Seriously. A valid question.
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Outside of geeks and Brian Michael Bendis fans, few remembered her. With good reason.
Information drive-by: here’s what you need to know.
- In the comics: Jessica Jones has superpowers. She was a second-string hero who while possessing a decent suite of powers, didn’t make much of a name for herself.
- In the comics: She was capable of flight, had enough superhuman strength to throw a car ten yards or so and while she could be cut if a knife was sharp enough, she was resistant to most small arms. Annoyed her clothing would have holes in it, but otherwise okay.
- Her superhero career happens retroactively and off-camera, so the writers inserted her into the Marvel Universe at a time when other heroes existed but she didn’t last long enough to become famous.
- In the series, she may have had a different origin altogether, but she would have likely remained just as unknown.
- In the comics, Jessica and Luke get involved.
- She is a private investigator because she had emotional issues during her time as a superhero.
- Her nemesis is the ‘Purple Man’, Dr. Zebediah Killgrave, a man capable of mind control. How Netflix will depict this will probably be a bit different than in the comics.
- I bet you he got exposed to something off the truck which gave her and Daredevil their powers…
To read any further risks contamination of information which may or may not be relevant to the development of the story and your personal enjoyment. Turn back, now.
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In a few hours…
…people will be tuning into the tragic tale of Jessica Jones. I am preempting this document to explain its tone. Unlike many of these things I write about superheroes, this one is part truth, part obfuscation, part rage, part frustration.
- The truth: I dislike this character. I dislike Brian Michael Bendis. Yes, I said it. Everything doesn’t have to be a grim and gritty tragedy.
- The obfuscation: I won’t reveal anything past a certain point, so if you were looking for spoilers, this ain’t it.
- The rage: I hate writers who think rape or other kinds of crime against women is cool for ‘storytelling purposes.’
- The frustration: Women in Refrigerators is even a thing. Still. Today. And in a few hours will get another thirteen hours dedicated, at least in part, to the concept.
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Jessica Jones
Ordinary student nearly killed by a strange truck full of radioactive chemicals which empowered people all over New York City before disappearing back into SHIELD HQ or as it was called back in the day “Ajax Atomic Labs.”
“Failed Female Hero needs Saving by Has-Been Hero for Hire” might be the trope’s name
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I don’t care what SHIELD redacts, at least two people were given metahuman abilities by this truck. I want to know what was on it, where it was coming from and why hasn’t anyone talked about the wide array of powers people got from this stuff… (I don’t have proof about the SHIELD involvement but when one person gets metahuman abilities, it’s a “radiation ACCIDENT.” When two people get them from the same truck, it’s an EXPERIMENT.)
Okay, back to Jessica. I have a problem with this character because it feels like so many people were trying to hard to create the definitive tragic story of a failed hero. And they did it so successfully, the character is almost a trope unto herself.
“Failed Female Hero needs Saving by Has-Been Hero for Hire” might be the trope’s name.
- Why did the writers decide to retroactively add her to the Marvel history, having her near and interested in Peter Parker, pre-spider-bite?
- Did they think they were being clever?
- Or was it a way to indicate her proximity to fame would eventually have her become famous?
- And then to kick up the coincidence meter into the red, she gains her powers from the same truck where Daredevil gains his superhuman senses? Remember this truck?
Daredevil #1 (April, 1964)
As far as I can tell, Daredevil got hosed. He lost his sight and gained a whole lot of other powers that were amazing but won’t make it any easier for him to use the camera on his smartphone…Daredevil, I’d petition my writers for better powers.
Nothing like a cannister of mysterious radioactive waste landing in your lap in a timely fashion…
Meanwhile, in the classic comic fashion, Jessica’s family is killed in the accident and Jessica walks away with flight, superhuman strength and a limited degree of damage resistance to injury. Nothing major league, she still couldn’t take the Vision in a fight, but normal Joe Sixpack isn’t even remotely in her league.
So she gets a second-hand origin, two of them in fact, and then goes on to become a second-class hero. She gets the inspired called to action and on her initial outing like so many heroes, she bungles it. I’m okay with it. I remember Batman during Year One… Everyone can have an off day.
Her subsequent rescue by Thor was embarrassing and probably humbling. Okay. Can relate. In an effort to bring her A game, she makes a costume. I am certain there are fanboys everywhere who loved it, but I was not among them. And her codename? Jewel.
Which sets her up for victimization by writers known for taking extreme measures with characters to “make them edgy” to “get people talking about them.”
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What? Say that again? Jewel. Uh, what does that have to do with her powers? Is she hard like a diamond? No. Um, does she twinkle in the light? No. What possessed anyone to think this was a good handle? We’ll chalk it up to bad writing about what a teenager might want to call herself if she became a superhero. Yeah. Okay. I can almost believe it.
Her superhero career had NOTHING to distinguish it. She was a barely talented, hardly written, second class superhero who had nothing to make her interesting to anyone. She literally didn’t exist…
Which sets her up for victimization by writers known for taking extreme measures with characters to “make them edgy” to “get people talking about them.”
