So, Jessica Jones
seems to be a bona fide hit with audiences, a major success that’s earned
Marvel all kinds of critical acclaim and plenty of audience accolades as
well. It’s a major win for Marvel
Studios, another example of how well they can convert obscure properties into
crowd-pleasing hits while also proving just how dark, complex, and adult the
Marvel universe is willing to be.
With all that said and considering it’s been a week since the show’s
premiere I think it’s time to start talking about Jessica Jones season 2.
That might seem a little premature but by comparison Daredevil had its second season
confirmed after only 11 days so it doesn’t strike me as too early at all. Now, as this post is going to be
discussing what could come next I’m going to have to dig deep into what’s
already happened so this article will contain spoilers. If that’s a problem for you don’t read
ahead, instead go watch the show, it’s excellent.
One of the major reveals of Jessica Jones came from the supporting character Officer Simpson,
who revealed himself to be part of a rogue super soldier program trying to make
more Captain Americas. It’s part
of a reference to the ‘80s Daredevil villain Nuke, a hyper violent failed super
soldier who worked as sort of a parody of Captain America, jingoistic and
psychotic instead of strong or noble.
It’s a great creepy turn on the classic idea of Captain America and I
think all the comic fans were very happy to see him pop up in the show,
especially with how creepy and unnerving his character was.
Obviously Simpson didn’t get to go full on Nuke like in the
comic, where he painted his face with an American flag decal and going crazy
killing random people for psychotic “patriotic” reasons. The show also hinted at a greater
secret behind Simpson’s role as Nuke here, linking to some shady government
conspiracy that also gave Jessica her powers. Given that we’ve already established government oversight
and interesting in super beings is a big theme of the Marvel universe going
forward I wouldn’t be surprised if season 2 dove even deeper into the shady
super soldier programs of the US government.
One of the major elements of Jessica Jones is her friendship with Patricia Walker, Jessica’s
adopted sister. Long time comics
fans will recognize that Patsy Walker is also the name of a major member of the
Defenders and occasional Avenger Hellcat, a quasi-mystic hero. Patsy’s got a weird origin in the
comics, beginning life as a romance comic character from 1960 before being
reworked into an alternate version of forgotten vigilante hero The Cat. She served briefly as part of the
Avengers but ended up a much more longstanding member of the Defenders, a sort
of all-purpose superhero team that most commonly fights magical threats. Given Patsy’s pre-history with the
Defenders I wouldn’t be surprised if she put on the Hellcat costume sooner or
later, especially given how heroic she’s portrayed in the show.
During her time on the Defenders Hellcat actually started up
a romance with fellow hero Daimon Hellstrom, the Son of Satan that I discussed
in the Marvel Legion of Monsters Comics Rainbow. While I doubt we’ll see the Son of Satan roll into Jessica Jones with a pitchfork, chariot,
cape and no shirt like in the comics but if season 2 featured Patsy starting up
a romance with some quasi-mystic type named Hellstrom that would be a much
easier sell. At the same time it
seems pretty clear that Marvel wants their Netflix stable to continue to expand
into the Defenders show and beyond and considering Iron Fist will be adding a
mystic element to the Netflix universe bringing in the Son of Satan would be a
good way to cover that in Jessica Jones.
One thing that’s become a big point online is that Patsy’s
role on Jessica Jones is actually a
replacement part. In the original Alias comics Jessica Jones’ best friend
was actually Carol Danvers, the future Captain Marvel, and Carol almost showed
up in Jessica Jones. While I don’t think we’ll see Captain
Marvel as a supporting character in Jessica
Jones given how much more grounded a show it is I could see Carol Danvers
showing up pre-super powers as a supporting character, depending on whether the
second season comes out before or after the Captain Marvel movie.
Pulse was the
follow up comic to Alias written by
Brian Michael Bendis meant to bring Jessica Jones into a more superheroic
aspect of the Marvel universe rather than the darker, grittier aspects of the
world that were explored in Alias. It’s a descent comic and a much better
use of Bendis’ continuity driven writing style than the harsh noir that
punctuated Alias and had a lot of fun
adventures in it overall. One of
the core ideas of Pulse was that
Jessica left her P.I. job in favor of writing a column about superheroes for
the Daily Bugle.
While I doubt Marvel would want to relinquish Jessica from
her pretty unique profession getting the Bugle and the Spider-Man mythos into
the Netflix stable would be a pretty great way to bring the Netflix shows into
the big budget version of the streets Marvel wants to work towards in the
films. The Pulse adventures would also pretty well as a way to engage with
Marvel’s skill at cross-platform pollination and slipping Easter eggs into
background details. Also if this
gets J.K. Simmons back into the role of J. Jonah Jameson I’m all for it.
One of the decidedly problematic aspects of Jessica Jones in
the comics is that she’s really only known for 2 things: getting raped by
Killgrave and getting pregnant with Luke Cage’s baby. While I certainly hope Marvel doesn’t decide to knock-up
Jessica on the show and just leave her on the sidelines for the second run of
Netflix shows it’s certainly an unfortunate possibility. Actually, Jessica’s pregnancy ended up
a big part of her adventures during the Pulse
era when she sold the exclusive rights to the story to J. Jonah Jameson.
