distracted by it, a band of demons erupted from it. They successfully fought them off and made it to the control room to find one of the monitors with a live feed of a demon holding Anna captive. They faced off more demons, and Tarr shot one in the shoulder. Tarr removed their mask, and it turned out to be Anna, angry and in tears, yelling at Tarr for giving himself to Smith over her, revealing the true reason for her disappearance. The CIA arrived and arrested her and the other demons, leaving Tarr more broken up over their relationship than before.
Tarr approached Shang and Leiko for aid in dealing with the Cult of the Dawning Light, a front for a terrorist organization, and they agreed to join Smith’s new mercenary team, Freelance Restorations, after the mission’s completion. Because Freelance Restorations’ staff only took assignments they believed in, financing their operations became increasingly difficult. Shang’s sister, Fah Lo Suee offered to become a financial backer, but they ended up in a conflict with her despite their mutual enemy, Fu Manchu.
Later, Tarr and Reston destroyed Fu Manchu’s Honan fortress while he was trying to save himself through an elixir he made with a clone of Shang’s blood, but he seemingly perished. Tarr became head of Freelance Restorations for Smith, who had retired, and he later approached Shang for help against the Red Wolves, an amalgamation of terrorist cells. Leiko was captured by the Red Wolves’ leader, Brian Argus, who cut off her left hand and mailed it to Shang, so Shang agreed to rejoin Tarr’s team. With the aid of Shen Kuei, Shang saved Leiko, but suffered poisoning by Argus.
Tarr and Reston rejoined MI-6 and requested Shang’s aid again against Fu Manchu, who had been using the aliases Comte de Saint Germain and the Ghost. When Leiko Wu was captured while on assignment, Shang rejoined them to help rescue her, which they did successfully. Back to attempting grand feats, Fu Manchu intended to use the Hellfire Objective, a weapon created by Nikola Tesla, against the nations of the world. Tarr and his friends again thwarted Fu Manchu and destroyed his Hellfire Base.
