Jessica Jones: Alias Book 4 (#22-28)

"The pity.  I don't want it.  I swear I don't want it" - Jessica Jones

So we come to the fourth and final volume of this introductory chapter into the life of ramshackle PI Jessica Jones.  She possesses super strength and can fly, but heroing never worked out for her.  We've seen enough hints and clues dropped throughout the previous three volumes that something pretty awful happened to her in her recent past and we're finally going to discover both how she came about her powers but also what that incident was and why she still suffers PTSD about it to this day.  She's been dating Scott "Ant Man" Lang off and on while this book also sees the return of Luke "Power Man" Cage who she has also had a sexual relationship with recently. And while this book closes out this part of her life, she was to become a regular in the wider Marvel Universe and of course there was an acclaimed TV series shown last year with a role in the 2018 MCU film "The Defenders" to come.  This volume's major antagonist is The Purple Man, Zebediah Killgrave whose voice can compell anyone to do his bidding and ssayed so creepily by David Tennant in the TV show, although he wasn't literally purple like his comicbook version.  I've actually covered Killgrave before in the second Waid/Samnee Daredevil volume here.  Anyway this is a packed seven issues so there won't be much brevity. Onwards!

Young Jessica.

We begin fifteen years ago with Jessica as a high school student dreamily looking at Peter Parker who is being bullied by Flash Thompson and friends.   She decides today will be the day she asks him out and follows him to a science exhibit, but as she reaches out to attract his attention he is bitten by a radioactive spider and feeling wonky he goes home leaving her looking downcast in his wake.

Later as she goes home she is wrapped up in her thoughts and is nearly hit by a truck containing radioactive material, a passer-by pulls her out of its way.   At home she looks at the picture of Johnny Storm of The Fantastic Four which she has tacked onto her wall, and her hand creeps into her knickers as she starts having a fiddle with herself before being interrupted by her kid brother who comes in and asks what she is doing.   She screams at him to get out and he leaves.

We then cut to her in the car with her brother, her parents are having a row as they drive to Disneyland with discount tickets provided by Tony Stark who her dad works for.  Her brother teases her and she punches his arm.  He starts yelling and her parents tell them to shut up.  Distracted her father loses control of the car and it slides half under a military truck and a canister comes loose and falls into the car onto Jessica's lap.  Then the car flips and catches fire and everything goes black.

A terrible tragedy

Then Jessica wakes up in a hospital bed.  It's dark, she looks out of the window and sees Galactus and the Silver Surfer.  The nurses notice her and say she's been in a coma for six months and the power surge from the battle outside must have woken her up, "it's a miracle."

Unfortunately she was the only survivor of the crash and we cut to her sitting in the office of the woman who runs the "Moore House For Wayward Children".  She tells Jessica she's been found a foster family, the Jones who are interested in adopting her.  The mother lost her family when she was the same age as Jessica and really feels for her. They also live in Jessica's old neighbourhood so she can go back to the same school.  Jessica remains surly and silent. The woman tells her she is special and lucky, "you have been given a second chance in life."  Jessica remains silent but looks conflicted by this.

Back at school people keep asking her what it was like being in a coma, she says "it was like... nothing" she tells them.   People gossip about her and then Flash tries to bully her so she aggrssively tells him and his mob "fuckers!  Seriously, all of you die! Just die!!"  And she runs away.

She sits on the bleachers sniffling to herself and Peter Parker comes up to her and tries to offer some words of comfort.  She thinks he is just looking down on her in pity and flees.  As she runs she flashes back to memories of her family, school, the Moore House and doesn't notice her feet have left the ground until she is floating a good few metres in the air.  She rises up higher and then flies forwards and down and lands in the river. 

First flight.

She tries to fly out and manages to get above the water, but then falls in again.   She starts to drown but Thor appears and grabs her and flies her back to dry land.  She vomits on his shoes saying  "shit... fuck".

Thor: "Young lady of Midgard, thy language leaves something to be desired".

