Marvel fans got to know Jessica Jones well when she appeared on her Netflix series, making her one of the most popular street-level heroes for mainstream fans. In the comics, Jessica Jones is a newer hero, introduced for the first time in 2001 by Brian Michael Bendis and Michael Gaydos.
However, after her adventures in her solo series Alias, Marvel retroactively placed her into the Marvel Universe, making her someone who first appeared unnamed in Amazing Spider-Man #4 and making her a big part of Marvel history. Since then, she has become an Avenger, married another superhero, and has become a powerful superhero mother over her 20 years of storylines.
Young Avengers Vol. 1
Jessica Jones was an important part of the origin of the Young Avengers. At the time, she was working for J. Jonah Jameson as a reporter and wanted to figure out who these new young heroes posing as the Avengers were. Teaming with Iron Man and Captain America, they set out and found the teenage superteam.
Jessica was a big part in helping Captain America reconsider his stance on shutting them down, mentioning she was a teen hero once and that there was a place for them if they were trained properly. Jessica is part of the reason the Young Avengers continued to exist.
Jessica Jones: Alias, Vol. 2
Jessica Jones really showed her heroism in Alias Vol. 2 because she went through the series and hardly ever used her superpowers. This series takes her and puts her in the middle of relationship drama, with her dating Scott Lang while developing her relationship with Luke Cage as well. It also dealt with her work problems and the bureaucracy of the city.
The volume is five issues and has Jessica at her best as a private investigator, trying to find a 16-year-old girl who has gone missing. This moves her into a small-town setting as an outsider investigating the disappearance, giving the character a fish out of water feel and grounding Jones in her PI background.
New Avengers (2010)
When the Avengers event series Avengers Disassembled pretty much destroyed Marvel's most important superteam, a new version of the Avengers formed out of its ashes. This was the New Avengers, and while Captain America was still around, this mostly consisted of street-level heroes.
The heroes included Spider-Woman, Daredevil, Luke Cage, and Spider-Man, with Jessica Jones working with them as a supporting character, while she was pregnant with Luke's baby. This was where fans can find Jessica's life as a new mother and her eventual marriage to Luke before becoming the hero Jewel again.
New Avengers: The Trust
Jessica Jones was part of the New Avengers still when the Civil War tore the Marvel Universe apart, with the members of the team mostly anti-registration act. The best storyline during this crossover series for the team was New Avengers: The Trust when the team was hit with the news that one of their own, Elektra, was actually a Skrull.
This was almost a bridge to the Secret Invasion storyline and also brought in The Hood and his crime syndicate, which fought the New Avengers here but battled the Skrulls during the actual invasion. Jessica and Luke played a huge role in this story and the moment where Spider-Man saved their baby was one of the best of the series.
Blind Spot
Arriving in 2018, Jessica Jones: Blind Spot was a three-issue Marvel Digital series by Kelly Thompson and Mattia De Lulis. This was a new team to take on the character, but they smartly kept the private investigation aspects of her story and added a new look.
In this, Jessica investigated a serial killer in New York City killing women with powers. When someone framed Jessica, she went to Doctor Strange for help and the body count began to rise. This kept Jones at her street-level best, telling a hard-boiled detective story.
The Pulse
Fans who wanted to see Jessica Jones as a superhero using all her powers should seek out The Pulse. This was a series by Brian Michael Bendis that had Jones become an investigative reporter for The Daily Bugle with Ben Ulrich.
This was collected in a book titled Jessica Jones: The Pulse, which had all 14 issues and also included New Avengers Annual #1 where Jones and Luke Cage took their relationship to a new level. This was a groundbreaking series because this is where Jessica Jones accepted Luke cage's marriage proposal.
Jessica Jones: Alias, Vol. 4
The fourth volume of Alias had Jessica Jones entwined with the Purple Man, an event that played out in the Netflix Marvel series as well. This was the last volume of the Alias series by Brian Michael Bendis and really launched the book to a new level.
This volume also cemented Jessica's place in the Marvel Universe, with just about every superhero she ever dealt with making an appearance and displaying how she connected throughout the history of Marvel Comics. Showing her emotional and psychological abuse at the hands of Purple Man revealed so much of why Jones is such a powerful hero to this day.
Return Of The Purple Man
With Alias ended, Brian Michael Bendis returned another story, and he brought back The Purple Man one more time. This time around, Jessica was a mother and had a child to protect with Killgrave showed back up and tried to ruin her life again.
Jessica Jones: Return of the Purple Man hit shelves when the TV show arrived to piggyback on the success of the Netflix Marvel series, but it stands on its own well. This series shows how powerful and dangerous Killgrave is, while also showing how much Jones had grown since their last encounter.
Jessica Jones: Alias, Vol. 1 (2001)
The book series that introduced Jessica Jones to the Marvel Universe was Alias in 2001. This first volume of the series was under Marvel's MAX format, which made it an adult-oriented title and showed Jones as a hero who needed to work out a lot of her issues.
The series started by showing that Jessica Jones was a retired superhero dealing with PTSD following a traumatizing event. Jessica, shaken but not broken, began working as a private investigator here and dealt with superhuman cases, crossing paths with a who's who of popular heroes.
Jessica Jones: Alias, Vol. 3
One of the best critically acclaimed storylines following the career of Jessica Jones came with Alias Vol. 3. By this time, Jones had established herself among the superhero community and had proven herself a qualified investigator. This series positioned Jessica between two other heroes, both operating as Spider-Woman.
Mattie Franklin, a teenage superhero, and Jessica Drew, the original Spider-Woman, played a big role in this series as Jones began to doubt herself once again. With people trying to kill Mattie, Jones and Drew teamed up to keep her safe. This also showed Jessica at her smartest, as she put one over on J. Jonah Jameson, something that never gets old.