Jessica Jones

Start At The Beginning

Jessica’s story begins after a deadly car accident left her severely wounded and killed her father, mother, and brother. While in a coma, Jessica was taken by doctors at IGH lab — an organization she would later discover performed illegal human experimentation. At IGH Jessica was unknowingly subjected to clandestine, experimental procedures designed to heal extensive injuries through rapid cell regeneration. Once healed, the lab returned her to the hospital.  Jessica awoke from a coma to her newly-adoptive family, Dorothy and Patricia “Trish” Walker, who let slip that Jessica’s entire family had died during the crash.

Guilt ridden and grief-stricken over the death of her family, Jessica grew up depressive, detaching herself from those around her. A strained relationship with her adoptive mother, over Dorothy’s abuse of Trish, led Jessica to act out to defend her adoptive sister. Trish saw Jessica as a hero, and their bond was instantly formed.

Everybody Wants to Be a Hero

Unbeknownst to the doctors at IGH, the procedures they performed left Jessica with powers of super strength and resilience. Not long after her adoption, these abilities began to surface. Jessica’s first experience happened when Jessica became angry with Dorothy’s abuse and Jessica broke a solid marble sink in half. 

Jessica has never trained as a fighter —  but she is a brawler. She relies heavily on brute force rather than finesse or specific fighting techniques.

Birch Street and Higgins Drive

Despite the traumas of her adolesence, Jessica decides to use her abilities for good and tries her hand at a life of heroics. This attempt at heroism lead Jessica to the most horrifying trauma of her life.

Kilgrave, a psychotic mind controller, meets Jessica on the street during one of her acts of heroism, and becomes infatuated with her. Kilgrave uses his powers to make Jessica his subservient slave – forcing her to do whatever he wants. A sick man, Kilgrave believes these acts prove his “love” of Jessica. His twisted sense of the word making Jessica feel even more guilt for each of his depraved actions.

Though she faces other serious threats since his death, like the Hand, and even her own mother, Kilgrave still haunts her every moment.

A Good PI Needs Objectivity

Although Jessica is not one for sentimentality she remains steadfastly loyal to her few friends.

The only person Jessica considers family is Trish Walker. Jessica loves and values her sister above all, and goes to great lengths to protect her. Jessica also has a soft spot for her neighbor and persistent do-gooder, Malcolm Ducasse, who was forced by Kilgrave to become a drug addict and spy on Jessica. Malcolm earns Jessica’s respect when he manages to become clean and eventually she hires him to work with her.

While Jessica avoids romantic entanglements, largely thanks to Kilgrave, she does form a deeper connection with two men: Luke Cage and Oscar Arocho. While Jessica loved Luke and even imagined a happy future with him, their relationship became complicated by the fact that Kilgrave forced Jessica to murder Luke’s wife. Jessica is even forced to hurt Luke; she’s instructed to incapacitate him when he falls under Kilgrave’s control. The two end things on amiable terms, a genuine love between them.

Oscar Arocho enters Jessica’s life as a new superintendent, who at first takes a dislike to her, worried that her super powers will bring trouble. Despite their initial friction, he reconsiders his position on Jessica when she saves his son, Vido. Their bond deepens and becomes romantic over time.

When New York is threatened by The Hand, Jessica begrudgingly allies herself with Daredevil, Luke Cage, and Iron Fist. Jessica becomes fond of her teammates, reconnecting with Luke, forming a friendship with blind attorney Matt Murdock (Daredevil), and developing a big sister fondness for young Danny Rand (Iron Fist).

Alias Investigations

As if losing her family in a fiery car crash wasn’t enough for Jessica to hate the world around her, she also was adopted by an emotionally and physically abusive mother, Dorothy Walker. This dynamic likely opened Jessica’s eyes to the responsibilities of being a hero after taking it upon herself to save her new sister, Trish, from Dorothy’s abuse.

Unfortunately, Dorothy Walker proved to be a tough threat to face. While Jessica managed to escape her parenting relatively unscathed, Trish did not, turning to drugs and alcohol before finally breaking free of her mother’s grip. But the damage was already done.

While Jessica was in college and Trish was exploring a recording career, Jessica met a particularly cute bartender at Trish’s album release party. An argument with Trish led Jessica to take the bartender home, beginning a relationship with him. For the first time, Jessica’s life was uncommonly blissful. That all changed when an attack on him by unseen thugs (while Jessica was in the restroom) left him dead in Jessica’s arms, fueling her guilt for not being able to save him. Blaming herself for his death, Jessica detached herself even more from those around her.

From here, Jessica took a string of short lived 9-to-5 desk jobs, usually ending with her blackmailing her employers into generous severance packages. Later, a sober Trish tried convincing Jessica to use her powers for good and don a girly, bejeweled costume. Jessica pointed out the obvious flaws with her plan, namely the impractically of wearing a mask and her lack of interest in other peoples’ problems.

