For everyone who tore through the first season of Netflix’s “Jessica Jones” with gusto, the announcement of a second seems like a no-brainer. The show was both critically acclaimed and a hit with audiences, so why on earth not bring it back ASAP?
Because of the comics status quo, that’s why.
Before showrunner Melissa Rosenberg can film a second season, Krysten Ritter’s badass noir character may be rerouted into “The Defenders,” a 2016 series that will team up Jessica with Luke Cage (“JJ” co-star Mike Colter), Daredevil (Charlie Cox, from that Netflix series) and possibly a guy named Iron Fist. It’s like the Avengers, but different . . .
Pardon me, I just fell asleep writing that. Note to Marvel and DC: Superhero fatigue is real, and “Jessica Jones” gave a lot of us hope for more interesting directions in comics lore than your nonstop barrage of teamed-up caped crusaders fighting crime in a pack. Exhibit A: “Captain America: Civil War,” out this year, will team up Cap with Scarlet Witch, Black Widow, Iron Man and Ant Man.
Also this year, on the DC Comics side, is “Batman v Superman,” which sees these two putting aside their differences to team up with Wonder Woman. There’s an Avengers part three in the works for 2018, you say? Don’t care. Enough already. With every bloated new venture stuffing in as many superhero names as possible, these franchises get more generic and snoozy. (Also, in case you hadn’t noticed, female characters tend to get majorly sidelined in these group ventures.)
This is why “Jessica Jones” is such a refreshing change of pace. Not only is she the first great female comics character to have her OWN show (no offense, inoffensive Supergirl), but the tone of the series is fundamentally different from most comics plots, delving into a more realistic and scarier villainy with David Tennant’s mind-controlling Kilgrave. It’s also a pretty obvious rebuke to the tedium of the playing-with-action-figures mentality of so many of the recent Marvel movies. The very weariness of Jessica’s hard-drinking private-eye narrative reflected the way a lot of us are feeling about the current, unending domination of bland, no-real-stakes superhero tales.
And instead of acknowledging the brilliance of this innovative approach to their material, Marvel is making her join one of those boring-ass teams — which feels like one of Kilgrave’s insidious mind-control stunts.
Say it with me, now: Free Jessica Jones! Free Jessica Jones!