Product Description: Meet Jessica Jones. Once upon a time, she was a costumed super hero. But not a very good one. Her powers were unremarkable compared to the amazing abilities of the costumed icons that populate the Marvel Universe. In a city of Marvels, Jessica Jones never found her niche. Now a chain-smoking, self-destructive alcoholic with a mean inferiority complex, Jones is the owner and sole employee of Alias Investigations - a small, private-investigative firm specializing in superhuman cases. When she uncovers the potentially explosive secret of one hero's true identity, Jessica's life immediately becomes expendable. But her wit, charm, and intelligence just may help her survive through another day. Thrust into the midst of a conspiracy that reaches the highest levels, has Jessica burned too many bridges to turn to old friends for help? Then, in "Rebecca, Come Home," Jessica travels to upstate New York to investigate the disappearance of a teenage girl rumored to be a mutant in a prejudiced small town. And in "Raining Men," the hard-luck PI goes on a date ... with the Astonishing Ant-Man?! Collects Alias #1-15.
Very Good Detective Series in a Superhero Environment ^ Alias is about an ex-superhero, Jessica Jones, working as a private detective. The first story is interesting because someone essentially tricks Jessica into finding out Captain America's identity by having her investigate a woman who ends up being Captain America's girlfriend and who gets killed that night. Jessica is then in trouble with the police and the only way out is to out Captain America which would be a big political hit on the President of the United States. As you can imagine this puts Jessica in a difficult situation.
During the series we get to know Jessica. Her good decisions, her bad decisions and we get to know a strong, flawed female character. The series is very good in that it mixes detective stories with superhero stories with ease, while also making us care for the main character. It develops a character and it tells stories about superheroes that we don't normally here. We get to see a young girl who is inspired by Daredevil to be her self. We see an ex-superhero sidekick go through issues. We get to follow interesting mysteries. A lot of cool stuff goes around in this comic.
I think the best thing about the art is that it does a very good job of making conversations seem real, which is important to do in a book where you have a writer like Bendis that writes a lot of dialogue. The art works great here.
However my favorite piece of art comes in the painted tenth issue. An issue that is not really involved into longer arcs. In the tenth issue we have Jameson trying to hire Jessica to find out who Spider-Man is. The whole issue revolves around this and a lot of funny things happen which I won't spoil. I highly recommend this issue.
The series is a very good book. I would recommend it to anyone interested in detectives in the superhero universe.