REVIEW: ‘Alias Vol.1′ by Brian Michael Bendis and Michael Gaydos

Alias comic book series ran from 2002–2004 and was cre­ated by writer Brian Michael Bendis. The art­work is by Michael Gay­dos and the pub­lisher is Mar­vel Comics.

Alias: Vol­ume 1 con­tains issues 1 to 9. Alias is avail­able in hard­cover and paper­back at your favorite retailer. Alias is the first imprint from the Mar­vel MAX line (for explicit content).

Jes­sica Jones is a reclusive, chain-smoking, down on her luck ex-superhero.  An ex-superhero with unre­mark­able pow­ers com­pared to the other icons that inhabit the Mar­vel Uni­verse. After shed­ding the cos­tume and super­hero per­sona she goes straight into pri­vate detec­tive work as the sole employee of Alias Inves­ti­ga­tions.

Detec­tive work isn’t easy nor is it glam­orous. Soon as the story opens, an inter­est­ing case comes walk­ing through the door. This case turns out to be explo­sive and puts Jes­sica in a dilemma. Jes­sica is asked to inves­ti­gate a miss­ing per­son case only to inad­ver­tently find her­self involved in a con­spir­acy. It turns out that Jes­sica has video­tape of the secret iden­tity of…Captain America.  After much backtracking, Jessica learns that a third party wants to exploit that infor­ma­tion for polit­i­cal gain and of course, revenge.

After that case is closed Jes­sica tack­les another set of cases, where one is pro bono and involves a miss­ing hus­band and along­side that case, she’s also inves­ti­gat­ing a _cheating husband_ who might be “in the closet.” Jes­sica tracks down the miss­ing hus­band and learns that he was an ex-superhero like her­self and the two seem to connect. The out­come of both cases were pre­dictable and shall we say, amusing?

As I was read­ing Alias, I couldn’t turn the pages fast enough. This is one of the best comic books I’ve read thus far. Bendis is very good with plot and dia­logue espe­cially the dialogue. It’s no sur­prise to learn that he is the five time recip­i­ent for the Eis­ner award.

Other Mar­vel uni­verse char­ac­ters that make an appear­ance in this vol­ume include Mrs. Mar­vel aka Carol Dan­vers who is the love inter­est of, well, Cap­tain Mar­vel and she’s also Jessica’s friend. Dare­devil aka Matt Mur­dock (not Ben Affleck) has a walk on role as Jessica’s attorney. I think that’s it.

Ah, let’s see, a word about the lan­guage.  Jes­sica likes to swear _a lot_ so if this is a prob­lem then you might want to skip this series. But it is com­pletely in char­ac­ter and never felt gratitutious.

This comic is mostly char­ac­ter dri­ven. I liked how the author showed Jessica’s strengths as well as her weaknesses. Jessica is flawed. She has one night stands, swears a lot and has alco­holic ten­den­cies. On the pos­i­tive side, she gen­uinely likes to help people. For me,  this was an awe­some read. After I fin­ished read­ing vol­ume 1, I ran out of the house to find the other three vol­umes that com­pleted the series.

I can see reread­ing this series in the future. Alias is strongly rec­om­mended even if you’ve never read a comic book in your life. So, if you’re in the mood for some­thing dif­fer­ent that is at turns sus­pense­ful and fun, keep this title in mind, ok? My grade, A. This is a good one with a kick ass hero­ine where super­pow­ers are over­rated anyway.

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This is a re-post of an ear­lier review that I did more than a year ago. Yes­ter­day was a busy day and I didn’t fin­ish read­ing the graphic novel that I had started to review for this Mon­day. Any­way, I should have a new graphic novel review up for next week. Thanks.

For Fur­ther Reading

• REVIEW of ‘Alias: Come Home’ (Vol.2) by Brian Michael Bendis and Michael Gay­dos (Illustrator)