So I read some 'Jessica Jones' comics this year.
I'm glad I got to fully know, appreciate, and admire and even love Jessica Jones eventually, at any rate, no matter how it happened.
The idea behind her character is genius: A mediocre superheroine gives up the cape to become a private detective, to help people through mundane means that don't involve big battles and cosmic threats (superpowers and destroyed, falling buildings may still apply, depending on the people and how situations escalate), thus introducing readers to a more cynical, dark, adult underbelly of the Marvel universe. The heroine's stories are of the crime mystery genre; less stringent in their superhero content and focus. It is like superhero noir, and underground Marvel, where the "normal" way of "fighting bad guys" is in fact no more civilised and safe than in the traditional superhero sense. It is brilliant, brimming upon opening with a myriad of storytelling and character development possibilities and opportunities.
Jessica's hero name was Jewel, but she has become jaded.
Traumatised. Broken. Even for a person with superstrength and near invulnerability, some scars never heal.
It's also fantastic to show an SA survivor be a hero. To show her get through anything, in spite of everything that has happened to her, that no human being should have to suffer through. And in her fluctuating trauma and healing processes, she still manages to have a happy family life, with a husband and child. For Marvel to grant a happy family life, to allow lasting happiness of any kind, to any of their heroes, is a rare and beautiful accolade, but to give it to someone like Jessica Jones, as an extremely flawed female character in male dominated spaces, and as a traumatised victim and survivor... I don't say this often, but Marvel, you are extraordinary. You broke the mould, you broke "tradition" and general, societal expectations, human cruelty and cynicism be damned, and I thank you for your bravery.
Since it is Marvel, however, Jessica will never have a "normal" life, per say. She will always be dealing with fucked up shit, and her pain will never truly go away for good (I don't think it ever will be allowed to for fictional storytelling reasons, for "conflict", which is terrible). On the other hand, that Marvel had chosen to deal with such heavy and sensitive subject matters - SA, trauma, PTSD - with one of their heroes to begin with, as far back as 2002, and in ways that are handled well for the most part, and they have stuck by them decades later, improving all the time, it must be commended.
I remember the year I decided to read 'Black Widow' comics, and I had thought Natasha Romanoff was a Marvel superheroine who had gone through the worst, most vile and intense shit imaginable. But Jessica Jones... I want to give her a hug and tell her everything is going to be okay. Even though, again, it is the Marvel universe, and a superhero comic universe at that, where writers make it a standard to never be afraid to brutalise their characters, to find new, sicker means and angles to make them suffer, so I know it won't be okay for long. But Jessica, in how she is regularly written to be so flawed and human, and how she seems like me and other women I know (we are both flawed, messy adult brunettes surviving in the world, for one), I feel like I want to be her friend; I want to support her and everything she represents.
One part of that representation is she is an "unlikeable" female protagonist. Kudos there, Brian Michael Bendis and team, from over twenty years ago now.
I'll start my 'Jessica Jones' reviews with where it all began: 'Jessica Jones: Alias, Vol. 1'.
In truth, I first read it eight years prior, after watching the first season of the 'Jessica Jones' TV series, and I wanted to know her origins, and see what the praise was about for this exceptionally unique Marvel comics heroine. And then I completely forgot about the comic, and the show. Life and other pop culture fixations caught my attention at the time, I guess.
Finally deciding to give it another chance, I recently reread Bendis' first volume, and like with Jessica herself, I have come to appreciate it better than I did when I was younger and naïve.
'Jessica Jones: Alias, Vol. 1' is a Marvel classic for a reason. It is an adult crime mystery thriller set in the Marvel universe, that's grittier than grit. The super elements are put on the side. Any superhero action isn't the focus.
No, the focus is Jessica Jones and her cases, and how deep they go, and how they affect both her clients and herself.
