Tony Stark just lost his position as everyone's favorite alcoholic superhero. The billionaire playboy philanthropist has nothing on Jessica Jones.
The highly anticipated new Netflix series released Nov. 21 already has audiences demanding more. Krysten Ritter brings her icy charm (and a resting bitch-face that puts Jack White to shame) to Jessica Jones in what might be the best Marvel series to date.
The show's pilot does everything right to draw in viewers. It starts out with a fairly typical, and at times cheesy, voice over as Jessica goes through her day. As a private investigator in a bad neighborhood of New York, her superhuman strength comes in handy when she needs to shove someone's head through a door. It isn't until the big bad of the series, Killgrave (brilliantly portrayed by "Doctor Who's" David Tennant) that the show takes a dramatic shift. What seemed like a campy romp quickly devolves into an incredibly dark story of manipulation, rape, and a far too literal version of the saying "death by a thousand cuts."
Killgrave's mind-control powers act as the perfect foil to Jessica's purely physical abilities. What's even more compelling is their past relationship. For a time, Jessica was Killgrave's obedient slave, satisfying his every need, in a jarring metaphor for abusive relationships. Jessica remains marked by this toxic relationship, and struggles with PTSD, alcoholism, and trust issues.
Killgrave is evil, but not in the "destroy the earth" kind of way. The show actually benefits from a more day to day kind of heroism that actually roots itself (to a degree) in the depressing daily battles of reality. The Avengers don't need to be called in to save everyone on earth for "Jessica Jones," but the number of times the world has been on the brink of destruction since the first Iron Man movie has exhausted the fun of these big scale catastrophes. Jessica Jones, on the other hand, beats up the bad guys we see every day.
Seeing a woman in a leading role of a superhero series also wins the show major brownie points (still waiting on that Black Widow movie though.) Jessica Jones is the first leading super-lady of Marvel, and there are few better characters to pave the way for more female-driven stories. Jessica's story at times skirts the line of all-too-plausible horror when it come to Killgrave's creepier commands. Most of them vividly center around controlling or causing physical harm to Jessica or other women. But Jessica even climatically breaks free of Killgrave's control and gets a few solid punches in doing so.
Boosting the feminist tone, the writers also successfully included a love interest who didn't consume Jessica's life. Luke Cage (Mike Coltor,) another super powered pal of hers, actually gets introduced to the series as more of friend with benefits than romantic partner. Her concern is centered first and foremost on her pursuit of Killgrave. Their relationship never gets defined as anything more than friendship with a side of sex.
The buzz around "Jessica Jones" definitely proves a market exists for female lead superheroes and media that can portray women with style and subtlety. With hundreds of other super-women who could easily star in a movie (Storm, Black Canary, The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl) there's no longer an excuse not to show more awesome women using their superpowers to beat up dirt-bags and sexist dude-bros who are against women using their superpowers to beat up their fellow dirt-bags.
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