<i>Jack's life started out normally and rather successfully. He once had a family, with a lovely wife and a wonderful daughter. He had a best friend, a weasel named Snide. And, on top of that, he had a successful toy factory that he started himself, where he sold intelligent if slightly unsafe toys like little race cars or wind-up crocodiles with suspiciously good AI to all the good boys and girls of the various islands. Sure, occasionally he'd get a complaint from a parent or five that his toys are dangerous, but otherwise, things were running smoothly.

That is, until King K. Rool learned that some upstart toymaker Kremling also happened to be a whiz at programming and building things capable of chewing limbs off, and he really needed something to be built. Something with loads of firepower. Something like, say, a giant island fortress shaped like himself (complete with crown) that also had a giant laser capable of making entire islands explode.

And so, Jack was "hired" to begin building a new superweapon, where he worked alongside Snide, who designed the main blueprints and was responsible for the more technical side of things.

Now, K. Rool is a pretty cruel boss - it's in his name and all - and he didn't believe in things like "safety regulations" or "40 hour work weeks". So poor overworked and sleep-deprived Jack, suffering from crunch time and pressure from his king to get this giant island laser done immediately, would occasionally lose a limb here and there. But hey, no harm done, all that would happen was that Jack would have to halt production for a bit in order to rebuild a new right arm or craft a new eye, which irritated K. Rool and horrified Snide. Over time, as K. Rool's superweapon neared completion, Jack was more machine than weird kremling/snake/duck man.

And, while this was going on, Jack's life was dissolving. His wife now feared what he was becoming and took their daughter with her, his toy factory became absorbed into KremCo and left to fall into disrepair, turning into a run-down, abandoned shell of its former self. His friendship with Snide was starting to crack and arguments became more frequent.

No one knows when Jack finally snapped. It could've been him receiving a letter from his wife, telling him that she was leaving to another island and never coming back. Maybe it was seeing his friend leave the Kremling Army in a disgruntled huff and take THEIR blueprints with him. Or maybe it was when he thought to himself "I am going to replace my legs with this giant spring and start hopping around in a giant Jack-in-the-Box".

Regardless, once he became Mad, K. Rool knew exactly what to do with him.

After all, a king could never have too many weapons.</i>

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This picture has been sitting in my WIP folder since December of last year so I finally decided to bite the bullet and finish it to shake off a bit of rust. I've been busy the last couple of weeks and not really in the best mindset to drawing, and messing with fire lighting effects felt like a good warm-up.