John Clark (Ryanverse character)

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
(Redirected from
John Clark (Tom Clancy character)
)
John Clark
Ryanverse character
First appearanceThe Cardinal of the Kremlin (1988)
Created byTom Clancy
Portrayed by
Voiced byDouglas Rye
In-universe information
Aliases
  • J.T. Williams
  • Mr. Carlson
  • Ivan Sergeyevich Klerk
Occupation
  • Director of operations for The Campus
  • Director of Rainbow (call sign "Rainbow Six")
  • Bodyguard for Jack Ryan
  • CIA operations officer
  • Navy SEAL (call sign "Snake")
Family
  • Timothy Kelly (father, deceased)
  • Mrs. Kelly (mother, deceased)
  • Domingo Chavez (son-in-law)
  • John Conor Chavez (grandson)
Spouses
  • Patricia Kelly (deceased)
  • Sandra "Sandy" O'Toole-Clark
Children
  • Margaret Pamela Clark
  • Patricia Doris Clark
Religion
Roman Catholic

John T. Clark (real name John Terence Kelly) is a fictional character created by Tom Clancy. He has been featured in many of his Ryanverse novels. Although he first appeared in The Cardinal of the Kremlin (1988), his origin story was detailed in Without Remorse (1993).

Clark has been described by his creator as "Ryan's dark side" and "more inclined to take physical action than Jack is."

North Atlantic Treaty Organization
(NATO). After retiring from CIA and Rainbow, Clark then worked for The Campus, an off-the-books intelligence organization created by President Ryan, later acquiring a position as director of operations.

In film, Clark has been portrayed by Willem Dafoe, Liev Schreiber, and Michael B. Jordan, the latter in a planned series including adaptations of Without Remorse and the in-development Rainbow Six.[2] Clark has also appeared in the Rainbow Six series of video games.

Profile

Personal life

John Kelly was born in

Catholic. His father, Timothy Kelly, served in the Navy during World War II and was a fireman who perished from a heart attack during a fire. John lost his mother to cancer when he was a young boy. He attended Brebeuf Jesuit Preparatory School
in Indianapolis.

His first wife Patricia "Tish" was pregnant when she was killed in a

car accident. Six months after his wife died, Kelly had a brief relationship with Pamela Madden, a former prostitute who had been forced into working as a courier for a drug ring. She was later recaptured by members of the ring and subsequently tortured, raped, and killed; Kelly was gravely wounded. While recovering from his injuries at Johns Hopkins Hospital
, he met his future second wife, nurse Sandra "Sandy" O'Toole. They eventually had two daughters, Patricia Doris and Margaret Pamela.

Kelly, who had by now changed his identity to Clark, first met

Domingo "Ding" Chavez in the CIA during a black operation in Colombia (Clear and Present Danger).[3] They would later work frequently together in succeeding novels. Chavez becomes Clark's son-in-law when he marries his daughter Patricia, and they later have a son, John Conor, who was born in Rainbow Six, although misnamed as John Patrick in Threat Vector
.

Professional life

John Clark
Unit
Special Activities Division
Special Operations Group
Awards
  • Military -
    Bronze Star
    with Valor devices with 3 oak leaf clusters, three Purple Hearts
  • CIA - four Intelligence Stars (CIA's Silver Star equivalent)

When Clark was 18, he joined the

Special Activities Division (Special Operations Group) for another mission in Vietnam; a rescue operation on a secret POW camp. At the same time, Kelly was carrying out his own war at home against a drug ring that killed his girlfriend, Pamela Madden. While he succeeded in taking it down, the Baltimore Police Department (including Emmet Ryan, Jack Ryan's father) eventually identifies him as the man who murdered the drug dealers. In response, Kelly faked his own death (with the help of the CIA, which falsifies the identity of his fingerprints in his Navy personnel file) and goes to work for the CIA full-time, under the pseudonym "John Clark". (See Without Remorse
) His middle name appears variously with one and two 'R's, and the name "John Terrence Clark" appears in the novel Clear and Present Danger.

Throughout his career, Clark has been through a number of real-life crisis zones. In addition to the Vietnam War, he has also been through the Iran hostage crisis (see Debt of Honor) and the Gulf War, plus a number of missions in the Soviet Union, and claims to have "had Abu Nidal's head in my gunsights", but never got the green light allowing him to kill the man (Clear and Present Danger).

