Jessica Jones was once a costumed superhero, flying around, saving the day. But she gave all that up, now she works as a private investigator.
In the first volume Jones is trying to locate a missing girl, as well as protect herself. She lives in an inbetween world. Not a superhero anymore, but still, not normal. She gets a lot of the abuse that people can’t give to the likes of Captain America.
With the release of Jessica Jones on Netflix Marvel obviously decided to promote this comic, because it was on special offer when I bought it. And I went looking because of the Netflix show, so I guess they were right. But to start with all the differences between the comic and the tv show put me off the comic. It wasn’t what I was expecting. Which, duh! obviously, it isn’t the TV [ref]do we call Netflix shows TV shows? I mean, I watch them on a telly, but they aren’t broadcast on a station… yeah, I’m gonna call them TV shows[/ref] and two different mediums obviously do things differently.
But Jessica Jones the show [ref]which I loved, btw[/ref] was so much darker. And it felt much more real, in as much as super-powered people’s tv shows can be real. Also the comic has a lot more references to other, costumed superheroes than the TV show, even Jones’ powers seem to be a lot more impressive in the comic.
But I shouldn’t compare. So that’s the end of that. Back to Alias the graphic novel [ref]which is really four vol.s or 28 issues, whichever you prefer.[/ref]
I have to say that while I enjoyed reading them, and they got better the more I read, I wasn’t blown away by them. They suffered from that slight disconnect I often get when reading a superhero comic. The stories feel very superficial in some way, and a lot of it seems to be surface level stuff. I guess it is hard to really get inside the mind of a character when all you get are pictures and dialogue, although films and tv manage… and I don’t get that feeling off other sorts of comics. So maybe it is just something in the way superhero comics are told, I’m not sure.
I read these on my phone, with the Comics app (android), and I have to say that I thought it improved my reading experience, especially when there were a lot of reaction and action panels, without any dialogue. I’m so used to reading books that I turn a page and I’m scanning automatically for the next written word. The app lets you turn panel by panel, so I didn’t have that need to miss a panel of art as I looked ahead for the next written word. Of course the quality of the art probably suffered a little, but not enough to put me off. I think I’ll try and read most of my superhero comic books on the app, it made it a much better experience for me.
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