In 2001, Marvel Comics began its "Alias" series, debuting their newest super-heroine: Jessica Jones. In 2010, it was revealed that Melissa Rosenberg, for the Marvel Cinematic Universe, had taken on the development of a new television series being created called AKA Jessica Jones, later renamed Marvel’s Jessica Jones. The premise was “a failed superhero who is rebuilding her life as a private detective in New York City.” With Krysten Ritter playing Jessica and David Tennant taking on the role of the villain, Zebediah Killgrave, the show tackles many difficult and quasi-taboo themes with a dark, gritty air that seems to be a common pattern in the people of Hell’s Kitchen, New York.
Jessica Jones runs Alias Investigations, a private investigation company, and she’s plagued by PTSD, caused by her stint of captivity with Zebediah Killgrave. Jessica is trying to pick up the pieces of her life, shattered by Killgrave, brainwashing, rape, murder, and her escape from his clutches.
Most shows do not address topics like rape and the subsequent, eventual recovery, but Marvel’s Jessica Jones faces the trauma of Jessica’s past head-on. Even her super strength can’t save her from Killgrave until she finds the inner strength to save herself. When she was younger, the “Purple Man,” Killgrave, told her to sleep with him, forced his way into her life, controlling her the entire time. Killgrave eventually forced Jones to do something so heinous that she woke up from his control and escaped.
The darkness that plagued "Daredevil" continues through to "Jessica Jones," and I believe that it will continue to permeate the shows set in Hell’s Kitchen. These “real-life, down-to-earth” types of superheroes face hiding their powers from the world and living daily life as a regular Joe, not as a billionaire in a fancy-suit or as a genetically modified super soldier. These “normal” (as normal as superheroes can be) are seen as real people, not legends, through these series'.
Jessica is not your normal hero. She’s not Captain Marvel or Supergirl, she’s just your run-of-the-mill snarky private investigator with super strength and a nemesis. She may not have been the heroine we expected, but she is absolutely the heroine we needed to drive ratings up on a female-led show and let Marvel know that the masses are clamoring for a female-led superhero movie. I have seen posts all over the Internet surface about how there should be more than one of six Avengers who are women, and I agree. I’d like to see Marvel create a movie about a female superhero who is not caught in a love triangle, and I’d like for little girls to have someone like that to look up to. They need a hero, too.