He first enters the

Leningrad
after the Chairman decides to defect to the United States. This marks Clark's first published appearance.

In Clear and Present Danger, he commands a U.S. Army black-ops unit carrying out a secret war against the Medellín Cartel in Colombia. When the government abandons the men for political reasons, Clark and Jack Ryan fly down to Colombia and rescue the survivors. This is the first time he interacts with Ryan.

In The Sum of All Fears, he is Ryan's personal driver and bodyguard. Later in the novel, he is returned to the field for one operation, bugging the aircraft of the Japanese Prime Minister in Mexico City. During the operation, a terrorist bombing in Denver occurs and his mission is changed to intercepting the Palestinian terrorists trying to escape through Mexico, which he does successfully. He interrogates them and secures their confessions, then hands them over to the judicial system for eventual Islamic justice (execution by sword) in Riyadh.

In

Aidid
-like African warlord, Mohammed Abdul Corp, and bring him to justice. Soon thereafter, they are sent to Japan to assess the national mood of the country, where Clark is undercover as a Russian reporter. When the situation turns into a war between Japan and the United States, they establish contacts with the opposition in the Japanese government and are also tasked to eliminate a pair of Japanese AWACS planes.

Clark spends the first half of the next book,

United Islamic Republic (comprising Iran and Iraq). With the cooperation of the Russian SVR, they are infiltrated into Tehran, where they laser-designate
the home of UIR dictator Mahmoud Haji Daryaei so that Air Force stealth aircraft can destroy the house.

The next year, Clark writes a memo to the CIA expressing his concerns over the rise of international terrorism since the demise of the Cold War, and recommends creating a NATO response team that could be rapidly deployed in terrorist situations. This special unit is created soon thereafter, with its base in Hereford, England. It is code-named Rainbow, and Clark is put in command of the unit with the equivalent rank of major general.

In the book

eco-terrorist
group, which Rainbow tracks down and destroys in the last pages of the novel.

Clark's next appearance is in

ICBM
base. The operation is mostly successful: all but one of the missiles is destroyed, and the last one, while it is fired, is destroyed by the Navy before it can reach its intended target.

Neither Clark nor Rainbow appears in The Teeth of the Tiger, but it is revealed that Rainbow is still operating. Prior to Jack Ryan resigning as President, Clark's Navy Cross was upgraded to the Medal of Honor. During the Medal of Honor ceremony Jack Ryan, Jr. was present in the Oval Office.

Clark returns in Dead or Alive, in which he is part of a Rainbow team that successfully rescues all hostages taken by terrorists at the Swedish embassy in Libya. This proves to be his last act with the CIA, as he is pushed into retirement by Kealty political appointees. He then joins The Campus, an off-the-books intelligence agency that Ryan had founded before the end of his presidency. Clark is immediately involved with the organization's effort to find and neutralize "the Emir", an international terrorist leader modeled on Osama bin Laden, while also serving as mentor and trainer to Jack's son Jack Jr., a Campus analyst who wants to do fieldwork.

In

FBI
and later French investigators hired by Laska.

Clark goes on the run and travels to eastern Europe to clear his name, later finding out that rogue SVR operative Valentin Kovalenko had given the information to Laska, who in turn covertly presented it to Kealty. However, he is captured shortly after and later tortured for information about The Campus by Kovalenko's men. He is later rescued by the Russian government, who then assigns him to temporarily lead Rainbow in order to retake a Russian spaceport which had been hijacked by Muslim Dagestani terrorists intent on launching nuclear weapons into Moscow.

In Threat Vector, Clark has been exonerated by the outgoing Kealty administration. After an assassination job on a cell of former Libyan intelligence officers in Istanbul, he briefly retires from The Campus due to old age. However, he later comes out of retirement when Chinese special operations forces attack the headquarters of The Campus. He travels to China with fellow Campus operatives and works with the local rebels and FSB to assassinate People's Liberation Army Chairman Su Ke Qiang, who has been waging war against the United States by trying to annex Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, and territories in the South China Sea by military force as well as sanctioning cyberattacks on the U.S.

