With the Defenders trailer having recently dropped, I found myself wanting some more Jessica Jones. So it’s time to check in on the second arc of her debut series, Alias.
- The focus on Jessica’s loner character continues to provide the book’s most interesting moments.
- In this case, those moments tend to be when people she considers friends let her down or when she sees a part of herself in strangers.
- And the book’s art remains solid; Gaydos and Hollingsworth’s pages remain dark and dynamic, and Bill Sienkiewicz provides beautiful splash pages from Rick Jones’s memoir.
There were, however, elements of this arc that took me out of the story:
- Jessica and Carol Danvers spend a lot of time talking about guys, and there’s a certain amount of slut-shaming of Jessica by both characters that feels out of touch.
- The B-plot involving Jessica catching a woman’s husband cheating with the express purpose of forcing him out of the closet feels pretty homophobic.
- And when given the opportunity to come forward with evidence that a woman’s husband has lied to her about his identity and is not who he says, she doesn’t.
If you liked the first arc of Alias, you might still enjoy the second if you can stomach its more problematic content. Its character beats remain strong, but I am not going to tell you whether that should be enough to overlook the issues with its content. Use your best judgment on this one.
Collected in
- Jessica Jones: Alias, Vol. 1 (Alias #1-9)
- Alias Omnibus (#1-28, What If Jessica Jones Jones Had Joined the Avengers #1)
Credits
Writer: Brian Michael Bendis | Artist: Michael Gaydos, Bill Sienkiewicz (“Sidekick” pages) | Colorist: Matt Hollingsworth | Letterers: Richard Starkings, Comicraft’s Wes Abbott & Oscar Gongora | Covers: David Mack | Editor: Stuart Moore