Jessica Jones

• 1. Introduction

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  Jessica Jones is a Marvel Comics superhero who spends much of her story trying not to be one. She runs a detective agency called Alias Private Investigations, and she is usually its only employee. Yet Marvel eventually placed her in a high school classroom in June 1963, standing near a teenage boy at the moment a spider bit him. That boy was Peter Parker. How can a character introduced in the early 2000s turn up in a comic from the Silver Age? Why was she very nearly someone else entirely? And what happens to a hero who hangs up the costume, only to be pulled back by family, old friends, and the man who once controlled her mind?

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• 2. A Different Jessica

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  Brian Michael Bendis first pictured his new series as a story about Jessica Drew, a hero who had already spent time as a private investigator. His plan was to treat her as a reinvention that returned her to those detective roots. As he developed the book, the lead character gained a voice and a background so distinct that she no longer felt like Drew. He made her a new person, Jessica Jones, but he kept the first name. His reasoning was that "two people can have the same first name."

  In a 2005 interview, Bendis was plain about how close the project came to being something else. He said, "Originally, Alias was going to star Jessica Drew, but it became something else entirely. Which is good, because had we used Jessica, it would have been off continuity and bad storytelling." An earlier comment revealed a lighter motive for the first idea. Drew, he joked, has "the best hair of any superhero in comics."

  Artist Michael Gaydos co-created the series with Bendis, and Alias launched in November 2001 as part of Marvel MAX, an imprint built for more mature stories. The run lasted 28 issues and ended in 2004, with most covers drawn by David W. Mack. When it closed, Jones and her supporting cast followed Bendis into his next series, The Pulse. Issue #22 of Alias would also quietly rewrite where she had been standing long before her own debut.

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• 3. Origin In The Crowd

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  Alias #22 reveals that Jessica was just off-panel in Amazing Fantasy #15, the issue where Spider-Man first appeared. Bendis went further in The Amazing Spider-Man #601. That story established her true first appearance as The Amazing Spider-Man #4 in June 1963, where she was an unnamed classmate of Peter Parker. That earlier comic was the work of writer-editor Stan Lee and artist Steve Ditko.

  In this telling, she begins as Jessica Campbell, a student at Midtown High with a crush on Peter. She is present when the irradiated spider bites him and tries to talk to him. When he reacts to the bite, shyness sends her running.

  Her family's end came on the road home from a trip. Her father had received tickets to Walt Disney World from his boss, Tony Stark. Their car then collided with a military convoy carrying radioactive chemicals. Everyone but Jessica died, and she spent several months in a coma. She woke in an orphanage and was adopted by Alisa Jones and Mr. Jones. Later she discovered that the radiation had given her super strength, limited invulnerability, and flight.

  Back at Midtown High, her new parents enrolled her again, and classmates shunned her, especially Flash Thompson. Peter, who had since become Spider-Man and lost his Uncle Ben, sensed a fellow mourner in her. Jessica mistook his kindness for pity and lashed out. Then she watched Spider-Man fight the villain Sandman inside her school, and the sight inspired her to use her abilities for good. Years later she would finally confess her crush to Peter, and his answer would sting.

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• 4. Jewel And The Purple Man

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  Zebediah Killgrave, the Purple Man, entered Jessica's life when she stepped into a disturbance at a restaurant. Until then, her career as the hero Jewel had been fairly uneventful. Killgrave used mind control to command her, tortured her psychologically, and forced her to help with his crimes. At one point he sent her to kill Daredevil at Avengers Mansion.

  Carol Danvers rescued her there. Danvers was the only Avenger who actually knew Jessica. Afterward Jessica underwent psychic therapy with Jean Grey of the X-Men, who planted a special mental command in her subconscious as a shield against further control. During this period she had a brief romance with S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Clay Quartermain.

  The violation left Jessica demoralized and depressed, and almost nobody had noticed that she was missing for eight months. She gave up her costumed life. She briefly took on a darker identity, the Knightress, and broke up a crime meeting between the Owl and a mafioso. That night she met the hero Luke Cage. After she defeated the Owl, the two developed a lasting friendship.

  With the costume behind her, Jessica opened a private detective agency. Carol Danvers set her up with Scott Lang, the second Ant-Man, and they dated for several months. She also carried on an off-and-on affair with Cage. Later, Killgrave escaped from high-security incarceration, still obsessed with her. Thanks to the defenses Grey had given her, Jessica broke his control and knocked him out.

