Once again, Bendis takes the fantastic notion of super-powers and filters it through a real-world perspective, arriving at an inventive yet grounded story that explores one person's emotions rather than a parallel dimension. The greatest strength of this issue, though, is the juxtaposition of an angry but everyday perspective with the lighter elements of the Silver Age of super-hero comics. And again, Bendis's ideas are crystallized perfectly thanks to his skill with genuine dialogue.
After losing her family, suffering through a coma and being adpoted by a new family, Jessica Jones returns to life in Forest Hills, Queens. She sees familiar faces at high school, but word has spread about her ordeal, and the kids make her feel like even more of an outsider than she did already. When she thinks she can't face another minute, she discovers something incredible about the accident that saw her family killed. Her discovery of super-powers isn't nearly the magical experience she might have expected it to be, though.
Given the darkness and adult atmosphere of the series as a whole, I was surprised to see Gaydos handling the brighter tone of this story of Jessica's past. He captures her youth and that of the other students quite well, and the reader can see the woman that Jessica will become in those softer features. I also loved the clear Jack Kirby influence in his depiction of Thor in this issue.
Speaking of Thor, the brief exchange between him and Jessica in the middle of the issue is hilarious. His critique of her choice of language is fantastic, especially when one considers how silly Thor's purple prose would sound in the real world.
That joke, though, grows out of the issue's main strength, and that's the contrast of more modern storytelling sensibilities with the simpler tone of yesteryear. Jessica is Peter Parker here, really. She's teased by her peers, and she's gained amazing powers. But her reaction makes for a powerful comparison to how the world has changed -- and how readers' and creators' perspectives have changed. Furthermore, Bendis spotlights the origins of Jessica's sense of isolation from those around her. As an adult, she's a loner... at times, to the point of self-destruction. Here, we learn, in part, why that is, and it brings us closer to the character.
Bendis answers a lot of questions about Jessica here -- how she got her powers, how she got her attitude -- but some new ones arise as well. I'm terribly curious about the "current" status of her relationship with her adopted family, and I hope that's addressed in future subplots in stories set in the present.