And off he flies.  Later that night while watching J. Jonah Jameson ranting about Spider-man on the telly Jessica asks her adoptive father why people like the Fantastic Four but not Spider-man. "Image" her dad replies.

The Fantastic Four have a nice, clean cut look to them while Spider-man wears a mask and has creepy powers.   Jessica asks him if he had super-powers what would he do?  He thinks then says perhaps help people.  But when it comes down to it, how do you know who is worth risking your life for?  But if he did have them, he'd "sure as shit dress better than Spider-man". 

Jessica goes to a park and decides to test her powers.  She lifts a bike one handed over her head, then shoulder charges a thick tree cracking it all the way through.  She then tries to get the hang of flying and gets herself into the air.  With great glee she takes control, "Oh man! Oh man.  Shit yeah!!"

We then cut to a super villain called The Scorpion robbing people at a launderette.  Jessica lands on top of him and knocks him out.  People gather roud saying how cool she is.  They ask if she's a super-hero and she says, "yeah. Yeah I am".  One says "no costume?" another responds "eh, I think costumes are a fad anyhow."

The birth of a new hero,

We then return to the present day, Jessica is sitting in Matt Murdocks office with a handsome blonde man.  His name is Ka-zar and he lives in a secret tropical forest hidden away in Antartica called "The Savage Land".  He has come to them because Zabu is missing.  Zabu being a sabretooth tiger who raised Ka-zar to adulthood.  He needs a detective's help to find him.

Jessica says "no. I'm sorry.  No way in hell".  She isn't going to some savage jungle in the middle of the Antartic.  Ka-zar says he'll pay handsomely but she says she doesn't even "go over the Queensborough Bridge because I'm scared the Green Goblin might drop someone on me".  So she isn't going to go fight dinosaurs to find his cat.  She then leaves the office and Ka-Zar snarks, "Wow.  And I though Shanna got menstrual."

Back in her office she listens to her ansaphone messages, she has been getting a lot of crank type calls ever since J.Jonah Jameson wrote the nice article on her as seen in Book Three.   Then she gets one call that makes her freeze.  it's about someone called "Killgrave".  The person wants her to call back because they know she has history with this person and she has an important situation she wants Jessica's help with.  She hangs up and Jessica stays frozen, as her eyes show her in pain.  Then she runs to the toilet and vomits in it.

Present day Jessica is pissed at Carol Danvers.

We then cut to her talking with Carol "Ms. Marvel" Danvers in the garden of Avenger's Mansion.  Jessica is angry that Carol told the woman who called her about Killgrave and her involvement with him.   Carol is curious as to why she is so mad at her.  She says she just referred people who needed to know. She says Jessica is her best friend on the planet.

Carol: "And the reason I can be friends with you is that I understand what is the matter with you.  Okay? I see past all of this 'thing' you do, this person you act like and I know who you really are."

She says Scott Lang feels the same, now she needs to deal with her issues surrounding The Purple Man.  Jessica angrily tells her she needs her to stop telling her what she needs.

Then Captain America appears and is pleased to see her, inviting her inside.  But she doesn't go, then Scott Lang buzzes up riding a bee and asks if she is OK.  Overwhelmed, Jessica runs and gets into a taxi.  But Scott Lang pursues her and grows back to normal size in the cab much to the driver's annoyance.  Jessica begs him to leave her alone, but he says he knows what happened with Killgrave.

Yeah, smooth going Scott.

She scowls and says nothing.  He goes onto say that as an Avenger, a UN peace keeping taskforce, he can't just date anyone.  She had to be approved and although she came under a lot of scrutiny, Captain America put in a good word for her, "See how you're being all paranoid and no one has done anything remotely bad to you?"  Jessica tells the driver to pull over and departs telling Scott to "respect my fucking boundaries!" And she flies away. She lands close by, vomits then holds her stomach examining it and looks distressed.

