michael gaydos

Since her debut in Alias, the 2001 Marvel Max series by Brian Michael Bendis and Michael Gaydos, Jessica Jones has become emblematic of a kind of deeply flawed female protagonist that there are far too few of in popular culture. Living with PTSD, a drinking problem, and a self-destructive streak a mile wide, she’s always created as many problems for herself as she solves for others in her job as a super-powered private detective. In recent years, her marriage to Luke Cage and the birth of their daughter has brought more stability into her life, but the current Jessica Jones series, also by Bendis and Gaydos, brings all of that stability into doubt. In assembling this mix tape, I looked for songs that embody the conflicts and contradictions within Jessica Jones and her stories. Songs about flawed and troubled people searching for something to keep them going.

There’s a particular sequence in the latest issue of Brian Michael Bendis, Michael Gaydos and Matt Hollingsworth’s Jessica Jones that I want to focus on this week. About halfway through Jessica Jones #2, Jessica heads back to her office and, before she enters, she imagines what might be waiting for her behind the door. Soldiers, Avengers, or the street-level New York superheroes. Instead of going in, she decides to flee. The double page spread makes unusual use of white space, but what does that white space represent?

Jessica Jones, star of her own Netflix TV series and one of the most groundbreaking female Marvel characters of all time, is back in her own title after more than a decade! Not only that, but Jessica Jones #1 reunites her original Alias creative team of writer Brian Michael Bendis, artist Michael Gaydos, colorist Matt Hollingsworth, and cover artist David Mack.

Marvel's next big line launch was formally unveiled this week via a special edition of Marvel Previews, including new #1s for Avengers, Venom, Captain Marvel, and Star-Lord, new launches for Champions, Jessica Jones, Kingpin, Bullseye, Slapstick, and Solo, and new concepts in Occupy Avengers, Iron Fists, Mosaic, Infamous Iron Man, and Unstoppable Wasp. Following our roundtable discussion of DC Rebirth, the ComicsAlliance team got together to break down the highs and lows of the new Marvel NOW. Join Elle Collins, James Leask, Katie Schenkel, Kieran Shiach, and Andrew Wheeler as they pick out the books they're most excited about and the books they're concerned about, and discuss Marvel's approach to legacy heroes and the state of diversity at Marvel today.

Marvel Comics' wave of announcements for its post-Civil War II line-up keeps on trucking with news of four more ongoing series with high-profile creative teams that give us a peek at the new Marvel NOW. As part of the new status quo, Carol Danvers is more popular than ever, there's a new Iron Man who isn't Riri Williams, Thanos is getting his shot at a title, and we finally get that new Jessica Jones series we've been waiting a year for.

In a striking blend of female empowerment and corporate synergy, ESPN has teamed with Marvel to commission a variety of comics artists to draw superheroic portraits of the 2015 Impact 25, a list of women who have had an "impact" on sports in the past year. The images are uniformly striking, but they vary in both the familiarity of the subjects and the level of "super heroification" of the art. So on one end of the spectrum you have a Tron take on tennis giant Serena Williams by Aspen Comics artist Elizabeth Torque, and a literally world-spanning Women's National Soccer Team by the Ghosted art team of Goran Sudzuka and Miroslav Mrva. And on the other end you have camera-wielding filmmaker Lauren Greenfield by Joelle Jones and Rachelle Rosenberg, who handled the art for the recent Mockingbird one-shot, and a moody take on prima ballerina Misty Copeland by Black Canary artist Annie Wu.

Everyone loves comic book trivia, but with 75 years of superhero comics behind us right now, there’s always some new obscure fact to learn. That’s why ComicsAlliance is going deep into the minutiae of your favorite characters in our continuing video series. You think you know comics? Well, here’s a few things you might not know! With her Netflix series rapidly approaching, this week we're taking a look at Marvel's former superhero private eye, Jessica Jones. Find out how Disneyland changed Jessica's life, her strange connection to Galactus, and just how strangely intertwined her life is with Spider-Man's, as well as several other equally interesting facts.

Poor Greg Hettinger. Ever since Duane Swierczynski and Michael Gaydos relaunched The Black Hood as the flagship title of Archie's Dark Circle line, he's been having a pretty rough time. He's been shot in the face with a shotgun, gotten hooked on painkillers, and taken up a new life as a masked vigilante that, in all honesty, does not seem to be working out that well for him. It's almost enough to make you forgive his shocking penchant for profanity. But, as is usually the case with these things, the next issue is going to see it get even worse, with his secret identity exposed, a ticking clock on the complete ruination of his life, and, you know, that thing where he's getting punched and stabbed a whole bunch. It all kicks off with a fight to the death in a Philly cemetery, and you can check that out in our preview!

Duane Swierczynski is the man who made Archie Comics cuss. When the company relaunches its superhero line as Dark Circle, the flagship title will be The Black Hood, in which Swierczynski and artist Michael Gaydos, co-creator of Alias, reinvent the character in an incredibly violent mature readers crime story focused on Greg Hettinger, a cop who gets injured in the line of duty while taking down a vigilante, and takes on the identity of the Black Hood in order to deal with the pain, frustration and rage that wells up as a result of his accident. It's a brutal story that fits right in with Swierczynski's other work on books like Judge Dredd and Punisher, and as a result, it's also a pretty big departure from Archie's usual offerings, even in a time when the company is reinventing itself with critically acclaimed horror comics and a push for a more realistic Riverdale. To find out more, I spoke to Swierczynski to talk about the origins of the Black Hood as a hero for the bad side of Philadelphia, how far Hettinger has to fall, and, maybe most importantly, Swierczynski's own place in history as the first writer to work the F-bomb into an Archie book.

With a new hardcover omnibus of Alias by Brian Michael Bendis and Michael Gaydos, Marvel re-releases one of the most critically successful comics of the early 2000s. Apart from its various awards nominations and wins, it was one of just a few comics that everybody seemed to love, during an era when Marvel was equal parts creatively daring and ridiculously misguided. The first comic published under the mature readers MAX imprint, Alias officially broke ground on Marvel's R-rated label with an emphatic F-word, which immediately strikes one as both obvious and necessary. Unlike many other titles that sprung from the MAX imprint, though, Alias went far beyond than the gimmick of sex and cuss words in the Marvel Universe, and was easily one of the most readable comics on the stands for its entire twenty-eight-issue run. That's just my memory, though, and I wouldn't exactly describe it as sharp. So how good is it on a re-read? Particularly as Marvel prepares a new live-action Netflix series based on the book, and has hinted as recently as last week that Jessica might be "getting back to work".