âJessica Jones: Alias Vol. 1â review
By Brittney MacDonald, Life & Style Editor
1/5
Comic fans are waiting with bated breath to see if the new Marvel/Netflix collaboration, Jessica Jones, is as successful as their last attempt, Daredevil. Curious, I decided to check out the character of Jessica Jones before her small screen debut. But Jessica Jones: Alias by Brian Michael Bendis just doesnât live up to its interesting concept. In short, itâs a missed opportunity.
The story of Jessica Jones is a pretty fascinating one. It tackles the issue of superheroes with less than stellar powers. What do you do when youâre not normal, but youâre not strong enough to fight alongside the likes of Thor? Apparently, you open a detective agency that deals mostly in superhuman investigations.
Overall, I liked the character of Jones: sheâs crass and funny, but I found that in trying to portray a very reality-based world, Bendis allowed that aspect to overtake his narrative. The constant reminders that Jones is still human, and has to do things like go to the bathroom and deal with menstrual cramps, got very tedious and weighed the plot down too much. It became distracting rather than something that drove the narrative.
Jessica Jones: Alias suffers from an artistic issue that I like to call âcover syndrome,â where the cover art misleads a potential reader. Though Bill Sienkiewiczâs cover art is beautiful, stylistically it is extremely different than the art inside, which is done by Michael Gaydos. Aesthetically, Gaydos uses heavy cell shading, but his work lacks the detail that makes that choice effective, so the art comes off looking very paint-by-numbers.
Though I still have high hopes for the Netflix original series, I canât say I enjoyed Jessica Jones: Alias. I probably wonât be buying the next installment, and definitely wonât be recommending it to anyone.
