Jessica Jones vol. 2: The Secrets of Maria Hill

This latest volume of “Jessica Jones” gives me hope that Bendis is going to end his tenure at Marvel on an upswing.  I still have to catch up on “Invincible Iron Man” and “The Defenders” but “The Secrets of Maria Hill” is good stuff.  It even gets off on the right foot by addressing my lingering issues with how the writer apparently threw the title character’s life back under a truck to get the story in vol. 1 underway.  Though that volume ended with Luke Cage finding out where Jessica had hidden their daughter, Danielle, and taking her back, the first issue of this one starts the reconciliation process.  It’s actually kind of sweet as this happens because of Dani’s innocent need for both of her parents and leads to Jessica’s fairly well-reasoned explanation of why she did what she did in vol. 1  Even if the way Bendis handled her actions there definitely led to more drama than was necessary I can at least respect his willingness to engage with that issue here.

As for the main story in this volume, it involves Maria Hill showing up (shot, and high on painkillers) at Jessica’s office one night.  Having been dismissed from S.H.I.E.L.D. she’s now relying on her own wits and devices to survive a contract that was put out on her life.  What she wants Jessica to do is find out who put out this contract on her and why.

The route our protagonist takes to find out the answers to these questions is, like the first volume and the original “Alias” series, an entertainingly seedy trip down some of the less-explored parts of the Marvel Universe.  Jessica mixes it up with Sharon Carter, takes another trip back to jail, tracks down Maria’s father, and we get to find out about one of Maria’s earliest S.H.I.E.L.D. missions that went quite bad.  Nick Fury even shows up for a solid flashback cameo.  It’s entertainingly written with an appreciably twisty plot and great art from Michael Gaydos, with a slick contribution from Javier Pulido.  After this volume, I have every reason to expect that the return of the Purple Man in the next volume is going to be just as great if not better.