comics meta

[holli]

Someone was talking about Alias in their LJ, which inspired me to re-read all the Alias issues on my HD, which inspired me to re-read #1-4 of The Pulse, which inspired a great big Jessica Jones meta. Cut-tagged; spoilers for both titles to follow.



I've heard a bunch of complaints about how Jessica's being written in The Pulse, as compared to what Bendis did with the character in her own title. But I'm actually more or less okay with it. Here's why: taken as a whole, for me, Alias is about the progression of Jessica Jones from the incredible state of fucked-up-ed-ness she's at when things start, through the (massive, scary, totally understandable) issues she has, and leaves her pretty much okay at the end. I mean, when we first meet Jessica, she's adamant about not wanting to have anything to do with her old life, her old friends, anything that had to do with her time as a superhero. She'll hang out with Luke occasionally, but she liiikes him, and he has a lot of the same issues with superherodom that she does. But as the comic progresses, she finds herself more and more a part of the community she turned her back on-- from seeing Captain America umasked to renewing her friendship with Carol, to the Spider-Girl business, right up to dating an Avenger. She starts get comfortable with having the people from her old life around, despite the horrible trauma that drove her away from them in the first place.

Then the Purple Man thing happens, and Jessica's forced to actually face what happened to her, what drove her away. And she does, and she kicks the bastard's ass. And I think, after that, it makes sense that she's a lot more okay than she used to be. Plus, with the baby on the way (which, as a plot device I'm not thrilled with, but considering the characters involved I trust Bendis not to turn it into a huge drama), she's got an external motivation to get her shit together as much as possible. Alias starts out with Jessica alone, and shows us why she's alone-- not just the Purple Man, but also the loss of her family and to some extent her basic personality. Then the story takes her to a place where she's not alone anymore, where she can pretty much be a functional person again. And that's where The Pulse picks up, which is why I don't mind Jessica being a different person than she used to be.

Also, I just think she's cool, and she's one of my favorite Marvel characters.

I do kind of hate the way she's drawn now, though-- what's up with the skirts? Jessica is not a skirt person. Bagley's style is fine for USM, but damn, can we get someone a *little* grittier for the grown-up title?

Comments

[bervda.livejournal.com]

Wait... Alias, Pulse, USM? No wonder you're so cool. Much love for the representing Bendis in the LJ.

[holli.livejournal.com]

Um. I don't think "cool" is the word you're looking for. "Gloriously geeky," fine, certainly, but... well, let me put it this way. I used to write this sort of thing about books WITHOUT PICTURES.

You knwo what I need? Some Marvel icons. All the ones I have now are Buffy, Firefly or DCU.

[bervda.livejournal.com]

Nothing wrong with Buffy and FF love, but I don't get the DCU stuff. I'm a comic geek through and through, I just don't have a lot of love for the DCU characters. Not to say Warner doesn't get my money, because there are several books on DC imprints that I read (Y: The Last Man anyone?)

Anyhoo, Marvel icons are needed. Jessica Jones sounds like a project you should be all over!

"Cool" was definitely the word I was looking for.

[mib24601.livejournal.com]

I don't know how much of Alias you have on your hard drive, but after one very excessive pay day, I ended up with all of the Alias trades as well as all the Bendis Daredevil trades. Remind me to lend them to you when we get to school. There are some very fun Jessica Jones moments in Daredevil and Bendis also enjoys having single panel cross-overs between DD and Alias, although I don't remember the particular issues off hand.

If you haven't seen Avengers 500 or heard anything about it, you should take a look at the free preview of it online. It has the death of a minor character who people started to appreciate during his appearance in Alias. As Bendis wrote that issue of Avengers, I don't mind the death too much.

[bervda.livejournal.com]

If you're digging some of the Marvel line Bendis stuff, I suggest you grab some trades of Powers. It's his creator owned license (which you may know about, in which case I'm talking just to hear the sound of my own voice), that recently jumped to Marvel's Icon line. Quality crime book laced with non-restrictive Super Hero stories, and I whole heartedly recommend it.

[mib24601.livejournal.com]

I actually have several of the Powers trades and have read the other ones. As the trades are more than a year behind the singe issues, I can't wait until the new Powers trade comes out next month.

Trades are awesome things. A whole story arc (and in this age of decompressed storytelling, a story arc may be half a dozen issues at least) that can be easily sorted and lent out to people.

Another good Image book that is moving to Icon is David Mack's Kabuki. If you like Powers, you'll love Kabuki. Bendis may be brilliant but Mack is the American Alan Moore. However, this is some decompressed storytellling. He covers the same nine month period in 3 different storylines (told three different ways). His second storyline also covers nine whole MINUTES in something like 120 pages.

I want to pick up his Jinxworld books but most comic shops don't carry it as it is not enough like a standard comic book and book stores don't carry it as they think it is too much like a comic book for them.