Almost every character in the Disney+ series Daredevil: Born Again was shaped by Hell’s Kitchen. Jessica Jones is not one of those characters.
She came from Queens and built her career as a private investigator in her own corner of New York. She spent years deliberately avoiding the kind of team-ups and costumed crusades that are common in the MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe). She’s the outsider who doesn’t want to be there.
This is why her appearance in season 2 of Daredevil: Born Again is so surprising. When someone like Jessica willingly seeks out Matt Murdock’s help instead of resolving the matter herself, you know something bad has happened.
Jessica’s story isn’t about a hero who found her purpose. It’s a story about a person who endures despite all the pain and trauma she goes through. Every time she gets knocked down, she always finds a way to get back up again.
Jessica Jones’ Origins in the Comics
Born Jessica Campbell, she was an ordinary teenager living in the Forest Hills neighborhood of Queens. A classmate of Peter Parker (Spider-Man) and Flash Thompson (Agent Anti-Venom), Jessica mostly kept to herself. Her family was driving home from a trip to Disney World when the family’s car collided with a military convoy carrying radioactive chemicals. The crash killed her mother, her father, and her younger brother. Jessica barely survived, and was left in a coma for several months.
After she woke up, Jessica was placed in an orphanage until she was adopted by Alisa Jones and her husband. After her recovery, Jessica was re-enrolled at Midtown High where she was ostracized by her peers. Peter tried to befriend her since he’d also lost his parents and could relate to what she was going through. However, Jessica mistook Peter’s kindness for pity and lashed out at him.
As she was running away, Jessica realized that she was flying. It’s an ability she has the least control over, describing it less as flying and more as “controlled falling.” Over time, Jessica would discover she had other abilities like super strength, enhanced durability and an accelerated healing factor.
Once she realized that she could use her powers for good, Jessica tried the superhero thing. She became Jewel, then years later became Knightress for about a week. Then, later, as Power Woman, a name chosen to honor her husband Luke Cage. While she’s played around with the idea of being a full-time superhero, it never sticks for long. The reason why can be summed up in one word: Kilgrave
Enter Kilgrave (The Purple Man)
While working as Jewel, Jessica meets Zebediah Kilgrave, a man with the ability to control other people’s actions using pheromones. He held Jessica captive for eight months, using that power to make her do whatever he wanted. One day, Killgrave got so angry over a front-page article about Daredevil, that he sent Jessica to beat him up.
However, Jessica mistook the Scarlet Witch for Daredevil due to her red costume. It wasn’t long until the Avengers got involved and eventually they realized Jessica was brainwashed. They asked mutant telepath Jean Grey to alter Jessica’s mind to break Kilgrave’s control and block him from taking over her mind again.
The Start of Alias Investigations
Finally free from her ordeal, the experience left Jessica severely traumatized to the point she quit her superhero career. She developed PTSD and became an alcoholic. Wanting to start over, Jessica founded Alias Investigations and became a private investigator.
Brian Michael Bendis created Jessica Jones in 2001 for Alias, a noir detective story set inside the Marvel universe. Released under Marvel Comics MAX Comics imprint for adult-only books, Alias allowed Marvel to tell a more mature and gritty story without having to censor Jessica’s pain.
Luke Cage entered her life during this period. Their relationship started awkwardly as two guarded people who didn’t know how to be vulnerable. Over time it became something real. When Jessica learned that she was pregnant with Luke’s baby, the two took their relationship more seriously. She gave birth to a girl Danielle Cage-Jones, named after Danny Rand (Iron Fist), her godfather and Luke’s closest friend.
The Netflix Series: Where Jessica Found Her Audience
Marvel’s Jessica Jones is where many fans who were unfamiliar with Alias discovered the character. The series is a neo-noir thriller where Jessica opens Alias Investigations in Hell’s Kitchen to investigate cases involving people with powers.
Season 1 is more like a psychological horror where Kilgrave forces his way back into Jessica’s life. His ability to control people makes every interaction a violation. At any moment, the words coming out of his mouth could turn into a command that strips you of your agency.
