The second half of Alias is just as good as the first half. I enjoyed learning more about Jessica's backstory. The different art style for the flashback to Jessica's teenage years was a neat choice. At the end of this volume is the Purple Man story, which the first season of the Jessica Jones Netflix show was based on. It's substantially different in plot, but this version also works well. The ending of the series was a surprising twist. ( )

The second volume of Alias continues in the same delightful vein as the first. ( )

The second volume of Alias continues the excellence of the first. It continues Jessica Jones's investigations of the dark underbelly of the Marvel Universe, as she looks into the disappearance of one of the many superheroes known as Spider-Woman... who just happens to be the adopted daughter of J. Jonah Jameson. Jameson is always a great character, and he's even greater when he's legitimately worried about something. I would say that this story is my favorite of Alias's "cases," except that it's tied with the Rick Jones and runaway mutant cases in the first volume. (I do love those moments where we see Jessica's very awkward way of flying.)

As good as the first half of the book is, the second is even better. Intending to read just one chapter before I went to bed, I read all of them-- and when she read the book, my wife did the same thing! Here, we finally learn the "secret origin" of Jessica Jones. She went to Midtown High with Peter Parker, which maybe stretched credulity a bit, but as always I like the way that Bendis and Gaydos juxtapose Jessica's miserable life against superheroics. Part of the story is drawn in the style of Steve Ditko, and Bendis's naturalistic dialogue is put right alongside all-caps Stan Lee proclamatory stuff. Jessica says things like "I can't believe how badly I screwed that up" at the same time that a Midtown student says, "SAY, GANG! WE NEED ONE MORE GUY FOR THE DANCE! HOW ABOUT PETER PARKER OVER THERE?" I especially like it when Jessica calls Flash Thompson "a fucking repressed dickhead retard" and Peter replies, "I wouldn't put it in those words exactly."

As always, putting Jessica's life next to these other ones shows how terrible her life is. The secret origin starts with her getting a car crash, and things only get worse from there, as we explore Jessica's past and see how what's happened then relates to her present. It's great, terrifying stuff. Poor, poor Jessica.

As good as it is, though, there are three things I don't like about the ending. (YES, THIS PARAGRAPH HAS SPOILERS IN IT.) The first is that Jessica's "archnemesis," the Purple Man, thinks that he's a character in a comic book. It's too knowing, and I don't think it adds anything to the story. We already get when Bendis and Gaydos are doing if we're paying attention. The second is that when Jessica defeats the Purple Man because Jean Grey installed a psychic trigger in her all those years ago. That's it? Lame. Too easy. The third is Jessica's sudden decision that she loves Luke Cage, who we've seen on a total of three previous occasions this entire series. Really? Why? I just don't see what exists between them.

Aside from that stuff, though, Alias's second book is just as good, if not better, than the first. Good dialogue from Bendis and great art from Gaydos give us a gripping examination of what it means to be powerless-- and the lengths to which people will go to overcome that feeling.

Jessica Jones: « Previous in sequence | Next in sequence »

I love Alias, and I'm more than a little sad to see the series come to an end. I think that there could have been a lot more story lines for the series. But the series did end up well. Jessica's past is revealed, including her ties to the Avengers and why she decided to give up trying to be a superhero.

***mild spoilers below***

Although it's kind of hokey that Jessica knew pre-Spider-Man Peter Parker and had a crush on him, her origin story was good enough.

And even though Jessica's "relationship" with the Purple Man was sexually charged, I was so glad that she wasn't raped by him. It seems too many women in Marvel are raped by the bad guys (including Ms. Marvel, Jessica's best friend), and I'm glad that Bendis didn't go down that tired path, even though there was definitely a sexual element there.

I like Jessica Jones in spite of her numerous flaws, but I wish that her relationship with Scott Lang (Ant Man) had gone better. I like Scott quite a bit (he was in one of the very first comics I ever read, and I was sad to see him killed off in Avengers Disassembled), and I think that Jessica treated him more as a fill-in than a real romantic interest. I wasn't sure how long they had been dating, but telling him that she was pregnant by another guy in the way she did was cold at best.

***end spoilers***

Altogether, this was a great book, and I wish that the Jessica Jones in New Avengers resembled this Jessica Jones more. ( )