With Jessica Jones rocking Netflix, Supergirl taking flight on CBS, The CW’s corner of the DC Universe, Fox’s Batman prequel and ABC’s Marvel shows, there’s certainly a superhero show for everybody.
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There’s a scene in Jessica Jones’ third episode where the title character and Luke Cage, a hero soon to receive his own Netflix show, have discovered each other’s powers and are chatting to one another about it. “Accident”, says Jones. Also as in Jessica Jones, Rosario Dawson is set to reprise her role as Daredevil’s Claire Temple. Yes, Jessica does have super strength and can jump really high, but her abilities are an afterthought.
Played with a biting delivery from actor Krysten Ritter, Jessica nearly doesn’t seem to belong in Marvel’s wider world – but that’s something that the character, too, feels. In her interview with Los Angeles Times, Rosenberg said that playing elements like abuse, rape, and PTSD as honestly as possible had been very much the aim of the series from the start.
There’s not as much action or humor as one would expect, which can be an initial disappointment to some.
Not only is she a total badass and a fully realised character to boot, there is no HINT of Jessica’s gender being an issue throughout the show, and why should there be? He is the everyman stalker, come to life like the boy who follows a girl home, the guy who keeps blank-calling a girl who doesn’t want to talk to him, the dude who keeps on checking out the profile of the girl he thinks he’s in love with o the abusive husband who can’t understand why his wife wants to leave him.
Last week Netflix released the newest chapter in the Marvel Universe, Jessica Jones, and you need to go watch it! These two superheroes are fighting the same battle, but they’re each doing it in their own way, and it doesn’t mean that one is more valued or more important than the other.
The real standout is the show’s antagonist, Kilgrave. Kilgrave is so terrifying, but maybe that’s because we no virtually nothing about him except that he wields enormous power. Or, more cynically, she knows that people are fallible, and that behaving selfishly in a moment of weakness doesn’t indict Malcolm as a person.
During my binge-viewing of “Jessica Jones”, my best friend was searching Wikipedia so I could do some research about the comic book version of Jessica Jones and her supporting cast, in order to understand the direction and vision the team at Marvel had for this series.
Luke Cage rose to prominence in the ’70s.
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This show is the satisfying result of a plea for a female hero, and PRAISE THE LORD it wasn’t some fluffy sexy version of a superhero. As well as having Daredevil season two, Jessica Jones season two, and The Defenders season one, we also have Luke Cage season one, and Iron Fist season one to look forward to. Rather than starting at the beginning of her story, the show starts long after she has been destroyed by Kilgrave and has given up her superhero dream, so we only see what happened through short flashbacks and honestly? The idea may be in the hands of the creators presently, but I sure hope so.