Ron Marz’s Green Lantern #54 (1994)
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Which today, lends itself to a trope called Stuffed into the Fridge or by its more popular name: “Women in Refrigerators.” To break this down quickly so I can return to my rant — Whenever a writer is feeling lazy and wants to motivate a male character, not all the time but it certainly feels that way in comics and television and occasionally movies and cartoons…okay more often than we want to admit: The woman is imperiled so the man can be motivated (a narrative push) to move the story forward.
In the case of the name for this trope: The young and intrepid Green Lantern, Kyle Raynor, has been given the last ring of the Green Lantern Corps, told there weren’t any more and he was the keeper of the legacy, proceeds to learn about the ring and be kind of lax with keeping proper safety protocols. Needless to say, his enemy broke his girlfriend into a nice shape which could fit in a refrigerator…
I hate writers who think rape of any kind, figurative in the case of Jessica Jones, or literal like the fools who love Game of Thrones, rape is reprehensible and we shouldn’t use it as a part of a plot checklist to motivate ANY protagonists.
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Thus: whenever writers abuse women, torture them, rape them (more in a minute) or kill them, this trope should be activated. Immediately afterward, male writers should have their testicles hooked to a car battery. For the same amount of time it took to write and draw that particular issue.
I hate rape. I hate writers who think rape of any kind, figurative in the case of Jessica Jones, or literal like the fools who love Game of Thrones, rape is reprehensible and we shouldn’t use it as a part of a plot checklist to motivate ANY protagonists.
What is it with designers and their gravity-defying women’s costumes?
- The costume’s ability to stay UP and covering anything must be part of Jessica’s superpower suite.
- Strapless Modesty: superheroines with this power can literally wear anything and it never slips and exposes any part of her anatomy restricted by the Comics Code, no matter how many times my wife bursts out in laughter at the costume.
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Thanks for the PSA
What does this have to do with Jessica Jones?
Jones still flush with her new status as a superhero has the unfortunate fate of running across one of Marvel’s character gems, the Purple Man. A villain with the power of nigh-irresistible mind control.
He kidnaps Jessica, holds her hostage for eight months and makes her watch him engage in any number of depravities. We are lead to believe these things bordered on, or were directly related to rape, murder, mayhem. Imagine a mind-control so powerful you could make people kill themselves.
Or make them watch.
This is as far as I’m going to go with the story. Past this point there be spoilers.
I just wanted those of you who didn’t know anything about Jessica to know a little bit about her and maybe find the whole creation of the character as both sad, lazy, tragic and monstrous because — it is this tragic story and everything after it which will be made into a movie for general consumption.
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What’s your problem, man?
You want to know what my problem is? We couldn’t get a movie about Wonder Woman could we? Or a woman who is wondrous. Or any other female hero with generations of comic storytelling behind her.
Not a single heavy hitter in a costume besides Black Widow until two months ago when Supergirl hit the scene. (Yes, I’Zombie is darkly funny and amusing but she just got here.) Supergirl’s a shadow of the Big Blue Boy Scout and he has a movie career to protect. Can’t be watering down the brand.
So instead of wondrous, we get broken. Why?
Who thought this would be a great idea in a world full of amazing, powerful and happily maladjusted male heroes. (See: Tony Stark, Bruce Banner.)
Jessica gets to come to the screen not because she is a great hero. No, she is a failed hero. A hero whose career is marred, and yet in the comics she does manage to pull herself together.
I guess this is the Marvel way. She is a better character than I expected her to end up given the lackluster effort they put into her creation and story-telling up to her kidnapping. It irks me because she is paired with Luke Cage in the comics and now on television. I never liked the arrangement but I recognize the media propensity for racially mixing while reality is exactly the opposite of media depictions.
Yes, I said it.
As usual, in Marvel, there will be no relationships where characters of color end up with other characters of color. (See: Prince T’challa and Ororo Monroe – Divorce papers filed.)
Marvel says coincidence and I say: BS. These are characters, they do exactly what they are designed to. So if they are doing this, it’s because you want them to. I guess the answer to why is a different essay. I have waited my whole life to see Luke Cage partnered with a powerful Black woman. I guess, I am still waiting. Perhaps we should acknowledge the lack of powerful female heroes of color for him to choose from…Storm can’t date everyone, right?
I dislike the character because mixed in with the character is a lot of shame and self-loathing. The comic series Alias, which most of this series is likely based on, was in my opinion like watching a video of a car stuck on the train track with the driver moving too slow to get out.
You want to look away, but you don’t. This comic series was like that. Brian Michael Bendis is considered one of the best writers in the business. But after this series, I could never read anything else he wrote without a strong recommendation from someone I trust with my sanity.
What I don’t like is the nature of an industry which says mind-violated women who will be mentally tortured for 13 hours somehow rank a better media model than someone who has been part of the national tapestry for 60 years. (See: Wonder Woman)
People should have been able to have this Jessica Jones (with a working costume.) Happy, filled with joy, bumbling through her early career learning about her superpowers, but someone thought it more appropriate she should have been mind-raped first. Because that makes her interesting. It makes her a compelling character.Because there’s no rape culture in America. Right…
This post originally appeared on Quora. Reprinted with permission.
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Photo: Getty Images
Good grief. What a waste of time and space that was.