  Cage and Jessica eventually admitted their feelings for each other. After she became pregnant with their child, they committed to the relationship, and a very different chapter of her life began.

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• 5. Family And Fallout

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  The Pulse, which ran for 14 issues from April 2004 to May 2006, followed Jessica into the newsroom of the Daily Bugle. She took a leave from detective work and joined the paper as a superhero correspondent and consultant. She also contributed to the fictional newspaper supplement of the same name that appears within the comic.

  The Green Goblin attacked a pregnant Jessica after the Bugle reported that he was secretly industrialist Norman Osborn. Cage retaliated, and Osborn was exposed as the Goblin, defeated, and imprisoned. Later, publisher J. Jonah Jameson used the paper to smear the New Avengers, and Jessica quit. She gave birth to a daughter, Danielle, named after Luke's best friend, Danny Rand. Cage and Jessica married.

  In the 2006-2007 storyline "Civil War," Iron Man and Ms. Marvel offered the couple a place under the Superhuman Registration Act, and both refused. Jessica moved into Doctor Strange's Sanctum Sanctorum as part of the New Avengers. An attack by the demonic villain the Hood left her shaken. Desperate to protect her child, she left the team and registered under the act, which ended her relationship with Cage.

  During "Secret Invasion," a Skrull impersonating Jessica emerged from a crashed ship wearing her Jewel costume. The real Jessica appears in Secret Invasion #7 and rejoins the fight against the Skrulls. She is reunited with her husband, but a Skrull posing as Edwin Jarvis then vanishes with Danielle. Luke secretly asked Norman Osborn for help, and Osborn helped him recover the baby.

  Spider-Man then revealed to the New Avengers that he was Peter Parker. Jessica admitted her old crush, only to learn that Peter had never recognized her and remembered her only as "Coma Girl." He later urged her to return to heroics and suggested that acting as a hero would set a better example for her daughter than merely describing her old career.

  In 2010, during Marvel's "Heroic Age" branding campaign, she took his advice and became Jewel again as a New Avenger. She appeared in the 2010-2013 New Avengers series from issue #1 in August 2010 through issue #34 in January 2013. The couple chose Squirrel Girl as Danielle's nanny. In The New Avengers #8, Jessica renamed herself Power Woman, honoring her husband, Power Man. She also thought the name would inspire Danielle. Threats from the Thule Society and Norman Osborn later led her to quit and go into hiding.

  In October 2016, a new ongoing series called Jessica Jones debuted. A series called Defenders followed in 2017, with Jessica among its main characters. After the events of Devil's Reign, Cage became the Mayor of New York City, which made Jessica the city's first lady. In 2022, writer Gail Simone and artist Phil Noto began The Variants, a five-issue limited series in which she takes a case that leads her to alternate versions of herself. In 2026 came another five-issue miniseries, Alias: Red Band, where she tracks a serial killer with help from Typhoid Mary.

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• 6. Strength And Its Limits

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  Ten tons is the figure given for the heaviest weight Jessica can lift, and a two-ton police car takes little effort. The comics illustrate this with vivid feats. She lifted the giant-sized Goliath by the nostrils and tossed him a short distance. She broke Atlas's nose. With a single punch to the face she knocked fellow heroine Jessica Drew unconscious.

  Her durability has real limits, though. She once withstood a punch from a human on Mutant-Growth Hormone and suffered only mild bruising and a bloody nose. She recovered in moments after Jessica Drew's venom blasts shocked her. Yet an attack by both the Vision and Iron Man left her with severe injuries, including a damaged spine and neck, a detached retina, and a broken nose. She also heals faster and more effectively than a normal person.

  Her flight has been uneven. Jessica flew quite well in her early years as a heroine. She admitted that the ability degenerated while she was no longer an active hero. After she joined the New Avengers, she displayed improved flying ability.

  The psionic protection from Jean Grey, given after her ordeal with the Purple Man, is a different kind of power. It was strong enough to defend her against a second attack by him, although she had to trigger the resistance on her own. Beyond all of this, Jessica is a skilled detective and investigative journalist, and critics have often praised those skills most.

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• 7. Critics And Readers

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  George Marston of Newsarama named Jessica Jones one of the best female superheroes of all time. He observed that she is not a typical superhero, noting that, like her husband, she has no codename that has stuck. He added that this is part of what makes her great. Gavia Baker-Whitelaw of The Daily Dot called her "a truly modern subversion of the superhero genre." Ned Beauman of The Guardian described her as "one of the bravest, wittiest and most sensitive portraits of a female character that superhero comics have ever seen."

