With their version of Daredevil putting all memories of watching Ben Affleck flirt with Jennifer Garner on a playground swing mercifully out of our minds, the Netflix corner of the Marvel Universe had already established itself as the meaner, grittier cousin to the larger MCU. But with the man without fear ploughing the road for Marvel adaptations that didn’t have to pander to a summer blockbuster crowd, and skew to more adult themes, who would be next to join this growing pantheon of meaner and moodier heroes.
Created in 2001 by Brian Michael Bendis and Michael Gaydos and appearing in a book entitled Alias, Jessica Jones wasn’t like your other female superheroes at the time. While most tried to radiate a more positive and public friendly image of a super powered woman, Jessica came loaded with more emotional baggage than ten Tony Starks at an airport. Could the already darker Netflix shows do justice to such a complex character the way that it had revitalised Matthew Murdock and Wilson Fisk?
Meet Jessica Jones, a woman who works as a private eye in the seedy underbelly of NYC. When she isn’t snapping salacious pics of cheating spouses as they “bone”, she aggressively keeps up her hobby of being a high functioning alcoholic as she trawls through a life bereft of trust and friends. However, under that grouchy, cynical demeanor, lurks something rather out of the norm – you see, Jessica has superpowers but while similarly gifted folk has either used them to try and change the world, or steal a quick buck, Jones has elected to keep them under wraps which only adds to her impressive self-loathing.
When she isn’t accepting jobs off the street, such as the Shlottmans from Omaha looking for their missing daughter, Hope; or taking handout jobs from icy lawyer Jeri Hogarth, Jones finds herself compulsively spying on bar owner Luke Cage for mysterious reasons not yet revealed. But as we get to know Jessica more and more, we find that she’s quite the contradictory character and a sizable amount of her anti-social antics may have something to do with the PTSD she suffers from an undisclosed traumatic event that occurred in her past. However, when the missing persons case of Hope Shlottman starts to get disturbingly familiar, Jessica fears that a fearsome figure from her past has resurfaced.
While usually adverse from playing the hero, Jones just can’t stand by and let the mysterious figure known as “Kilgrave” ruin another life, but after tracking down and rescuing Hope from a situation that she’s uncomfortably familiar with, it looks like Jessica may have it in her to play the hero after all – or she did until Kilgrave’s hold on Hope causes her to do something awful.
While that uncompromising level of grit that came with Daredevil is fully present, Jessica Jones proves to be a completely different show to ol’ hornheads – there’s less action, no masks and certainly no chance of any of those nifty “onesie” brawls that set social media alight as DD beat crooks to a pulp in one, exhausting, violent take. However, Jessica Jones has some very different fish to fry and opts to smartly exchange a more physical brutality with something more emotionally vicious as it explores the aftermath of abusive relationships. Of course, we’ve got a while to go before that aspect of the season fully reveals itself, but until it does, it’s worth taking a step back and marvelling (no pun intended) at how daring the show is when it comes to delivering a central, superpowered, female character with her own show who is a glorious piece of shit.
Still a relatively new character compared to your Hulks and your Captain Americas, Jessica Jones proved to be something of a breath of fresh air despite that air probably smelling a lot like last night’s liquor. While a lot of genre characters written for women tended to cast them as capable, strong, right-minded professionals, I always wondered why we couldn’t get one who was as fucked up as all the men. Just look at the marriage problems of John McClane, the sanity issues of Martin Riggs, the sheer amount of daddy issues that lay within the majority of the MCU – if Iron Man can use his problems as excuse to day drink, womanize and be irresponsible, why can’t a woman, and it’s precisely here that the show finds its immediate sweet spot. To put it bluntly, Jessica is magnificent trash. Her job is horrible despite the fact that she’s very good at it, her alcohol intake is worryingly high and she systematically seems to have prevented anyone from getting close to her thanks to an attitude that frankly stinks. In other words, she’s something of a revelation and it’s fascinating watching Krysten Ritter (who famously exited Breaking Bad while choking on her own vomit) plumb more anti-social depths as she gives us the type of Marvel hero we’d never really seen before.
Obviously, as this is a first episode, the story is split between introducing us to her impressively scuzzy life and gradually bringing in the main, overarching plot which deals with the search for Erin (The Boys) Moriarty’s tragic Hope. The introductions of her supporting cast, such as Carrie-Anne Moss’ Jerri Hogath; Eka Darville’s bumbling drug addict neighbour, Malcolm and Rachel Taylor’s caring TV personality Trish Walker are crisp and to the point – but as we’ll get more of them over the coming episodes, the most noticeable addition to the group is that of Mike Colter’s Luke Cage, who comic fans will know that he has a few underplayed super tricks of his own. In fact, the subplot that sees Jessica stalking Cage and then seducing him for a night of extremely physical sex is all the more noticable, not just because it’s wasn’t that often we got to watch supes “do it” back in 2015, but how much undeclared back story there is involved. Fans will know that Jones and Cage have quite the history and having a Marvel crossover that results in sweaty bedroom antics is just another example of this show obvioisly wanting to break some rules.
Anyone hoping for prolonged brawls or various superhero antics may want to adjust their expectations a bit as Jones is more about spinning up a slow burn, Film Noir vibe – which it does pretty well – but beyond some class, comic book nods (opening credits inspired by the comic cover art by David Mack is glorious), what really stands out here is a searing look at repressed female trauma.
As dark, grungy and cynical as you’d hope, “AKA Ladies Night” balances a bunch of introductions and the beginning to a bunch of mysteries with style. Riffing on the mature tone of Daredevil, Jessica Jones already manages to differentiate itself as a vastly different animal as it has some sizable social ills to shine a dingy light on. Yes, it’s early days, but while the Netflix era of Marvel may forgo alien invasions and epic battles, it proves that there’s just as desperate struggles going on in the gutters and alleys too. AKA awesome.
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