In Command Authority, Clark becomes director of operations for The Campus. He travels to Ukraine along with his fellow operatives to gather intelligence on Russian criminal organization Seven Strong Men and its leader Gleb the Scar. They take part in defending a CIA special mission compound in Sevastopol, which came under attack from pro-Russian protesters aided by FSB proxy agents and the Seven Strong Men. Clark later cooperates with Delta Force operatives in capturing Gleb the Scar, revealed to be directly involved in the polonium poisoning of former SVR head Sergey Golovko, in his heavily-guarded base of operations in Kyiv.

In

ISIS
with the attacks in order to save his country from economic ruin in a quagmire likely to result from American troops being redeployed to the Middle East.

In Power and Empire, Clark investigates Chinese agent provocateur Vincent Chen's connection to a sex trafficking ring in Texas. He wages a one-man war on the ring in order to save a prostitute as well, who had been instrumental in revealing China's involvement in several false flag attacks designed to blame the current president, whose moderate stance on several issues compelled a secret cabal to act to have him removed from power. Clark was later arrested for murder, but was released from police custody soon after.

Clark briefly appears in Line of Sight, where he assassinates a Romanian crime boss who had a vendetta against Jack Ryan Jr. in revenge for killing one of his associates in a previous novel.

In

GRU
officers. However, the Russians later double cross da Rocha, attempting to kill him in his villa. Clark rescues the arms dealer, who later reveals a plot to provide stolen nuclear weapons to dissident Reza Kazem on behalf of the GRU and the Iranian government.

In

AI software, before the Chinese military uses it for sinister purposes. He later tracks down Kang, an assassin working for the People's Liberation Army
who had tried to assassinate a former Navy admiral who now works for a communications company.

Outside the novels, John Clark's career continues further in the Rainbow Six video game series. In Rainbow Six: Critical Hour, Clark retires and passes the leadership of Team Rainbow on to Chavez. Although Chavez appears in Rainbow Six: Vegas as Rainbow commander, no mention is made of Clark.

Awards

John Clark has been awarded the

Chief Petty Officer
) during his Naval career.

Distinguishing marks

Clark has a small tattoo of a red seal, sitting up on its hind flippers "grinning impudently" on his forearm. Though no other visual details are given, a comment made by Lieutenant Colonel Daniel "Bear" Malloy in

SEAL Team 1
.

Literary appearances

The character John Clark appears in the following books:

In other media

Film

In 2012 Paramount Pictures began developing a film adaptation of Without Remorse, and reportedly were in early negotiations with Tom Hardy to play Clark.[4] By September 2018, Michael B. Jordan was cast to play John Clark in the new film series. Without Remorse was released on 30 April 2021 and was directed by Stefano Sollima[5] from a screenplay written by Taylor Sheridan[6] and Will Staples. It is produced by Akiva Goldsman.[2] Rainbow Six is currently in development.

Jack Ryan films

John Clark has been portrayed by Willem Dafoe in Clear and Present Danger (1994) and Liev Schreiber in The Sum of All Fears (2002).

In Clear and Present Danger Clark is initially depicted as a cynical and opportunistic mercenary, but slowly reveals his virtues. Clark aids Ryan in rescuing Clark's men from Escobedo and Cortez, saving Ryan's life.

In The Sum of All Fears Clark is depicted as a much more sardonic character, though he, like his novel counterpart, has also participated in numerous CIA operations.

References

  1. ^ Carlson, Peter. "What ticks Tom Clancy off?". The Washington Post. Retrieved 9 July 2018.
  2. ^ a b Kroll, Justin (2018-09-20). "Michael B. Jordan to Play Tom Clancy Character John Clark in New Film Series (EXCLUSIVE)". Variety. Retrieved 2018-09-20.
  3. Newspapers.com
    .
  4. ^ Ge, Linda. "Tom Hardy sought for Jack Ryan spinoff "Without Remorse"". Retrieved 21 August 2012.
  5. ^ N'Duka, Amanda (6 December 2018). "Stefano Sollima In Talks To Direct 'Without Remorse' Starring Michael B. Jordan". Deadline. Retrieved 6 December 2018.
  6. ^ Kroll, Justin (9 January 2019). "Taylor Sheridan to Rewrite Michael B. Jordan's 'Without Remorse' (EXCLUSIVE)". Variety. Retrieved 16 January 2019.

See also

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=John_Clark_(Ryanverse_character)&oldid=1215826676"