  Rankings reflect the same regard. In 2016, The Hollywood Reporter placed her 28th on its list of 50 favorite female characters. In 2020, CBR.com ranked her 3rd on its list of the best detectives in Marvel Comics. Gary Walker of CBR.com called her one of Marvel's most seasoned street-level heroes.

  Alias had its own admirers. Graeme Mcmillian of Wired wrote that the series launched Marvel's R-rated MAX imprint. He said Bendis and Gaydos made Jones "flawed, bitter, self-destructive, and far more optimistic than she would ever allow anyone else to see." According to Diamond Comic Distributors, Alias #19 was the 63rd best-selling comic in February 2003. Screen Rant ranked the series 5th among Bendis's best, praising it as a psychological character study of a woman learning to heal.

  In October 2016, Jessica Jones #1 landed as the 22nd best-selling comic of the month. Jesse Schedeen of IGN gave it 8.8 out of 10 and praised Gaydos's "heavy black lines and generally moody style." Blair Marnell of Nerdist gave the issue 4 out of 5.

  A new creative team arrived with the 2018 digital series Jessica Jones: Blind Spot, written by Kelly Thompson with art by Mattia De Lulis. Chase Magnett of ComicBook.com gave its first issue 5 out of 5. In the 2020 print run, Grace Wright of Screen Rant noted that this was the first time Bendis and Gaydos had passed the character to a new writer and artist in a solo book. The follow-up, Jessica Jones: Purple Daughter, arrived in 2019, and reviewer Peyton Hinckle praised De Lulis's realistic art.

  The Variants #1 ranked 94th in June 2022 sales. Jenna Anderson of ComicBook.com gave it 5 out of 5. Hannah Rose of CBR.com admired Phil Noto's muted palette, though she felt its use of the multiverse left readers wanting more.

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• 8. Other Versions, Other Media

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  In the 2005 "House of M" storyline, Jessica was apparently dating Scott Lang. The multiverse has given her many other lives since then. In What If Jessica Jones Had Joined the Avengers?, she accepts Captain America's offer to work with the team. She senses that something is wrong with Wanda Maximoff, the Scarlet Witch, and warns the others. That prevents the catastrophes of "Avengers Disassembled" and "House of M," and she goes on to marry Captain America.

  Ultimate Spider-Man placed her in Peter Parker's high school as a senior. Bendis had said in a Marvel Comics podcast that he wanted to bring her into the Ultimate Marvel line, and she first appears there in Ultimate Spider-Man #106. She was executive producer of the school's television network, grew jealous of Mary Jane Watson's film skills, and tried to deduce Spider-Man's identity for the school newspaper. In Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane she is a former friend of Mary Jane who became a goth.

  The "Infinity Wars" storyline merged Jessica with Janice Lincoln into a version of the Beetle. In that world she was also the fiancé of Scott Banner, who is Little Monster, a blend of Scott Lang and Bruce Banner. In Spider-Man: Life Story she briefly dates Peter Parker and founds her own Alias Investigations. During "Secret Wars," Battleworld has several versions of her. In the domain of the Walled City of New York, she and Cage are married and live in Harlem.

  Video games have featured her often. Tara Strong voices her in Lego Marvel's Avengers, Marvel Heroes, and Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order. Michelle Phan voices a Vietnamese American version in Marvel Avengers Academy. She is also an unlockable character in Marvel Avengers Alliance, Marvel Future Fight, and Marvel Puzzle Quest, and she appears in Marvel Snap.

  On television, Krysten Ritter plays her in the Marvel Netflix series Jessica Jones, which ran from 2015 to 2019, and in The Defenders in 2017. Elizabeth Cappuccino plays the teenage Jessica. This version survives a childhood car accident that killed her parents, is adopted by talent agent Dorothy Walker, and befriends her adopted sister Trish Walker. Karl Malus experimented on her after the crash. In the first season, she is enslaved by Kilgrave for eight months and forms an unlikely partnership with Cage to fight him. Later seasons bring her into conflict with her mother Alisa, serial killer Gregory Sallinger, and Trish.

  In the second season of Daredevil: Born Again in 2026, she is raising Danielle with Cage and has grown weaker since giving birth. She joins Matt Murdock against Wilson Fisk's Anti-Vigilante Task Force. She is set to return in the third season in 2027, alongside Cage and Danny Rand.

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