We find Kate (and Dan) in their office located in a Brownstone in New York. (Editor’s note: they live in a townhouse in Minnesota.) Kate is wearing baggy, day old rumpled clothes, hair hanging in her face, and a classic pair of John Lennon style sunglasses covering her bloodshot eyes. Dan is rocking a do-rag, white muscle t-shirt, and low cut jeans. Also, a pair of heavy duty, steel toe boots.
Both of them look unbelievably uncomfortable.
Kate: Hey…?
Dan: Hey.
K: Um.
D: Yeah.
K: …
D: …
K: Look, I … um… That Brian Michael Bendis… it’s just, well…
D: I know, right? The way he, well…the dialog?
K: The dialog.
D: So real.
K: Um…Dan?
D: …
K: Why are we…like…talking like this?
D: I think. Um. Alias by Bendis really got to us.
K: ::pushes hair out of face:: I can’t do this any more. You look ridiculous in that do-rag.
D: ::pulls off boots:: You’re right. I can’t walk up or down stairs in these boots. But I do think I make this muscle t-shirt WORK.
K: Very nice, Eminem. Let’s talk about this #$%@ing book.
D: WOAH. Language!! This is a family blog…of sorts. I guess the main character, Jessica Jones, and her potty mouth really spoke to you.
K: $#%&ing right! What do I like? Strong, independent female lead characters. What do you have in this book? Just that!
D: True dat. Alias Volume 4 shines a light on the hidden past of Jessica Jones, our tough talking, hard drinking Private Eye to the super-hero set.
K: No #$%. Seems she used to be the super-heroine “Jewel.”
D: Yeah? And how did that go for her?
K: Not too #^&*ing well.
D: Would you PLEASE stop cursing like that? Just because Bendis wrote this book under Marvel’s old MAX line, and was able to use adult language and situations, doesn’t mean you need to!
K: …
D: Thank you.
K: #@*&! Sorry. Stubbed my toe. So Jessica’s time as Jewel was rather short, and ended badly. A young hero loaded with potential, her career was snuffed out early after receiving a severe beating at the hands of the Avengers and Defenders. The whole mess was due to her being mind controlled by the villain The Purple Man. She was eventually able to recover from the physical attack from the other heroes, but it was the emotional trauma she suffered from the Purple Man that led to Jessica withdrawing from the super-hero community, becoming a PI, drinking, cursing, and basically becoming a rather coarse young woman.
I’ll say this much. We’ve been chewing up Bendis’s amazing dialog, but what makes the book for me, was the art by Michael Gaydos, Rick Mays, Mark Bagley, and Art Thibert. From Jessica’s early days, rendered to look like the early Marvel works of Steve Ditko, to her ill-fated 80’s inspired super-hero look by Mark Bagley. The overall effect knocked my f#$%ing socks off.
D: ::glares::
K: You can read curse words, but you can’t listen to them? Get over it, p*$$y.!
D: ::glares some more:: I really dig the scenes she shares with Luke Cage. The relationship really developed at a nice pace, and Bendis makes these two a natural match for each other. Her scene with Cage is a real heart warmer after the final dramatic confrontations in the book.
K: Whatever, softie. I’ll leave it at this. Watching this damaged woman defeat the evil that scared her so badly? That made for a really, REALLY, sweet fucking read.
D: Amen.