However, before Trish could sway her to give the life of a caped crusader a try, Jessica found herself as the newest prisoner of Kilgrave, a psychotic mind-controller. His abilities, the ability to control anyone around him, came from the experimentation his parents subjected him to. One command from his lips and his subject had no choice but to obey. Kilgrave used these abilities on Jessica after witnessing her super strength first-hand, when she stopped an attack on an innocent person.

Kilgrave forced Jessica to do his bidding for months before his final command — to kill an innocent woman. As Jessica fled the scene of the murder Kilgrave chased after her and was hit by a bus. Finally, free of his control, Jessica left her sadistic tormenter to die alone.

In an attempt to move on and heal, Jessica opened Alias Investigations and became a private investigator, the perfect job for someone already at odds with society. She was mostly hired to catch cheating spouses and serve legal papers for hot shot attorney Jeryn Hogarth. Jessica continued to keep tabs on the husband of the woman she’d been forced to murder — Luke Cage — until one day she came face to face with her guilt and landed in bed with him.

Though riddled with guilt over lying to Cage about what she did to inadvertently destroy his life, Jones had a short-lived, on and off relationship with him. She grew to truly care for him and also found out that he has abilities: super strength and unbreakable skin. However, when Jessica finally told him the truth about her involvement in his wife’s death, Luke promptly berated her about her inconceivably immoral actions and left her standing in the street, shattered and alone.

Jessica took a case to find a missing teen named Hope Shlottman and realized that the flashbacks she’d been having weren’t just her PTSD; somehow, Kilgrave survived and had returned. Terrified for her safety, she tried to run but didn’t get far before her conscience forced her to rescue Hope from Kilgrave and return her to her parents. Unbeknownst to Jessica this was exactly what Kilgrave wanted. Hope, still under his control, killed her parents, landing her in prison. This began Jessica’s crusade to reveal the truth about Kilgrave as a super powered monster and save Hope from prison. Along the way she enlisted the help of those around her, including Trish, who nearly wound up dead after Kilgrave sent a cop, Office Will Simpson, to murder her. Breaking free from Kilgrave’s spell, Simpson then joined the fight to bring him down, and also began dating Trish.

In an effort to get Jessica’s attention, Kilgrave had her neighbor kill himself in her bed. This led Jessica to turn herself in to the police in a last-ditch attempt to catch the manipulator using his powers on tape and get him locked away for good. However, Kilgrave showed up at the police station, commanded them to delete the footage of her confession and his presence there, and let her go, before professing his love for Jessica and asking her to come live with him. She did so in order to gain his trust and capture him.

Fixated on getting evidence to prove what Kilgrave could do and free Hope, Jessica used his parents as bait to get a rise out of him while filming their interaction. However, Jeri Hogarth had already cut a deal with the villain to help him escape in return for him taking care of her soon-to-be ex-wife, who was blackmailing her because Jeri had cheated on her. Hogarth’s plan backfired and Kilgrave ended up killing his mother. He later had Jeri attacked by her scorned wife. Nevertheless, the incident taught Jessica that she was now immune to his mind-control.

Simpson, obsessed with exterminating Kilgrave, took military pills that boosted his strength and agility. While they did give him super strength and stamina, they also eliminated his conscience. Under the influence of these pills, Simpson fought both Jess and Trish in order to get to his target before being “reclaimed” by the organization that issued the drugs. Kilgrave had Hope released and used her as leverage to trade for his father, who he needed to help him grow his powers to once again control Jessica. Hope sacrificed herself during the trade and begged Jessica to end their mutual abuser’s life once and for all.

Hellbent on stopping Kilgrave from expanding his powers, Jessica reconnected with Luke Cage who seemingly forgave her for her actions. But when the two finally tracked down the sadistic villain, she discovered that Luke had been under Kilgrave’s control the whole time. In order to save herself, and at Luke’s behest, Jessica shot Luke, incapacitating him.

In an attempt to apprehend Kilgrave once and for all, Trish was captured and Kilgrave used her to test whether or not he could influence Jessica again. Through an effective use of trickery, Jessica gained the upper hand and finally put their story to an end — snapping Kilgrave’s neck with her bare hands.

Now perceived as a super vigilante, Jessica was flooded with case requests and Malcolm, now sober and free from Kilgrave’s control, too, joined Alias investigations to assist her in coping with life post-Kilgrave.

During one investigation, Jones lifted evidence from a scene, which got her arrested by Misty Knight. When Matt Murdock took a special interest in Jessica’s case, she refused his legal assistance, although she ended up doing some private investigating with him. Their curiosity led them to Midland Circle, the home base of The Hand and the latest threat to New York City.