We then jump forwards in time to her going to the house of the woman who called her, Kim Rourke.  Inside the house is a large crowd of people.  Kim says she is going to speak for the group. Everyone here has lost someone because of Killgrave.   She tells Jessica about a diner Killgrave went to when he ordered eggs, then told everyone eating there to stop breathing and thirty-four people died because of that, one of whom was her sister.

The Purple Man victim support group.

Jessica tells her it's not hypnosis he uses, "Killgrave has the power to overcome people's wills."  His power originates from his skin cells.  The pheromones and other secretions make a combination of psychoactive chemicals which when inhaled or absorbed by others allows him to take advantage of an "monomania".

Jessica: "It isn't hypnosis.  it isn't... the person... The victim cannot be blamed for.. for.. for anything they do when they are under that asshole's control".

Kim says what they are looking for is "closure".  Jessica tells her that Killgrave is being held in a prison for super-villains called "The Raft".  Kim says they know that but although Killgrave admitted to many crimes when first captured but she represents the families of the victims he didn't admit to.

They were people he murdered mainly for sport and now he refuses to take responsibility for them.   She believes he is denying them for "fun".  They have taken every legal route to try and get him to cooperate but no luck.   They have to live with what he did every day, he won't let them rest.

One of the group asks if she used to be a superhero and she says yes.  He asks if she came up against Killgrave and she says yes.  Kim says they know she was involved in one of his captures, and Jessica says yes.  She then asks if Jessica can help them.  She's quiet for a moment, then closes her eyes and says "Yes."

Then we cut to her waking up in just her undies in an unfamiliar bed.  She staggers up and discovers that she is in Luke Cage's flat.  She asks where her clothes are and he says, doesn't she recall last night?

Luke: "You don't remember calling me drunk out of your fucking mind and telling me that I'm not half the man Matt Murdock is and that I could go fuck myself?  ... And then about fifteen minutes later or so, you flew into my window and crashed into my fridge."

She ponders the wreckage and says she'll pay for it.   Apparently she then threw up all over her clothes which are at the cleaners.  She mumbles she doesn't know why she said what she said.

Luke asks her what sent her on this "little binge?"  She starts by saying she doesn't want to talk about it, then changes her mind and says "Killgrave".   She has been hired to find evidence on him to help some people who hired her.  He asks what her history is with him and like pulling teeth she finally opens up about what happened a few years ago.

Killgrave is a fucking prick.

The art changes, drawn by Mark Bagley, it looks much more traditional Marvel superhero stuff.  She is in her superhero identity "Jewel" all happy and confident.  She flies into a restaurant which people are fighting in.   Sitting calmly at a table is Killgrave, she stops and stares at him as he asks what her real name is.  She answers him and he tells her to take off her clothes.  She starts to but then he orders her to take care of the police outside and completely under his control she goes out and smashes them up.

Back with Jessica and Luke, he asks how long he had hold of her and she says "eight months".  Luke asks if he made her... implying rape.  She firmly says "no." He is somewhat disblieving but she says what he actually did was make her "stand there and watch him fucking other girls, telling me to wish it was me.  Telling me to cry while I watched".  He would pull college girls of the street, but when there wasn't any around he'd make her beg him for it.

Jessica: "Beg him. He'd just sit there and at his request I would beg him for it... I would beg him to fuck me... I would beg him until I cried."

For eight months she lay at his feet, slept on his floor, bathed him.  He would do it to her for every setback he suffered at the hands of the other superheroes. She dropped out of sight for eight months and it "had absolutely little to no effect on my family and friends".  Luke Cage moves closer and gives her a much needed hug.

Hugs are nice.

He says did she put him in jail, she says it was everyone but her. She says it didn't matter that he put those thoughts in her head, because she still felt them and it didn't feel any different from when she thought for herself.  In fact it feels better because "the command is pure.  It's strong. It's loud and clear."

Jessica: "In my mind I can't tell the difference between what he made me do or say and what I do or say on my own.  The only reason I know I wasn't in love with him is that I say to myself, how could I be?  I hate him.  That's it.  That's what my sanity is holding on to."

