Review

Jessica Jones season two review

Genre-wise Jessica Jones is a mashup between the superhero and noir genres. When time came to choose between the conventions and traditions of the two, the first season ended up leaning more towards its superhero influences. Despite the hero’s bad choices and the show’s moral complexity, season one had Kilgrave as a clearcut villain – the season’s final arc followed the traditional superhero structure of climbing towards an action set piece.

Season two goes the other way, with morality never being so clearly defined as the final episodes of season one. Some viewers may find this disappointing – while there are compelling villains in season two, none of them are as overtly and undeniably villainous as Kilgrave. Instead the second season has more of a focus on moral complexity.

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Storytelling Geekery

In Praise of Spiderman #700

Spoilers for the last issue of Amazing Spiderman – #700.

The most recent issue of Amazing Spiderman, #700 was released on Boxing Day, and had caused controversy beforehand when the contents were leaked.
At the beginning of the current story arc, Doctor Octopus was close to dying from cancer. (Which I think is a good thing itself – I think it gives a sense of heft to a fantastical world.) This doesn’t stop him from being a menace to Spiderman, however, managing to switch bodies with Peter Parker, planning to steal his life.
Switching bodies is a relatively common trope in long-running sci-fi/fantasy/comics, with Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Stargate SG1, Red Dwarf, The X-Files and four of the five Star Treks having used the idea.
As commonly happens with this type of story, the hero spends the majority of the story trying to get back to his own life, while the villain causes chaos in the hero’s life. But this time there was a very uncommon twist – Peter Parker fails to get back into his body, and dies in Doc Ock’s body.

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