Something that worked there was that Jessica was still every
bit the capable and powerful superhero she was prior to getting pregnant if not
more so now that she’d finally overcome her trauma from her time under
Killgrave’s control. So if they
decided Jessica Jones season 2 would just be “superheroing while pregnant,” I
could easily get behind that and it wouldn’t be unheard of. Aside from Jessica’s experience with it
in Alias that’s also the set-up of
the current Spider-Woman comic.
One of the most impressive and most hyped elements of
Marvel’s Netflix shows so far is that they feature the best villains the Marvel
Cinematic Universe has seen so far.
Amid the quagmire of missed opportunities like Malekith or serviceable
if not memorable bad guys like Iron Monger, Kingpin, Nuke, and Purple Man were
a breath of fresh air and I don’t think it’s coincidence that Marvel hit the
villain jackpot when they finally decided to pull from the Daredevil pack.
I’ve already devoted a whole comics rainbow to Daredevil’s
amazing rogues gallery so I won’t drag this out but there are plenty of other
great bad guys to pull from. We
already know Daredevil will be squaring off against Punisher and Elektra in his
second season so it’d be interesting to see Jessica go against some of his more
obscure foes like Mr. Hyde or Mr. Fear.
Actually Mr. Hyde is already part of the MCU in a pretty disappointing
role on Agents of SHIELD, the
greatest waste of space on television, but you could easily work around that
fact. The key would be to maintain
Jessica’s emphasis on creepy villains that feel like they reflect some aspect
of real life, though if push comes to shove she could always go head-to-head
with recent new bad guys The Children of the Purple Man, a very creepy
collective of mind control kids ala Children
of the Damned. Speaking of
Kilgrave…
Okay, I’m aware that at this point the fact that no one in
the Marvel universe can stay dead is something of a running joke but it’s still
an unavoidable aspect of these characters. Personally I don’t mind it, even though superheroes
theoretically work for any medium they’ve become such an enshrined part of
comic books that they now share the same narrative DNA and a big part of that
is wanting to keep interesting bad guys alive to keep sales high. Maybe that’s a cynical viewpoint but
it’s also the approach that made Batman and Superman household names while
folks like say The Shadow tend to draw blank stares.
David Tennant’s creepy and extremely affecting turn as
Kilgrave on Jessica Jones is one of
the best super villain turns of the modern era and it’d be a shame if it was
over so quickly so if they found a way to magic him back to life or just
revealed he left a hypnotic suggestion to hallucinate his death I’d be fine
with that. Maybe it’d end up
cheapening the ending a tad but given that Jessica still believes herself to be
a murderer I don’t think it’d be a big deal, especially given that we’d get a
more creepy David Tennant out of it.
If only Christopher Eccleston’s turn in the Marvel universe had been as
memorable, maybe this is a sign that Marvel should just skip trying to entice
Matt Smith and focus on getting Peter Capaldi to play Dr. Doom or
something.
The idea of Jessica Jones as Jewel got a little bit of lip
service on the show during a brief but amusing cameo from her outfit during a
late night drinking session with Patsy.
It was a fun shout out to the fact that the comic Alias retconned Jessica’s costume alias of Jewel into being a key
figure in Avengers history to try and give her fall from superheroing more
impact and meaning. However, as
part of Marvel’s incredibly short lived Heroic Age branding event Jessica
returned to the role of Jewel as part of one Marvel’s 4 different Avengers
teams.
Seriously, the massive success of the Avengers has
essentially made them the new X-Men: horribly franchised into as many different
comics as possible. Regardless
it’d be pretty cool to see Jessica put on a Jewel costume of some kind to go
out crime fighting in the skies rather than the allies though I’m not sure how
well that’d gel with the emphasis of the Defenders as a street level superhero
team.
One of the things no one is really talking about in regards
to Marvel’s upcoming film Captain
America: Civil War is how the ending will reverberate through the entire
Marvel universe. I think a big
part of this is that a lot of people know the Civil War comics happened but also know the superhuman registration
act that they were about isn’t currently a thing so they assume the
registration heroes lost, that’s not actually the case. In the comics, not only did the
registration heroes win, Captain America ended up dead for quite a while.
As a result, a lot of heroes like Luke Cage and Spider-Man
ended up rebels, on the run from the government trying to do good deeds while
hiding in the underground. This
was the status quo for Marvel comics for nearly 5 years, up until the Siege event finally reset things to a more
traditional situation. If Captain
America loses the Civil War in his movie, as a lot of people tend to assume,
that would shift the entire Marvel universe and while it wouldn’t mean much for
movies like Black Panther or Captain Marvel it’s a huge deal for the
Netflix heroes, all of which are unregistered superheroes. We already know Jessica Jones powers
come from some rogue aspect of the government creating superhumans and we know
that this government agency is still active today, maybe season 2 of Jessica Jones will deal with a form of
violation and control all its own, one that comes right from the top of the
federal pyramid.
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