Jonathan had always been a geek on the margins of Sunnydale High School, who occasionally came up in cases pursues by Buffy, but mostly remained awkward and lonely. In "Earshot" Jonathan had even attempted to kill himself.

In the Season Four "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" episode "Superstar", Jonathan had cast a spell that transformed the world and himself into a state of being where he is a multi-talented superman, a genius in every field, a leader of men, incredibly appealing to women with talents in nearly every area. In this altered reality Jonathan was the inventor of the Internet, the star of "The Matrix" and a swimsuit model as well as a Broadway star and an adviser to "The Initiative". Through his spell gained powers and popularity, the lonely and marginalized Jonathan had gained the wish of every fanboy seeking to "Mary Sue" his way into Star Wars, Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica or the Fantasy or Science Fiction franchise of his choice. For a time anyway.

After his spell dissipated when Jonathan was unwilling to pay the price required, sparing the monster which had been spawned by his spell, he returned to his usual ways. In Season Six, Jonathan joined with the trio which tormented Buffy, but was the earliest of the Trio to repent of it. In the Seventh Season, Jonathan was murdered by Andrew, another of the Trio.

"Jonathan: Codename Comrades" is a one shot Buffy comic that takes place before the events of "Superstar" within the altered reality imposed by Jonathan. In it Jonathan who has become part 007 James Bond and part slayer but finds himself lonely. He has made himself godlike but he is not a god, only a young boy playing out a part which he has forced on the world and on himself. For all his popularity he has no one to share it with. When he discovers that a gang of Soviet Vampires is on the way to gain control of the Hellmouth, Jonathan takes the opportunity to reunite the "Scooby Gang", Buffy herself, Giles, Willow, Xander, Anya and Spike. Under Jonathan, they go down into the sewers underneath the town of Sunnydale.

The Soviet Vampires have originated from a Soviet predecessor to The Initiative, a government agency which in the fourth season of Buffy attempted to harness and control the powers of Vampires and other demonic creatures and to employ them as weapons. The Soviet version of this was known as Zemyada (not a word that actually appears to mean anything. From the attempted explanation in the comic it appears that Jane Espenson might have meant Zadaycha, which would be Purpose and serve as the Russian analogue to the English, Initiative) and featured Soviet scientists training and experimenting on vampires and demons in order to prepare them for a war with the United States and the rest of the Free World.

With the Cold War ending, the facility was abandoned and some of the Vampires managed to survive and break loose forming into a post-Communist criminal gang. A Vampire Russian mafia. Though they still wear their Soviet jumpsuits, presumably for the irrational cinematic reasons things happen in Jonathan's world, they are demons with the aim of seizing power over the entire world.

As a counterpoint to the struggle against the Post Communist Vampire mob is Jonathan's own struggle with himself, his guilt over what he has done which dilutes his enjoyment of the fantasy life he has created for himself and most of all his loneliness, which has not abated with his new life. In his old life Jonathan had been marginalized as an outsider and ignored as a geek. In his new life Jonathan had gone all the way possible to the extreme opposite extreme and made himself over into such an incredible superhero that he was just as isolated. For all the admiration and adoration directed at him, Jonathan remains all alone. And it isn't until he gathers Buffy and the rest of the Scooby Gang together for their venture does Jonathan feel good again because he has managed to approach what he wanted, what he really wanted, which is to have friends. His misguided attempts at achieving that had brought him to create an ultimately sterile world in which he was a musical genius, a technological and strategic whiz kid and the greatest fighter the world has ever known-- and all the more alone for all that.

(The rape issue which would be raised explicitly in Buffy Season 6 when Jonathan and the trio try to employ a magic ring to get any girl they want is not addressed in either the episode "Superstar" or here in "Jonathan: Codename Comrades" with the Swedish twins being treated as too absurd to merit being taken seriously. However it is a legitimate issue nonetheless.)

At the end of "Jonathan: Codename Comrades", Jonathan for a moment contemplates the price he will have to pay for what he has done here, but dismisses it as something that he will have to worry about at another time. That time is of course "Superstar" itself.