Along with Luke Cage and Danny Rand (Iron Fist), Jones and Murdock formed The Defenders and fought Elektra and The Hand. Jones was not entirely keen on the idea of working with a team, however, her rapport with Murdock was strong, and she deeply felt his loss after Midland Circle was destroyed. For Jessica, the idea of forming new relationships and friendships only resulted in grief and trouble for others.

Soon after, Trish began to dig into Jessica’s past in order to find out what happened during her time with IGH. A man surfaced who claimed to have super speed caused by similar experiments, and now the organization was working to eliminate him. After a freak accident he was killed, seemingly confirming his story. Jessica investigated his claims, leading her back to an abandoned medical facility that triggered her old memories. Shockingly, Simpson also resurfaced and when confronted by Trish and Jessica, told them he was there to protect them from another victim of IGH’s experiments that had broken free and gone on a killing spree.

As if things hadn’t gone from bad to worse, Jessica returned home to find an eviction notice. It turned out the new building manager wasn’t a fan of hers. She tried to confront him about it and ended up saving his son Vido, which helped sort out their quarrel. The two quickly became romantically involved.

Trish and Jessica continued to hunt down the mystery IGH patient when a competing private investigator sent one of his goons to break into Jessica’s apartment and steal her files. The goon was brutally murdered in the process by a mystery woman, and the police tried to pin the crime on Jessica. She told the arresting detectives, including Detective Costa, the truth and they released her, as they remembered what Kilgrave had done at the police precinct and believed Jessica’s story.

Using her super sleuthing, Jessica eventually tracked down the mystery woman, who she then learned was her biological mother, Alisa. She was living with Dr. Karl Malus, the inventor of IGH’s experimental procedures. Alisa explained what happened to her after the accident and why she had kept her distance all these years.

Alisa had broken out of IGH and gone looking for Jessica once before, but found her dating a young bartender who she learned was using her daughter. In a fit of uncontrollable rage — a symptom of her treatments at IGH — she killed him. Realizing that in her temperamental state she would only do more harm to Jessica’s life than good, she returned to IGH for further treatment hoping to one day control her mood swings and return to her child.

Unable to forgive her mother for her actions, Jessica called the police to her location but after a heart-to-heart, decided to flee with Alisa at the last second. They hid at Jessica’s apartment where they were attacked, causing Alisa to go into an uncontrollable rage that her daughter had to stop. Thinking she could harness her powers for good, Jessica tried to keep her mother out of the authorities’ hands until she realized that Alisa would always do what it took to survive and protect her daughter, even if that meant killing a hundred innocent people.

Alisa was finally taken into custody, but upon visiting her mother in prison, Jessica learned a guard was abusing her mom. In an attempt to save Alisa, Jessica ended up accidentally killing the guard, triggering latent Kilgrave-related PTSD.

During this time Trish became hooked on Simpson’s performance enhancing drugs and relapsed into addiction. Fellow ex-addict Malcolm picked up on her using drugs and attempted to prevent further use. However, Trish used his feelings for her to persuade him to help her kidnap Dr. Karl Malus. Fixated on gaining powers of her own, Trish forced Malus to do experiments on her, but Jessica barged in mid-procedure to find her sister dying. She attacked Karl who, realizing what he’d done, killed himself, destroying all his equipment in the process. Jessica rushed Trish to a hospital where she was stabilized, but left in a coma.

Alisa learned of Karl’s death, and in yet another fit of rage, broke out of prison and attempted to kill Trish, who she blamed for his demise. Jessica prevented the attack and Costa soon arrived with his partner to arrest Alisa. But Alisa used Costa’s partner as a human shield and fled, killing her hostage in the process.

Torn between love for her mother and wanting to do the right thing, Jessica organized a rendezvous with Alisa at Trish’s apartment. Alisa knocked Jessica out and kidnapped her. Jessica initially resisted and tried convincing Alisa to turn herself.  Finally, realizing that her mother was the only family she had left, Jessica chose to try to get Alisa harness her powers for good, fleeing the country to start a new life with her.

Trish woke up from her coma to find her mother, Dorothy, waiting at her bedside. Detective Costa arrived to tell her the events that had transpired since her procedure and asked for her help. Unable to believe that Jessica would leave her, Trish knew she needed to save her sister from herself, knowing that Jessica wouldn’t do what needed to be done: kill Alisa.

Convinced she was doing the right thing, Trish tracked the duo down and, thinking she was saving Jessica, shot Alisa in the head, killing her instantly. Jessica attacked Trish in a rage of fury, before telling her to run. The police arrived, but upon seeing what looked like Jessica having slain her mother in self-defense, Costa told Jessica she’d done the right thing and let her go. Trish showed up at Jessica’s door to salvage what was left of their relationship, but Jones promptly told her she’d lost the only family she had left.

Jessica shut the door on Trish, literally and metaphorically. As she walked down the hallway dejected, Trish dropped her cellphone and shockingly, effortlessly caught it on the tip of her foot. Could Dr. Malus’s experiment have worked?