Talk:John Clark (Ryanverse character)

Full Name
Was he ever referred to as "John Terrence Clark" *anywhere*? I'm pretty sure that's not actually correct in the lede, and I'm changing it. If anyone can cite it, change it back. --Baylink (talk) 19:39, 8 August 2008 (UTC)


 * As it happens, I was wrong; he *is* referred to as John Terence Clark (note different spelling), late in Clear and Present Danger, while flying back in to rescue Chavez with Larson. So it's canon after all.  As usual, this is a cite to a publicly available reference, not OR.  :-) --65.34.94.81 (talk) 05:10, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Clark/Kelly
Currently in the Personal Life section the character is repeatedly referred to as Clark/Kelly. I don't think this is proper form, as he didn't alternate between them. He permanently switched from Kelly to Clark at the end of Without Remorse, and began identifying with that name, for a very specific reason (being that he had to fake his death as Kelly). Therefore I am switching the Clark/Kelly identification to either Clark or Kelly depending on when the event took place. This might make things a bit confusing, as the explanation for the name change is in the Professional Life section... really, his personal and professional lives are so linked that someone may want to try and approach it a different way than having them separated. 71.168.118.177 (talk) 00:20, 15 May 2009 (UTC)

He identified himself as Kelly in Patriot Games. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.171.176.77 (talk) 20:35, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Less famous than Sam Fisher
An anonymous user recently edited the page to change the intro to say "Clark is Clancy's third most famous character" behind Jack Ryan and Sam Fisher. While I don't doubt at all that more people are familiar with the name "Sam Fisher" than "John Clark," I haven't been able to find any evidence that Sam Fisher was indeed a Clancy character (i.e., "a character created by Clancy"). Sam Fisher's first appearance is in the 2002 video game Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell developed by Ubisoft. While Clancy endorsed the game, I have not found any mention of who created the character, leading me to believe he was created for the video game by the video game developers. Thus, Fisher is not a Clancy character and cannot be in the running of "Clancy's ... most famous character[s]." ~ JDCAce (talk) 02:14, 4 May 2021 (UTC)

Medal of Honor story.
Not sure if this is the best place to post this, but I believe Clancy derived the MoH story for John Clark from real life Navy SEAL Thomas R. Norris. I have to state that I have not fully read any Clancy novels. Norris, like the fictional character John Clark, is a Navy SEAL who went behind enemy lines on a secret mission in Vietnam to rescue a downed Lieutenant Colonel navigator who possessed highly classified information and was later awarded the MoH for the rescue. 1st Lt. Mark Clark was a pilot who was shot down during part of the rescue operation. He was later rescued. This is possibly where Clancy got his character's new last name. Again, I have not read the book. I do not know if the book states the origin of John Clark's new last name or not.

I think these things should be included in this article as well as the articles Without Remorse, Bat*21 and Rescue of Bat 21 Bravo. 50.37.92.170 (talk) 23:16, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

Physical description needs further work.
there has been plenty of description of John Clark’s physical appearance throughout the novels. He is Caucasian, approximately 6’2” to 6’3” with dark/black hair and blue eyes. He is a somewhat hirsute man, extremely fit but not body builder bulky. very athletic. described as very physically imposing. Besides his 3rd SOG seal tat he’d have multiple scars on his person - at least 2 (if I recall correctly) 7.62x39 hits in the torso from one of his seal missions in Vietnam, and a shotgun birdshot blast injury to the upper right quadrant of his back and neck from the incident that brought about the personal mission stateside in without remorse.

he is not a short Skinny white guy (Dafoe) or an Athletic black guy. (Jordan). physically speaking Schreiber was pretty close. (Right height,right hair color,a big but not yoked guy) At one point If I recall correctly, there was a line in one of the books where John mentions to himself in an internal monologue, that he thinks he vaguely resembles Nicolas Cage… 2603:800C:2101:17F0:7D20:F581:7D45:DF9F (talk) 18:51, 3 December 2023 (UTC)