These questions and floods of others are asked as Paramount Pictures readies itself for the next entry in author Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan series. "The Sum of All Fears" is the 4th film in the series and Ben Affleck becomes the 3rd actor to play Jack Ryan. People who have played Ryan before Affleck include Alec Baldwin ("The Hunt for Red October") and Harrison Ford ("Patriot Games" and "Clear and Present Danger").

The evolution of Jack Ryan character from actor to actor isn't the only change in each film but the character itself has seen several different incarnations. In 1990's "The Hunt for Red October", Alec Baldwin played a young version CIA analyst, Jack Ryan, who is convinced that a Russian submarine captain, (played by Sean Connery) was not trying to start a war, but trying to defect. This portrayal of Ryan is where the series seems to have come back to with the new film. Baldwin's Ryan and Affleck's Ryan are very similar.

In the Harrison Ford films which started in 1992 with "Patriot Games," Ford played Ryan as a former CIA agent/analyst turned history professor, who is drawn back into the agency after foiling an IRA terrorist attack. Ford's character, unlike Baldwin's, is also married to Cathy Ryan (played by Anne Archer) and reluctant to get pulled back into the spy-business. Ford went on to reprise the role in 1994's "Clear and Present Danger," in which Ford played Ryan as the now Deputy Director of the CIA who must stop a powerful Colombian drug cartel. Ford's wife is also featured and a new covert character, named John Clark, who is introduced and he is played by Willem Dafoe.

Not only is there a new Jack Ryan film but the character has under gone some changes as well. For Affleck to take the reigns, the filmmakers made a younger Ryan who isn't highly known at the CIA. Ryan also isn't married like he was in the Ford films. What does remain intact is the core of the character which is his often reluctance to get dirty while being a spy. This "more-brains-than-brawn" approach to being a spy sets Ryan away from other Hollywood super-spy James Bond. The Ryan character itself is best when he is reluctant and when he is faced with a mission where "wet-works" are involved.

Chase Brandon, a 30-year CIA veteran, commented on the realism in the film. Brandon said that the film depicts the characters, Ryan included, as very realistic and that the three levels of the CIA are very evident. Brandon says that being a spy isn't a job or career but more of a lifestyle because you basically have to live a "life of deception". Brandon comments that Affleck "was a perfect Jack Ryan, a character who is the quintessential representation of an agency analyst, someone who is able to read and speak several different languages, as well as handle piles of documents, radio programming and satellite photography. On top of that, he is able to look at it all and make sense out of it."

In the new film, Jack Ryan re-teams with operations specialist John Clark, played by Liev Schreiber, who is the quintessential spy and knows all about killing and going deep undercover. Unlike Ryan's evolution, Clark seems unscathed except for a change in actor. In "Clear and Present Danger," Clark and Ryan butt-heads a lot and that conflict is one of the high-lights of the film. Now that Ryan is a lot younger and is more freshman than veteran you have even better banter between these characters. You could almost say that Clark has more in common with James Bond than Ryan. Chase Brandon says that he knows all about the Clark character because that was the branch he was in.

What probably makes the Jack Ryan series so interesting is that these films and their direction is centered in reality and the problems faced by Ryan could be actually happen. Unlike James Bond whose problems are more fantastical than real. Just so you know, Ryan also doesn't do the "gadget" or "multiple women" thing either. Ryan is a cerebral spy.