Welcome to the world of a superhero in the Marvel MAX line: where the creative freedom so evident in DC’s VERTIGO line bursts forth on a regular basis.
ALIAS is MAX COMICS’ flagship title. Written by thriving superstar Brian Michael Bendis, it has a lot of the same gritty, unwashed feel of JINX: his self published critical success. A strong female character who also happens to be a Private Investigator, Jessica Jones is the kind of girl you DON’T take home to mother unless you’re a glutton for punishment. Michael Gaydos provides the stark art; so stark that you sometimes want to bathe after thumbing through the book. Bendis has a wonderful command of how words and pictures mesh and Gaydos translates that with close-ups and weird camera angles. Then you let Bendis’ old self publishing buddy David Mack loose on some pretty messed up cover designs and you have a book that jumps out at you from off the comic shelves.
But enough of that: here’s the meat of the series.
Jessica Jones is a former superhero who owns and operates Alias Investigations(thus the cleaver title of the series). After beating the heck out of a violent client(who discovered his wife is a mutant), she has a similar bad experience with some police officers who respond to her complaint. Feeling pretty disgusted, Jessica goes to a local watering hole, gets drunk, gets picked up by her old friend Luke Cage and ends up in the sack with the Hero for Hire. this sequence caused some serious rippling in the comic community and rumors abounded how the scene was “trimmed” to tone it down. Either way, the scene remains an abrasive look at passionless fornication.
The following day, Jessica is hired by a woman who wants to find her missing sister. Jessica gets the woman’s arrival at her home caught on video tape, along with that of a man. Not long after, that man heads to the roof and changes into Captain America. Uncertain as to how she managed to get Cap’s ID on tape and wondering what the deal was with the “missing girl”, Jessica tries in vain to contact the woman who hired her. Then she returns to the home of the “missing girl”, which is now a crime scene. Unable to make sense of everything, she heads to Luke Cage’s place. But he’s already got someone else in his bed tonight. And Avengers Mansion? Tighter the Fort Knox.
That’s when the Police arrive at her office and take her into custody and grill her about the murder. Before they can get very far, Matt Murdock arrives and arranges her release. She contacts Carol Danvers-better known as Ms. Marvel from back in her superoing days. Danvers provides a lead to the phony info Jessica was first given and that leads her to a committee looking to re-elect the President. While investigating, Murdock informs her she’s been cleared...just as she is being attacked by the apparent murderer(what Spider Man fans out there remember Man Mountain Marko?).
Turns out someone with more money and prestige than he knew what to do with wanted to start a political scandal with the Cap tape. Also turns out that Clay Quartermain and the boys from S.H.I.E.L.D. had been listening and following our heroine. The President bows out of the race, Cap retrieves the tape and convinces her to mend fences with Carol Danvers, which she does over a lunch where we find out Luke Cage HAS made his way through many of the female superheroes in the Marvel Universe(well...at least the MAX Universe) including She-Hulk and Tigra. Carol tried to hook her up with Scott Lang, but she balks at the idea of dating Ant Man.
Then we are treated to two pages of cyber porn from a chat room in what is probably some of the vilest stuff ever to hit Mainstream comics. See, Jessica is “playing” a gay man in a gay chat room and we get exposed to a pretty disgusting fantasy which I cannot and will not relate here. Luckily she gets a visit from Jane Jones-the wife of Rick Jones(huh? I thought her name was Marlo...). As the plot gets weirder, Jessica tracks him down and finds out Rick THINKS he has a bounty on his head left over from the Kree Skrull War.
What the heck IS going on here?
If you’re looking for a well written mystery series with plenty of hooks and great dialogue to kick back with and read over a cigar and a beer or two, THIS IS THE ONE FOR YOU. Bendis’ characterizations are wonderful and he has such a great gift for writing great dialogue. part HILL STREET BLUES, part SOPRANOS, the words flow so naturally it makes the rest of his wanna-bes jealous! The cutting remarks and the whole vibe the writing creates is just wonderful, sucking you right in and refusies to let you go. Just the sequence between Carol Danvers and Jessica in issue #6 is worth the price of the book, wherein Jessica refers to Luke as a “cape chaser”. Nice line, dude-REAL NICE!
However, if you’re looking for a well written mystery series with plenty of hooks and great dialogue to read to your kids at night, THIS AIN’T THE BOOK!!! While I haven’t had the opportunity to sit down and count, the four letter word count per issue is EXTREMELY high. Heck-three major F’s on the first page of the first issue, not to mention the whole gay-porn chat room rap. It like letting Mickey Spillane collaborate with Garth Ennis on a Quentin Tarrantino film. foul...vile...fun!
Back issue demand for this series has already gotten high as retailers under-ordered and many fans jumped on board a little late. Spurred on my media hype and creative rants like this one, the book has become a breakout success. Do yourself a favor: get in on this while you can. If Bendis and Gaydos one day decide to call it quits on this title, Marvel might just as well retire it.
I seriously doubt anyone else could do it proper justice.