Following an appetizer consisting of early glimpses at the second season of Daredevil, Netflix and Marvel served New York Comic Con attendees a main course this afternoon by screening the entire pilot of Jessica Jones, starring Krysten Ritter in the title role.
The second of four shows based on Marvel characters to appear on the streaming service, Jessica Jones follows the former superhero who hung up her cape after a personally disastrous conflict with the supervillain Kilgrave, played by David Tennant. Now working as a private investigator who focuses on cases involving other superhumans, Jones must deal with her lingering trauma while trying to make ends meet.
It wasn’t just the pilot however. Just before the screening, Marvel Head of Television Jeph Loeb revealed that cast member Carrie Anne Moss is playing attorney Jeryn Hogarth, a gender-flipped take on the Marvel Comics character first introduced on the pages of Iron Fist #6 (1976) and later an integral part of Power Man and Iron Fist. (Who, by the by, are the two other characters with inbound Netflix shows.) On Jessica Jones, Hogarth hires Jessica as a PI.
Both Hogarth and the show’s title character signal the intent to play with gender politics in superhero stories. Hogarth is gay, while Jessica drinks to keep her pain at bay and wears her superhero talents as a kind of nuisance. And in the pilot, written by series exec producer Melissa Rosenberg, the plenty brooding and bad-ass Jessica comes off as something of a superpowered Lizbeth Salander (of the Millennium Trilogy), minus the motorcycle, tattoos and hacking skills.
As for Daredevil, that segment of the session was much fanfare but little actual information, as Loeb brought the cast of Daredevil season two out to greet the crowd. That included the show’s two new additions, Jon Bernthal as The Punisher and Elodie Yung as Elektra. Bernthal’s casting was universally lauded, but fans hoping for details stayed hungry. Bernthal did say however that he is trying to make the best possible version of The Punisher that he can.
The full season of Jessica Jones debuts on Netflix November 20. Season two of Daredevil launches next year.
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