She knows that although it was chemical and pheromones affecting her, but it felt like she was in love with him.   Tell a crazy person what he sees is just chemicals in his brain and he's still going to see things.

A break for freedom.

Luke asks if she hurt anyone and she admits that yes she did.  Killgrave is crazy, months would go by where he would just fuck college girls and watch TV then all of a sudden... and we return to the flashback as Killgrave angrily shows her a newspaper with the headline "Daredevil Saves The City". He rants how he hates him then tells her he's sick of looking at her, she will put her costume on and go to the Avengers Mansion and beat Daredevil to death.

She flew off and as she got further away from him, his hold over her disappeared. Which left her with no idea what to do.  So she decided to continue her mission even though she could feel her body trying to stop her.   She knew it was fucked up but couldn't stop herself.

She landed at the Avenger's Mansion and they were coming home from a mission.   She swooped down to attack Dardevil, "except it wasn't Daredevil, not even close... it was the Scarlet Witch."  She hit her and then finally realised what she was doing was wrong and just stood there. She tried to form an apology but couldn't and tried to flee.  Thor came after her and tried to hit her with his hammer.

The Avengers and The Defenders who were teaming up with them all came after her and Vison who was The Scarlet Witch's husband belted her round the head knocking her out.  Carol grabbed her before any more harm could come to her.  He neck was messed up, her nose was broken, she lost some teeth and her spine was damaged, her retina detached "and on top of it my mind kind of gave up on me."

Carol to the rescue!

The combo of Killgrave's mindrape and the beating from the Avengers and just the mental stress of it all caused her to just check out.  She scowls at Luke saying she can tell he's pitying her. He asks how long she was out for and how did she come out of it.  Jessica asks if she has heard of Jean Grey of The X-Men?  She's a powerful psychic.

The art style changes again, this time drawn by Rick Mays.  Jessica is hanging out in a park in her mind.  Jean Grey comes up to her and tells her they caught the Purple Man, put him away for good.  Daredevil got him, beat the crap out of him.  Jean asks how that makes Jessica feel?

Jessica says he loved her.  Jean says he didn't, but Jessica insists in his own way he did.   Jean introduces herself and transforms into her Phoenix costume.  She says she is here to help Jessica, "into the next phase of your life."  Jessica just needs to trust her.  Jessica says she fucked things up, Jean says she'll help her but she needs Jessica to wake up.  So Jessica does so.

Jean Grey is the coolest.

She's lying in a hospital bed again with Jean and Nick Fury looking down at her.  Jean apolgises for getting into her head without asking but it was for the best.  Fury says she's getting the best medical care in the country and she'll be good as new.

A few months of treatment and therapy later she's ready to leave.  She hugs Agent Clay from S.H.I.E.L.D who's been watching over her.   Then she walks into a room where all The Avengers are waiting.  Iron Man apologises to her on behalf of all of them saying they overreacted.

Jessica mumbles an apology to them, but Scarlet Witch says she wasn't to blame.  Fury then offers her a job as S.H.I.E.L.D liason to The Avengers.   She'd be a level six agent and an auxillary Avenger.  He says she's a survivor and a fighter and he wants her on his team.  But Jessica tells them she appreciates all this but she's done with costumes, she doesn't have what it takes.  She thanks them for the closure then turns her back and walks away.

The Raft.

In the present she moves close to Luke and they snuggle.   He offers to take the job for her, but she says she needs to face him.  "Good for you" he says.  We then cut to her arriving by helicopter on The Raft.  She meets Clay and tells him she feels like "barfing up my uterus."  He wonders why she didn't fly, she brushes him off.  They embrace saying she appreciates him taking care of this, "what are high-ranking government employees/ex-boyfriends good for..."
They walk past the cells containing "the worst of the worst".   Killgrave is at the end, the conversation will be recorded but no one who doesn't already know what happens between them will ever see it.   He says that he thinks nothing will come of this and does she want him there with her.  She says she'll speak to him alone and she approaches his cell.

