Marvels Jessica Jones - a solid punch to the gut. (Spoilers… Duh)

So with Netflix rising to become an entertainment giant and Disney want to have their Marvel property in, on and around every place on earth the multi series deal that spawned Daredevil was not unexpected.

What was unexpected was how seriously Netflix took the deal. Daredevil was a very well-produced series that set the new bar for in my mind not only superhero series but any kind of fantasy drama. So when the teasers for Jessica Jones started to drop the “buzz” was real. But as a comics fan and as someone who is fleetingly familiar with the character of Jessica Jones I had some reservations. Mostly because Jones is a broken human being, used and abused in the worst of ways. How would Netflix tell that part of the story? The answer in hindsight should have been clear. They simply told it as it were.

So for the people not familiar with the story it goes thusly. Jessica Jones is a girl with superpowers, flight, super strength and some limited rapid healing. Like most people who get powers in the marvel universe she decides to be a hero. In the comics they wrote her in as a background character, someone who had always been there but never seen. But she had not even taken down her first Batroc before she fell under the control of the villain Purple man (aka Kilgrave/Killgrave). A sadist with mind control powers by the way of pheromones. Both in the series and the comics what follow is a period of mental torture and well… Rape. But it ends with her breaking free of his control and slowly trying to put her life back together. She hangs up her cape and goes in to private investigation and heavy drinking.

The series picks up at this point and tell most of the backstory in flashbacks, including a live action version of the outfit she used in the comics. The series love to toss in this kind of Easter eggs. In fact the very first scene in the series is a picture perfect recreation of the opening scene in the comics.

I mentioned earlier that the series does not pull any punches or really make any excuses for the way Jessica acts. They just drop her there and tell us to deal with it however we like. This is refreshing and lends a certain level of realism to the story. The series also does a very good job I have been told of portraying someone who have lived with abuse and trauma. While I have very little in the way of reference myself it felt very genuine. Now with this being Netflix and thusly not regulated by the American TV-censor board everything is a bit more gritty. While not as in your face gory as Daredevil, Jessica Jones has its fair share of both blood, sex and drugs. But I never feel they go overboard with it. It still fits very well in with the theme and mood of the series.

Now Jessica Jones is backed up by a real nice cast of characters including childhood friend and former childactor-turned-radio host Trish Walker and bulletproof bar owner and sometimes fuckbuddy Luke Cage. Trish in many ways become Jessica´s flip-side. Someone who also have faced trauma and abuse but choose to put on a façade of normality rather than choosing Jessica´s “fuck all” attitude.

As for Luke he does not get as much development, mostly because he is next up for his own series on Netflix but the series do an apt job of making him a believable character and a stellar job of bringing the comic hero to life.  Also the sex scenes between Luke and Jessica are as comedic as they are tragic.

Now it would be a grave error to not bring up perhaps the best portrayal of a villain in the Marvel cinematic universe. Kilgrave is as scary as he is pathetic. The fact that he sees himself as the victim of his own power and honestly do not see any problem in how he bends peoples wills. He simply sees himself as superior. In fact Jessica is the only known case of someone resisting his control. This have made him obsessed with her and the length he goes to in order to play mind-games with her is downright scary. At the same time he is at the core just a very broken and scared man. Afraid to be left alone and forgotten. Like Kingpin his motivations are clear as a character and they are maybe not relatable but at least they are things we can understand. These are the same traits I think made Loki such a good villain, we can all understand rejection and obsession. The seeking of approval and that is what makes it so effective when Kilgrave goes to such extreme lengths, because we all have at one time or another wished we had that very power to bend others to our will.

So I say go watch Jessica Jones and Daredevil on Netflix. It will be worth a month´s subscription. (also if you do, check out Orange is the new Black. A very good series in its own right.)