spades slick is a character from the webcomic "homestuck", which was created by andrew hussie. he is an alternate universe version of jack noir, and is the leader of a gang of mobsters known as the midnight crew.
both him and the midnight crew are a part of a species known as carapacians. in simple terms, they are humanoid chess pieces, serving as fundamental pieces to homestuck's main premise: a game titled "sburb". carapacians are native to the planets of derse and prospit; the white pieces being prospitians, and the black pieces being dersites. in all sburb sessions, jack (slick) is known as the "archagent" of derse, serving under the black queen. he will always possess a deep, intrinsic hatred towards her (the reasoning generally varying between sessions), and it is the player's job to make sure that his boundless hatred doesn't impede their success.
slick, being a variant of jack, once served as derse's archagent for the trolls' sburb session. both him and his allies (who are eventually known as the midnight crew) are exiled from derse as an act of revenge from the black queen after teaming up with the aformentioned trolls to dethrone her. instead of "jack noir", he assumes the name "spades slick" as he is exiled, and his subordinates follow suit, them being diamonds droog, clubs deuce, and hearts boxcars. it is then up to them to repopulate the deserted wasteland of alternia, which was once home to the trolls in the past.
alternia's climate, which is known to be extremely hot, barren, and generally uninhabitable by other creatures, is no match for slick. he and the midnight crew successfully begin to cultivate a society of their own, sculpting "midnight city" in the image of the 1920s.
carapacians are not the only inhabitants of midnight city, as there are another group of mobsters known as "the felt" which is made almost entirely of leprechauns. the felt also has a very crucial member, that being the exiled black queen, who now goes by "snowman". each member of the felt is represented by a pool ball, with the exception of lord english, who is the cue. snowman (who is now the eight ball) is recruited into the felt by omniscient co-leader doc scratch (the cueball), who strikes a deal with her in exchange for powers that tie her life to that of the universe. this means that if she is killed, the universe itself would end, which gave her enough leverage to mess with slick however she pleased, knowing that he couldn't possibly kill her.
the tension betwen the felt and the midnight crew is what leads up to homestuck's intermission, which is an entire subplot based upon the midnight crew. they are raiding the felt's mansion with the goal to eradicate the felt after they had toppled one of the crew's casinos. the intermission is a short, yet elaborate caper, involving none other than its trademark Weird Time Shit. despite most readers disregarding the intermission's importance and writing it off as something that can be skipped with little to no repercussion, it's extremely important in understanding both the trolls' session and bec noir (another alternate jack...)'s eventual rise to power, which is heavily foreshadowed within the contents of the intermission.
during the intermission, the crew succeeds in taking down the felt's leprechaun members, but not without sacrificing themselves. slick and snowman are the only appearing characters that survive, and even then, slick doesn't escape unscathed. snow takes it upon herself to stab his eye out with her cigarette holder and take his arm off with her whip, which is presumably supposed to emulate jack noir's similar appearance. this is plausible, given that snow's powers allow her to see throughout different timelines, outcomes, and sessions.
"Oh, are you looking for this? Well come and get it, you contemptuous she-witch."
as we're able to see throughout the intermission, slick is very ambitious. he holds his grudge against the felt until his eventual death in act 6, never letting go of the fact that they toppled his casino and killed his crew. he lives strictly by the mantra of "stab first, talk later", and is very quick to make and execute decisions; once he says he's going to do something, he does it, no questions asked. his disposition is rather vulgar and violent, and he is often extremely sarcastic. respectively, he has an extremely strong hatred towards both snowman and clocks, but he has a soft spot for knives, terriers, and black licorice scottie dogs. despite his extremely short fuse, his disposition seems to be a little better than jack's, given that he's able to set aside his differences and work with karkat.
slick's main weapon is the cast iron horse hitcher, which is dually the ace of spades. he has a wide repertoire of other weapons, most of which are knives and swords. in the bonuses for "problem sleuth", the webcomic he and the midnight crew were first shown in, he is said to have a type of sinister shadow-based magic. in the same bonus pages, he is also shown playing the piano in the crew's band. this is the basis for the midnight crew's own album, titled "midnight crew: drawing dead". tracks on this album that are themes of his include "liquid negrocity", "the ballad of jack noir", and "knives and ivory". he has themes on other albums aside from the crew's as well, a few of those songs being "walk-stab-walk (R&E)" and
"octoroon rangoon".