Killgrave: "Jessica Jones. If it isn't my favourite comic book character of all time."

She tries to talk to him but he keeps talking about a comic book layout of their conversation and speaking of himself in the third person describing what he thinks Jessica's thoughts are and that there were things they shared "the truths only they know."

Jessica tries to keep him on topic, telling him she's here as a representative of the families of his victims.   He just says "you don't want to embarrass yourself in front of your readers."  She keeps on telling him that the families each lost loved ones because of him but he refuses to acknowledge what she is saying, "something really bad s going to happen to you Jessica.  I wouldn't turn to the end.  I bet something really horrible happens."

The watching Agents think he's "fucking insane".  Agent Clay wants to go in and punch him. Jessica asks him if they are all characters in a comicbook why doesn't he get up and walk out of there.  "I'm not the writer" he responds.  He tells her she smarter than this, he's shown her.

Killgrave: "One day you're a high flying super hero no one has ever heard of, the next you're the centre of the world.   All of a sudden it's all about you. Continuity inconsistences be damned, it's all about you.  How did you get your powers again? How did I get mine?  How was that? Accident? What?  Gloss over it now.  Don't get too techinical."

Angrily she shows him a photo of a girl he made dance of the balcony of a hotel in Chicago.  She talks over him as he tries to mess with her head some more.  She yells that the girls brother deserves to know why his sister died. "He needs to hear you say it! Say the words1  Say: 'I killed your sister because I'm a crazy fuck'".

He just tells her she was there for the flashback. She acts like a whore in front of the readers because "you are a whore... you're the biggest whore in the history of the medium".  Jessica gives up.  As she leaves he tells her not to contradict continuity or "they'll eat you alive".  She falls into the arms of Agent Clay upset at the whole situation.

Killgrave won't budge.

Outside she smokes a ciggie and Clay asks her what she is thinking.  She tells him she's still scared that he has a hold over her. And now she has to return to her employers and tell them she has nothing.   They hug again and he jokes for "a comicbook character, you're pretty well rounded".

Later she returns to Kim's house to give her the bad news.   But when she opens the door, Kim says she'll call the police.  Her TV is on tuned into the news, it's reporting on a riot in The Raft.  And Killgrave is a confirmed escapee. Kim thinks Jessica is responsible, "all you mutant fucksare all the same.. you trick us, you manipulate us".  She threatens to call the police again and Jessica leaves.

She goes and hides in an alley near her flat and calls Carol leaving a message that she is terrified and unable to go home because Killgrave might be inside.  She confesses she visited that morning and maybe she inspired him to pull something. She calls her mum and tells her to go and visit aunt Jenny to get her somewhere safer. She gets a call from a doctor who had treated her last week saying she needs some important follow up tests. She hangs up and slumps down tearfully.

She calls her office and Malcolm her somewhat unwanted teenage assisstant answers it.   He tells her someone called "Quaterflash" keeps calling and hanging up.   She asks if anyone is in the room with him, he doesn't understand what she means, then asks how he got in.  He used her spare key.  She tells him to get out and fires him, he asks her why she called if she didn't want an answer.  She says she was calling for her messages.  She tells him to get the fuck out of her office and go home. 

She watches him leave the office alone.   She gets a call from Agent Clay.  He has no idea how Killgrave managed to escape.  He took a copter and a pilot and fled to the mainland.  She hears a click on the line, they are tracing her call so they can pick her up.  Paranoid, she tells him how does she know he hasn't been taken over and whispering in his ear.  She'll come in when they catch the fucker.  Black humvees pull up and in a panic she flies away.

She arrives at Scott Lang's place.  He's heard the news too.   She says she doesn't know where else to go.  They end up in bed together and as he sleeps she smokes and watches the news which says the city is in chaos and The Avengers and Fantastic Four should be doing more to help. She crushes an ant by mistake and when she turns to apologise to Scott sees him dead and covered with thousands of ants.  She stares in horror.

Oh no. Poor Scott. What a shame.

