THE VARIANTS #2: Jessica, Jessica, Jessica and Jessica…

Things are just getting weirder for Jessica. They say at some point you have to face yourself but when it literally happens in your own living room and there’s more than one of yourselves including a version that’s holding a Captain America Shield…it’s understandable that you could react with a little anger and maybe even some violence.

Gail Simone delves deeper and deeper into Jessica’s scarred psyche in issue 2 starting with a brilliantly written exchange between herself and Tigra in a diner. Simone’s incredible ability for being able to get under the skin of a character and examine the fundamental building blocks of who they are is on glorious display in an exchange that touches on everything from Jessica Jones being offered a place on A-Force to the the reasons why Jessica doesn’t do the superhero costume thing to commentary on how woman superhero’s are objectified in the 616 universe which is a smart piece of meta commentary on how woman superheroes’ are viewed in the real world. This is tempered with Gail’s wonderfully sharp sense of humor permeates the serious nature of the story in an exchange that toward the end point to clues as to why this who variant business must be happening.

Back in the present enter Luke Cage who helps Jessica deal with her two other selves. Again the real glory of the piece is how three dimensional Luke feels and how organic Jessica’s relationship feels through Simone’s first person narration. There’s a whole bunch happening on a psychological level which includes  a  visit in her head from Killgrave, people dying, Jessica (one of them at least) kissing Daredevil and She-Hulk. It all gets a little confusing IF you not paying attention but if you are paying attention, following is easy enough once you discern who Jessica is and who the variants are…follow the shirt colors…it’s important. Gail shows her respect for recent past canon and and smartly shows off how every superhero and villain she uses in the issue including She-Hulk are in flawless perfect voice as Jessica finally heeds the warning about her family, the mystery deepens and another colorful variant is comes crashing (literally) into the mix…

What can I say about Phil Noto that hasn’t already been said. His Tigra is gorgeous, his She-Hulk too. The amount of emotional nuance he is able to pull off with such marvelously clean lines is absolutely superb for a script where the focus is on the the emotional state of our main hero 90 percent of the time and runs a huge gamut of emotion with several versions of Jessica who as the center of everything has to be believable in the emotional turmoil she finds herself in. Noto accomplishes this with tight framing of a huge amount of head and shoulder shots for all the verbal exchanges only pulling back to show physical action. It’s an issue that heavily focuses on the emotional narrative and Noto is up to the task as the plot thickens!

A word about the main cover… Very often these days covers are used purely as an opportunity to showcase the talent of the artist on the book or another equally talented individual, not really offering any insight to the story at hand and that’s okay and not a bad thing. What I love about this issues cover is it’s a lovely tease for something in the book. It’s image grabs a hold of your curiosity and makes you want to know why that image is happening. It harks back to the days before social media, solicited covers and press releases that bombard us with information before we ever lay our hands on the book, to a time were you worked your way through a spinner rack in a store and those covers spoke to you (or didn’t) with a promise of the action and mystery inside that comic. That’s what Phil Noto pulls off here with this cover and it put a smile on my face.