Marvel has revealed Jessica Jones creators Brian Michael Bendis and Michael Gaydos will reunite for a new five-issue series with the character, titled Jessica Jones: Alias. Debuting this December, the comic will mark 25 years since Jessica’s first appearance in the original Alias series in 2001, and see her investigate the abduction of a missing child she suspects is a mutant, that’ll spiral into a global search, taking her to corners as far and disparate as Latveria, the Savage Land, and beyond.
The book marks Bendis’s first series for Marvel since returning to the House of Ideas with Avengers #800 last year. In an Entertainment Weekly exclusive, he says, “Jessica has, since her debut, been something very different in my life. There’s something very emotional and intimate about the way [people] talk about her. It’s always been the best kind of conversation you could ever hope to have with readers. People see themselves in her and love her and root for her. All of that is in this series.”
Regarding the plot’s scope, he comments, “Jessica’s responsibility to herself and to her cases and the kind of case that only Jessica can do has evolved as she has evolved. So an anniversary is a great opportunity to create a case that allows Jessica to re-explore the Marvel universe.” As for her motivations, he says, “She can’t help but feel what that would feel like in her more complicated family dynamic with [her husband] Luke Cage and the children. So she takes it upon herself to take this case with some help from some friends, and it immediately rips her life apart in every possible way.”
Jessica starred in Bendis and Gaydos’s original Alias series, published by Marvel’s adults-only MAX imprint, from 2001 to 2004. The pair briefly reunited on the subsequent Jessica series, The Pulse (2004-06), before teaming up on a one-shot tie-in for the Netflix show in 2015, and then the ongoing Jessica Jones comic (starring their version) from 2016 to 2018. The character most recently starred in Sam Humphries and Geraldo Borges‘s miniseries Alias: Red Band, also published to mark her 25th anniversary earlier this year.
Issue #1 will be released on December 23, with a main cover by original Alias cover artist David Mack, variants by Corin Howell, Ito, and Miguel Mercado, and a textless version of Mack’s art. You can check out a three-page preview below in the meantime. Krysten Ritter‘s version of Jessica will return on the third and final season of Daredevil: Born Again early next year, while Alias: Red Band – Deal with the Devil will be released in trade paperback on December 22.
