Highlights
- Jessica Jones’ return to MCU could use “The Variants” storyline, exploring multiverse and her variants.
- Jessica’s unique perspective and representation make her a valuable addition to the street-level heroes.
- The Variants would allow Jessica to confront her fears and face alternate versions of herself and her life.
The future of the MCU is always developing. With characters like Iron Man and Black Widow already completing their MCU journey, the question of what the future will look like is always on the creator’s mind. Introducing new heroes like She-Hulk and Moon Knight has been great in expanding the MCU as a whole. Still, introducing classic heroes and villains that were thought lost to the MCU, such as Netflix’s Daredevil and Kingpin, which are set to return in Daredevil: Born Again, is another step in fleshing out the dynamics that the MCU is about to adopt. Now, the anticipation for Jessica Jones‘ return is palpable.
Played by the incredible Krysten Ritter on the character’s three-season Netflix series Jessica Jones, the hero is not just a powerful meta human and private investigator. She is a unique addition to the MCU, a character who brings a different perspective and a much-needed representation into the street-level hero scene. Her powerful yet vulnerable appearance in the MCU while on Netflix was immediately a hit for viewers, and with Daredevil and Kingpin, as well as Jon Berenthal’s Punisher making their way into the MCU fully, Jessica Jones’s role becomes even more significant. One way to do that and fit into the current Multiverse Saga era of the MCU would be the hit story, The Variants.
Who is Jessica Jones?
An interesting thing about Jessica Jones’s early life is her connection to iconic characters. She was initially one of Peter Parker’s classmates, having a crush on him and being near him when he was bitten by the radioactive spider that gave him his powers. She also had a faint connection to Iron Man, as her father worked for Tony Stark. It was, in fact, Stark who gave her father tickets to Disney World, and it was on that road trip that Jessica tragically lost her family in a car accident. In that same accident, she gained her superpowers from the truck of radioactive material that hit her family’s car.
After a brief career as the costumed hero Jewel, her career would end after the traumatic experience with Kilgrave, aka the Purple Man. The villain would mind control her, forcing her to help in a series of crimes until Carol Danvers helped stop Jessica. Jean Gray would help use her gifts to deprogram Jessica from Kilgrave’s influence and build psychic barriers to help protect her from the villain. Eventually, Jessica would become a private investigator and begin a family with Luke Cage, together having a daughter named Danielle.
The Variants, Explained
In 2022, Marvel released a limited series story called The Variants. In this story, Jessica deals with a battle on two fronts. Firstly, news has reached her that Kilgrave’s first victim has taken the lives of her family, discovering that Killgrave left a time bomb in her mind to active after ten years. Jessica fears this is also the case with her, and with the anniversary of her escape from Kilgrave approaching, she must contend with the fear she may hurt her own family. This leaves her to ask Luke to take their daughter and flee.
However, amid this personal chaos, variants from other realities appeared. This kicks off her investigation, with her variants, including Captain America Jessica Jones, Jewel, and her onetime alter-ego Knightress appearing to her. The Variants help keep Jessica safe while she tries to purge Kilgrave entirely from her mind, and in the process, she discovers other variants of hers that are actively trying to hunt her family down. Not knowing which variants she can trust, Jessica must find the identity of the mysterious variant who wants her gone.
The Variants in the MCU?
With so much of the MCU’s current projects exploring the multiverse and different variants of each of Marvel’s famous characters, now is the perfect time to bring back Krysten Ritter’s Jessica Jones using The Variants as the backbone of her story. Having a multiversal mystery for Jones to solve while also dealing with the continued fallout of Kilgrave and his influence on her life would make for emotional and groundbreaking content for the MCU. One of the powerful aspects of this particular story was Jessica getting a chance to see alternate versions of her own life, seeing what would have happened had she either chosen different paths or not had specific actions occurred to alter her course.
The question of identity and the mind have always been so integrated into the fabric of Jessica Jones’s character. A new Jessica Jones show or limited series exploring that concept in a multiversal setting makes perfect sense. It would also be an incredible feat for an actor of Ritter’s caliber, as she would get the opportunity to play such vastly different versions of her character. The upcoming film Deadpool and Wolverine is set to explore the idea of variants and the multiverse in a very grand way, and with the franchise growing exponentially in the next few years, there has never been a better time to introduce one of Marvel’s most famous street heroes once more.
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