Everyone and their mother knows that when it comes to chicks in comic books and their portrayal in movies and TV, I’m your gal. So when I saw an article announcing that ABC has picked up a new Jessica Jones TV show, needless to say, I was a bit skeptical. After watching the train wreck known as Wonder Woman, and the nosedive-after-season-one show known as Heroes, I have little faith in ANY superhero show. Especially one on network TV.
The show will be called AKA Jessica Jones, and will feature writer Melissa Rosenberg of the “Twilight” films. (Side note: having one of the “Twilight” writers on this show makes me even more nervous about it than I previously was). The show will be set in the current Marvel universe, and will feature characters such as Luke Cage (Power Man) and Carol Danvers (Ms. Marvel). In an interview with HitFlix, Rosenberg explained some of the difficulty in writing the show saying, “It’s very tricky navigation there. You can’t mention one guy because Fox has the rights to that guy and Universal has the rights to the other one. There are a lot of boundaries on who you can and can’t use. I had Jessica Jones and Luke Cage and Carol Danvers [for the pilot script]. Basically, I wanted those three guys — then I would have a series. Everyone else we can be digging into lesser known characters or taking known characters and renaming them”.
The show will be based on the comic book series Alias by Brian Michael Bendis. It will focus on Jessica giving up her superhero life to open a detective agency. In the series Jessica has a child with Luke Cage, so I’m just hoping that this doesn’t turn into a whole “Mom taking on the world” scenario.
When Rosenberg was asked about if she thought the failed Wonder Woman pilot could hurt the chances of AKA Jessica Jones being picked up by ABC, Rosenberg replied “Frankly, Jessica is so much darker than Wonder Woman, If anything that would be the issue,” she said. “It’s fairly edgy and gritty than even the comic book.”. To that I say, just because it’s dark, doesn’t mean it’s going to be successful.
Kudos to Marvel for taking the initiative on this, and realizing that there may, in fact, be a market for women who like comics. However, if Wonder Woman, Heroes and The Cape have taught us anything, it’s that good ideas can get ruined very quickly. I think the biggest thing that AKA Jessica Jones has going for it is the fact that she’s not that well known to the public. It’s not like Wonder Woman where she’s their biggest female property, who’s been around for a million years. The fact that to the public there will be almost no name recognition, may play to their favor. We’ll just have to wait and see.
AKA Jessica Jones is slated to begin with the new spring line-up for ABC, and I will keep you posted on more details as they emerge.