What makes season 1 remarkable is its refusal to make Jessica’s trauma look clean or linear. Instead, it shows how it fragments her. Her bond with Luke Cage is real but complicated by the guilt of killing his wife while she was under Kilgrave’s control. Her connection to her adoptive sister Trish Walker is loving but strained. Even her alliance with Malcolm begins with manipulation before it becomes something like mutual support.
Krysten Ritter plays her as someone who’s sharp, darkly funny, guarded but also self-destructive. The season ends with Jessica finally getting the strength to resist Kilgrave’s power and snapping his neck. Killing the man who caused her so much pain doesn’t heal her. She just picks herself up and keeps going.
The Defenders introduces Jessica to Matt Murdock when he becomes her lawyer after an arrest. Eventually the two team up with Luke Cage and Danny Rand as they investigate secret ninja organization the Hand.
She spends most of the series trying to leave, pushing back against the idea that she belongs in a group or a cause. That resistance is part of what makes her fit. She stays not because she wants to, but because she can’t ignore what’s in front of her. She never frames it as heroism.
Season 2 of Jessica Jones focuses more on her accident. Her digging leads her to IGH, a secret research laboratory involved in illegal human experimentation. Jessica discovers that she actually died in the accident that killed her family and that Karl Malus, a bio-geneticist at IGH brought her back to life. Another shocking revelation is that her mother Alisa survived the crash too, was experimented on, and has powers of her own. Unfortunately, the experiments gave Alisa violent urges she can’t fully control.
Jessica spends the season trying to save a mother who keeps making herself impossible to save. Meanwhile, Trish Walker becomes obsessed with becoming a vigilante herself. Trish shoots and kills Alisa to protect Jessica. Their friendship never fully recovers.
Season 3 is about the consequences of their fallout. Trish gains powers of her own and becomes Hellcat, a vigilante with no patience for Jessica’s hesitation to kill criminals. Their conflict over justice and restraint reaches a point of no return. In the end, Jessica has no choice but to turn Trish in. Heartbroken and burned out, she almost leaves New York. She hears Kilgrave’s voice in her head one last time, telling her she’s a loser for quitting. This gives her the resolve to stay, to keep going.
The Return of Jessica in Daredevil: Born Again Season 2
Years after the cancellation of Marvel’s Jessica Jones, Krysten Ritter is back. Jessica is expected to make her official MCU debut in the sixth episode of the second season, “Requiem” premiering on April 21, 2026.
Off-screen, she’s been feeding Matt and Karen Page intelligence on Fisk’s criminal operations. At some point, she becomes a mother while still working as a private detective. But then Wilson Fisk’s Anti-Vigilante Task Force (AVTF) arrives at her home with her daughter there.
“I’m pissed,” Jessica tells Matt when he asks her if she’s okay in the mid-season trailer.
Reportedly, her powers are not at full strength. Vulnerable is not a word you’d use to describe Jessica Jones and it’s not something she wants to experience while she’s worried about her daughter. Now in the comics, Jessica’s powers would become erratic due to stress so it’s possible that could be the culprit.
Despite everything that’s going on, she still has her dry, sarcastic wit. She tells an injured Matt Murdock in the trailer: “I hope you can walk, because I’m not carrying you.” She’s not here to rescue him. She’s here to fight alongside him…on her terms, as always.
A Reluctant Hero
Jessica Jones spent years building walls between herself and the life that nearly destroyed her. She built something new that belongs to her and her only.
Fighting Wilson Fisk alongside Matt Murdock isn’t a betrayal of who she is. She doesn’t join the fight because it’s personal. It’s because she knows, at the end of the day, it’s the right thing to do.
Comics Reading List
- Alias #1–28 by Brian Michael Bendis & Michael Gaydos (start here)
- The Pulse #1–14 by Brian Michael Bendis
- Jessica Jones #1–18 by Brian Michael Bendis & Michael Gaydos (2016)
- Jessica Jones: Purple Daughter by Kelly Thompson
- New Avengers by Brian Michael Bendis
