Oliver Wendell Jones is a fictional character in Bloom County, Outland and Opus, three comic strips by American cartoonist Berkeley Breathed. The character was named for United States Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. Fictional character biography Oliver is an elementary-school age child with an incredibly advanced knowledge of science, math, technology, and computers. He is a strict rationalist and an atheist, although his understanding of the complex nature of the universe drives him to consider (once per year, on a strict schedule) the possibility of an intelligence behind its creation. His father, Frank Jones, was a regular character in the series, while his mother, while present, appeared far less and usually only in direct reaction to Oliver's storylines. The Jones family represented the only African-American family in the strip, a fact that was often referenced directly as a point of humor or satire. The genius of the group, he frequently use his intelligence for political activism that borders on the illegal, such as hacking and dangerous scientific experiments. His father Frank frequently punishes him for his criminal activities, albeit begrudgingly, particularly when some of Oliver's schemes profit Frank personally. First appearance Oliver first appeared in a Bloom County's daily strip on September 26, 1983, dragging a desktop computer in a wagon. Over the course of strips on the following four days, he used his Banana Jr. 6000 computer to alter the front page of the New York Times from "Reagan Calls Women 'America's Most Valuable Resource'" to "Reagan Calls Women 'America's Li'l Dumplin's'", sparking nationwide outrage (the comment was based on a real comment made by Hayden Fry, the football coach for the University of Iowa). He similarly hacked into the headquarters of Russia's state-owned newspaper and attempted to change the headlines to "Gorbachev Urges Disarmament! Complete! Total!" (though due to a mistranslation, the headlines actually read "Gorbachev Sings Tractors! Turnips! Buttocks!"). He also breached computers at the National Strategic Defense Center (a reference to NORAD), AT&T's telephone customer account file, and the IRS in order to give his father a multi-million dollar tax refund. Among his other accomplishments is building an atomic bomb for a school science project using radioactive material scraped from luminescent clocks, a feat that got him suspended from school. He also hijacked HBO's transmissions claiming to be leader of the "People's Revolutionary Anti Scrambling Front for the Liberation of Public Airwaves etc, etc."