While I haven’t been a fan of the promo campaign heralding his return, I have to say I was over the moon at Jonathan Jackson’s return to the role that made him famous, “General Hospital”‘s charming Lucky Spencer. The actor, who left “GH” ten years ago, fit back into the police officer shoes of Lucky, spawn of supercouple Luke and Laura. He’s retained all of the soul and passion he had ten years ago – he’s also filled out some and, while more slight than the last two Luckys, has become such a handsome man. And his sweet smile is a welcome sight on this show full of pain, deception and mob hits.

Lucky’s gonna need smiles, because his girl is boffing his brother. (Whoops!)

Times have changed since Jackson left, and so has Lucky – in 1999, was Lucky was a streetwise, sensitive soul who was kidnapped by his parents’ evil nemesis Helena Cassadine. When he returned, he was blonder, hunkier and looked like Jacob Young (now “All My Children’s J.R.). Later, he started to look like even hunkier, though dark-haired, Greg Vaughn, who played him until last week. Lucky’s been through the ringer – he got shot in an attack that killed his police partner, became a drug addict and started cheating on love-of-his-life Elizabeth with vixen Maxie Jones, because she could get him a fix (tacky!)

Lately, things have been even trickier – Lucky thinks he’s on the right track to a reunion with Elizabeth, who has accepted his remarraige proposal after a bad period during which he found out that their son, Jake, was actually the biological kid of mobster Jason Morgan. (Whoops again!) Lucky thinks everything is hunky dory, because he doesn’t know that his beloved is now having a thing with his brother, Dark Prince Cassadine Nikolas the Arch Tattooed Brooder, who is currently also messing with the head of his dead ex-wife’s twin. Please don’t ask.

I really hated the Nikolas/Elizabeth storyline while Vaughn was playing Lucky, because Nik and Liz don’t have any chemistry, their sex is sneaky and gross, and because I’ve never thought that the show wrote Lucky well with Vaughn in the role. He wasn’t the strongest actor, but he deserved better. This is Luke and Laura’s son, and they made him a dull stooge whose woman would rather be with anyone else but him. It was insulting, as well as a sacrifice to the cult of Jason Morgan, the show’s mobster murderer hero. And with a different actor than the one that originated the role, it’s been easier for the show to completely rewrite history and make Luke some horrible bum who never wanted a family, which Jackson’s tenure disproved.

Today, the show still ended with Nik and Liz hooking up, but I can’t see them letting Jonathan Jackson’s Lucky continue to be a chump like this. Something tells me that now that the person they consider the “real” Lucky is back, they’ll start acting like Liz and Nik are doing something wrong, rather than that they have this inescapable passion that the t really pull off.

So, welcome back, JJ. Take your character back, and make him the awesome guy he’s supposed to be, not everybody’s favorite cute punching bag. And thanks, “GH!”