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The Variants #1 cover art
(Image credit: Marvel Comics)
Marvel Comics continues to swim in the deep end of the Multiverse pool in the new Gail Simone-Phil Noto five-issue limited series The Variants, starring Jessica Jones…
Or should we say Jessica Joneses.
That’s right, The Variants features private investigator and sometimes-superhero Jessica Jones meeting other alternate Jessicas from around the Marvel Multiverse after taking on what seemed to be a routine case.
The encounters cause her to “question everything she thought she knew about her life and her choices,” as she meets versions of herself who made different choices and lived completely different lives as a result.
The Variants (first revealed by comicbook.com) will explore if Jessica can get along with her other selves or want to kill them, as well as whether seeing the lives she could have led will lead her into a self-destructive spiral.
The exploration of alternate choices is an interesting dynamic for Jessica Jones, as much of her character development is based on the traumatic mind control she was forced to endure by Zebediah Killgrave, AKA the Purple Man, early in her superhero career.
Simone promises Jessica will “risk it all” in the new series.
The Variants #1 cover by Phil Noto (Image credit: Marvel Comics)”First, let me get this out…when Tom Brevoort offered me this project, I went and re-read all the Jessica stories, from the classic, groundbreaking [Brian Michael] Bendis stories to the more recent and fantastically good Kelly Thompson stories (that you definitely should read!), and they’re just exciting, compelling reads,” Simone says in Marvel’s announcement. “There isn’t another comics character like her. That was immensely exciting.”
But what really hooked Simone was the series being illustrated by the “impossibly brilliant” Phil Noto, who the writer calls a “bucket-list artist.”
“Even the covers are mind-melting. So this is a joy from start to finish. Incredible. Hope people love it!” she says.
The Variants #1 (of 5) goes on sale in June and features a cover by Noto and a variant cover by Ben Caldwell.
Look for Marvel Comics’ full June 2022 solicitations later in March here at Newsarama.
It’s true, there isn’t another comic book character like her, and that makes Jessica Jones one of the best female superheroes of all time.
I’m not just the Newsarama founder and editor-in-chief, I’m also a reader. And that reference is just a little bit older than the beginning of my Newsarama journey. I founded what would become the comic book news site in 1996, and except for a brief sojourn at Marvel Comics as its marketing and communications manager in 2003, I’ve been writing about new comic book titles, creative changes, and occasionally offering my perspective on important industry events and developments for the 25 years since. Despite many changes to Newsarama, my passion for the medium of comic books and the characters makes the last quarter-century (it’s crazy to see that in writing) time spent doing what I love most.
