“Would you put day drinking under experience or special abilities?”
I’ve been meaning to start watching this since it was released but only got round to it when I was on holiday recently and had free time, and I was very impressed!
Jessica Jones is a Netflix created Marvel miniseries about former super hero, Jessica Jones (Krysten Ritter), who becomes a private investigator in New York’s ‘Hell’s Kitchen’, the home of Marvel’s Daredevil, in and attempt to restart her life. However her life is once again turned upside down when and old enemy, Killgrave (David Tennant), a man who can manipulate people to do what ever he wants by simply speaking to them, returns and starts to act out his revenge on Jessica.
I’m only 6 episodes in to the series but already I’m enjoying it immensely and find it a brilliant series. Part of the reason I really like it is because, in the same way as Daredevil, it puts a much darker twist on the Marvel Universe, which is slightly more child friendly due to the nature of the movies; the movies can be dark at times but not as dark as the Daredevil and Jessica Jones series, and the DC Comics movies, and also lack the realism. In Jessica Jones Jessica is hired by a woman who want to kill her purely because she has super powers, as an act of revenge for the fact that her mother was killed by a falling building in the Battle of New York that is detailed in Avenger Assemble; the Avengers movie glosses over the fact that there was large amounts of collateral damage and focuses on the fact that the Avengers saved the day and everyone was better off at the end of it. I’m not dissing Avengers at all, I love that movie, but Jessica Jones adds an element of realism that the Marvel Universe was lacking.
I also absolutely love the characters. Jessica herself is the eponymous hero of the series, but she is a foul mouthed alcoholic one at that, who does whatever she has to do to get the job done. It subverts the norm of the classic ‘superhero’, creating an even better one in the process.
I also really like the character of Luke Cage (Mike Colter), who’s superpower is indestructibility as opposed to Jessica’s super strength, but equally as different and as dark as Jessica when compared to classic superheros. He is supposed to get his own series this year, which will be amazing, and then hopefully at some point Jessica, Luke and Daredevil will team up to form The Defenders, another Marvel superhero team, with characters such as Iron Fist, Dr. Strange, Hulk, Namor and many more.
David Tennant plays the character of Killgrave amazingly, and presents him as a brilliant, dark and truly psychopathic, and frankly very creepy, villain. Killgrave can control people and make them do whatever he wants just by speaking to them and making them suddenly really want to do what he says. He uses this to his advantage, making people his personal slaves, getting money and even making people kill themselves. He is truly terrifying as he appears to have no morals whatsoever, and is shown to have a very disturbing fixation and obsession over Jessica as he tries to get his revenge. This makes him very different to most Marvel villains as he is just overall a darker and disturbing character; there isn’t really a comedic element to him as there is with some villains, such as Loki. I don’t think any other actor apart from David Tennant could have played him, certainly not with the same effect anyway.
I’m really looking forward to the rest of the series as it looks set to get even better!
Jake Carder's AS Media Studies Blog 