I won't reveal any more of this mystery comic, but I will say it is very good. Bendis knows how to write - the atmosphere, the structure, the pacing, the flow, the deeper, inner lives of the characters, and their interactions with each other, and their dialogue. (Jessica has female friends - her best is Carol Danvers, the future Captain Marvel - and she has conversations with them over coffee, and it is wonderful). The comic is "dark" in a genuinely mature sense. It is very psychological, and utilises that psychology in the characters and their lives exceedingly, thrillingly well.
Bendis especially knows how to surprise the reader at every turn, on nearly every page. It adds to the thrill factor. Nothing about this comic is predictable, conventional, or safe. No one is safe.
Not even Jessica Jones, PI. Invulnerability powers cannot always save her.
Jessica is as much of a mess as you can imagine. Bendis doesn't merely write her as being "dark" and "edgy", like the Punisher or any of that nineties edgelord crap. None of that violent, bleak nihilism, that is typically male centric. Jessica is just human. A human at her lowest, who happens to be a former superhero. That part of her life is gone now, or she wishes it to be.
However, superheroes... and villains... tend to interfere in her work a lot.
She was never really a good and competent hero, and she messes up, makes mistakes, and overlooks crucial details as an "ordinary" detective, but she's trying.
Despite all the shit, she is still trying to help people, in her own fashion, her own coping mechanism.
Jessica Jones is not strong on the inside like she is on the outside, but... she's trying. She's getting there. She's surviving. She's living. She hasn't given up trying to save the innocent. She may learn how she could save herself along the way.
What a great message about human endurance, and healing (which is not linear) and finding connections and love again after trauma, that Jessica Jones represents.
'Jessica Jones: Alias, Vol. 1' has its flaws. It's from 2002, and it has its dated, antiquated, regressive attitudes and stereotypes, especially towards gay people, and even the women, who remain male dependent. There is slut shaming, and even though Jessica has friendly conversations with women, including Carol Danvers, I don't think the comic passes the Bechdel Test. Every single female client goes to her because of a man, or it has something to do with a man in a romantic proclivity and direction. And I swear every 'Jessica Jones' comic I've read has a female client, or at least an acquaintance, of Jessica's end up dead later on, if not in the same issue then the next. The political reflections and satire in her first case feel depressingly dated, too.
Malcolm, Jessica's "intern" or "secretary", can fuck off, the creep. Good on Jessica for actually telling him to fuck off many times, though he never does. I'm glad to never see him again in subsequent 'Jessica Jones' comics and other media.
Despite the hiccups, however, I recommend 'Jessica Jones: Alias, Vol. 1', and not only for seasoned Marvel comic readers. On its own, it is a good comic, superheroes or not.
The art is particularly dark, shadowy, and gritty, in the best, ahem, light. It reminds me of Alan Moore's 'Watchmen', and 'Alias' could be argued to be in a similar vein as that, in the "dark, cynical, nihilistic, depressing, and political story about superpowered humans living mundane, "normal" lives, set in a "realistic" superhero world" premise.
It's an amazing, promising start to my 'Jessica Jones' reading journey.
Additional note to put here: The only 'Jessica Jones' comic I absolutely detest is 'The Pulse' story collection. It is disgusting, tasteless, and badly written, and contains cringey artwork, and portrays Jessica at her worst and most pathetic. She's barely the main character; it's barely about her. Hell, her being a PI is never even mentioned! I don't know why she does (and doesn't do!) the things she does (and doesn't do!) in 'The Pulse'. She exists just to be pregnant and a mother. It is one of the worst Marvel comics I have ever read. It is one of the worst comics I have ever read, period. I cannot believe Bendis wrote it. What happened?! I hate it enough to want to boycott him, while finding it in my heart to continue praising his other work on 'Jessica Jones'.
Phew! Relieved to get that rant off my chest - somewhere. Back to the good 'Jessica Jones' comics, such as 'Alias, Vol. 1'.
Read it. It's worth it, no matter who you are.
Final Score: 3.5/5
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