We pull back and Killgrave is sitting in a chair opposite as she screams in terror.  He orders her to be quiet, while she screams that she killed Scott.  "Well I am the bad guy" he says.   But he didn't actually kill him, he just made her see it.  Scott is awake and Killgrave tells him "look at me like you want to fuck me because I'm the best a third-rate character like you could do."

He tells her to stand up saying he hopes this will be one of "many reminders of just how special you are to me and how much I detest your whore ways". He then makes her visualise Carol with Luke and Scott.  She gasps and cries, then he tells her to shut up as she's annoying him so she does so.

He then tells her she is to come outside he wants to do "something violent and chaotic, as is my destiny to end this."  He wants her to come and witness his big scene.  Scott is told to stay put while Jessica dresses and follows Killgrave out into the crowds.  He orders everyone to start beating up the person to their left until they are dead and fighting breaks out.

As they walk through the chaos, Jessica suddenly sees an image of Jean Grey, when she was in Jessica's mind before she set up a "psychic defence trigger".  Because she was so worried about Killgrave taking her over again she thought something like this would work.   Jessica asks, "I.. I can end this?" Jean smiles and says "please do" and vanishes.

Even Captain America is impressed by that punch.

The Avengers arrive on the scene and Killgrave orders her to break Captain America's back when she doesn't accept his first kill demand, "do it now, whore!"  And she punches Killgrave so hard he goes flying and is knocked right out.  Carol hugs her while Jessica sheds cathartic tears and the crowd now no longer under control stop fighting.

Scott arrives on the scene and tells her it was a villain called Carnage that blew the security system in The Raft. He says not to mention what happened to him in his bedroom.  She then has a confession to make to him.

Jessica: "I'm pregnant.  I'm three months pregnant".

And Scott's face falls when he realises it's not his. And he walks away saying, "bye Jessica". Later she meets up with Luke Cage outside her building.  She's the subject of another glowing headline in The Daily Bugle, Luke says she's officially the only one Jameson says nice things about.

He then tells her that over the past couple of months he hasn't been able to stop thinking about her. She frustrates him, but he worries about her and after she told him about what happened to her, he found himself caring about her.  And he says he's here for her if she needs him. 

"You like me?" she queries and he grins and says "Yeah". She tells him she's pregnant and he's the father.  He breaks out into an even wider grin.  He asks if she wants it and she says, "very, very, very much."  He keeps grinning and she says "Alright then.  New chapter".  And that brings this volume and the series to an end.

Just look at that grin.

So here at the end we finally found out why Jessica was suffering from PTSD and so reckless and angry.  Killgrave is a monster.  He might not have physically raped her, but the mind rape he subjected her to is like something out of a nightmare.  To make her feel so debased and worthless is just repugnant, he's basically the ultimate gaslighter and merely a more extreme version of abusive relationships people suffer from every day.  It's understandable why she has pushed people away since then and it's tragic seeing the happy, enthusiastic Jewel full of public spirit reduced to an emotional wreck.  It's interesting that she opened up properly to Luke Cage, rather than Scott Lang.  Scott was pushy and demanding whle Luke Cage let her come to him and confide in her own time.  Her backstory of losing her family the way she did, and the only thing positive coming out of it, her powers, getting turned against her is a real tragedy and explains her reluctance to use them apart from exceptional circumstances.  As I said in the intro, Jessica and Luke and their baby become part of the Marvel Universe back then, cosmic retcons not withstanding. At the end of the book, writer Brian Michael Bendis says that Jessica's adventures will continue in the series "Pulse".  The main difference will be no sex and swearwords and that "Jessica will be happier, at least for a couple of pages".  And after that cathartic punch delivered to Killgrave by her, thanks to the ever awesome Jean Grey, all her pain, self-loathing and anger was behind that swing and I am not saying she's instantly over all her issues, but you can defnitely see how she gained some much needed emotional closure and yes, she's probably happier now most definitely shown in her enthusiasm to be a mother.  And that finishes this series off on a nice happy ending. Awww.