Who is Jessica Jones (of 'Jessica Jones' fame)?

The new Jessica Jones Netflix show is great! We’ve only seen a few episodes but I’m very much enjoying this darker series as sort of a complement to the gritty Daredevil. Krysten Ritter shows some of the dismissive snark I enjoyed in Don’t Trust the B in Apt. 23 and does quite well portraying a woman trying to overcome her past trauma while helping others avoid the clutches of a supervillain.

I never read many Jessica Jones stories firsthand but here is what I’ve been able to glean. The character first appeared in about 2001 in the Alias series as a former superhero who opened a detective agency. The comic retroactively inserted Jessica into early Marvel history, having her go to high school with Peter Parker and have a crush on him. She was present when Peter got bitten by the radioactive spider and in the vicinity when Matt Murdock got blinded and became Daredevil so it was fun to have her retconned into old Marvel history.

Jessica gained super strength and flight powers and had a brief career as the superhero Jewel (for a stint she was also known as Knightress). The Purple Man mind-controlled Jessica to attack Daredevil but she mistakenly went to Avengers Mansion (because most New York superhero activity happens within the same 50-block radius) and attacked the first superhero she saw wearing red, the Scarlet Witch. The Vision (who we all know is the world’s most sensitive synthezoid) defended his wife and with the help of Iron Man, beat Jessica into a coma. Ms. Marvel, who knew Jessica, rescued her and took her to the hospital. Judging by the Avengers membership, this happened in about 1979-80 in our world. Jean Grey, who about that time would have been Phoenix, helped Jessica overcome the Purple Man’s mental domination.

The Purple Man is Zebediah Killgrave, known on Jessica Jones pretty much by his real name. He’s an old Daredevil villain from the ‘60s. In the comics, he’s a Soviet spy with purple skin who gained mind control powers. This was all relatively harmless on his initial appearances but by the time of Alias, there was rape implied in his control of women. In recent issues of Daredevil, I understand that he fathered a bunch of purple children who inherited his mind-control power. With a Village of the Damned vibe, they turned on their father and mind-controlled him into walking in front of a truck. Killgrave had an older daughter, Purple Girl, a hero on the Alpha Flight title in the ‘80s. I hope they use the Purple Man name in the show because it has a creepy atmosphere, almost like a child’s boogeyman.

The relationship to Luke Cage, Power Man, is similar in the TV show and the comic. The two eventually married and had a child in the comics and have athletic sex on TV like they do in the comic. I guess that’s what happens when two super-strong people get together.

I haven’t seen how the TV show plays out but I am wondering about the character Trish Walker, the talk show host. In the comics, she is Patsy Walker, a redhead who goes back to the Marvel romance comics of the ‘40s. In the ‘60s, Marvel revived the character and she eventually became Hellcat, a hero who was briefly an Avenger and then a longtime Defender. Hellcat wore a costume that gave her enhanced athletic abilities and that seems close to Trish’s learning self-defense on the show.

I also heard the character Nuke shows up on the show. He appeared in the Born Again Daredevil story in the ‘80s. Nuke was a Vietnam vet who received super strength from the Super Soldier program. He was popping pills and mentally unstable and the Kingpin hired him to shoot up Hell’s Kitchen and draw Daredevil out of hiding.

I am enjoying Jessica Jones’ look at the more “street-level” stories of the Marvel Universe.