Jack Arden

Jack Arden is a human from the live-action film continuity.

Although he may be the latest in a long, long line of metallurgists, Jack Arden doesn't come across as the brightest bulb. He speaks simply and coarsely, he's not too good with anything but the simplest humour, and he doesn't often grasp the complex motivations of others, but his knowledge of metals is genuinely unparalleled, even if he does consider the work less than fulfilling.

Arden is a member of the First Seven, the group who would eventually found the covert government organization Sector Seven.

Fiction

IDW Publishing comics

Arden was recruited by United States Secret Service agent Billy North to join him, Walter Simmons, Theodore Joseph Wells, Reginald Danco, Theodore Grant and Philippe Bowen on an expedition to the Arctic, to verify the claims made by Captain Archibald Witwicky that he had found a giant metal man frozen in an ice cave. The claims proved true, and Arden immediately set to work examining the creature's metallic hide, all the while muttering to Bowen about how he couldn't grasp Wells's incredulous attitude towards the whole thing. Ultimately, Arden was forced to conclude that whatever the beast was made of, it was a metal he had never seen before—and that meant that they couldn't blast it out of the ice, since they couldn't tell if it would float. The debate about what to do next was promptly tabled when another of the metal man's kind came crashing into the cave and began attacking the men. Trying to figure out what to do, Arden realized that he did know one thing about the metal the creatures were made of: it froze at sub-zero temperatures. Danco used this information to put the other men's skills to work collapsing the ice sheet and sending the robot plunging into the freezing waters. As this was happening, Arden went to check on the injured North, only to discover that he had not survived the battle. His death weighed heavily on Simmons's conscience, but Arden was the first to speak up and stay he would stand by Simmons against any more of the robots that would come. After all, being a metallurgist wasn't nearly so exciting! Original

By 1913, unknown events had led Arden to part ways with Simmons's group. He was replaced by Lou Hoover. Irreplaceable

Notes

• Sector 7 author John Barber designed the First Seven to represent disparate parts of the era their story takes place in. Having had his knowledge passed down from father to father, Arden represents the master-and-apprentice era of training and education, a school rapidly vanishing in the face of the Industrial Revolution.