Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Alias (Vol. 1), Issue #19 – “The Underneath (Part 4)”! In the previous installment, Jessica Jones gets a lead! Some drug dealer named Denny is shacking up with Spider-Woman, so Jones visits the club that Denny frequents to try to find him. And she does! And here we are now.

I’d like to say that the intrigue is settling in nicely, but I’d be a filthy fucking no-good fucking filthy liar. So I won’t.

Alias (Vol. 1), Issue #19 [May, 2003]
Written by: Brian Michael Bendis
“The Underneath (Part 4)”

Jessica Jones monologues about finding Mattie Franklin in the back room of this seedy fucking club. “It’s her and she looks right at me.” Jones didn’t expect her to be here, naturally, since she’s a kid and kids don’t go clubbin’ (unless it’s baby seals, of course). She must be on the drugs again, especially since she’s costumed up like a loser. “I don’t know what to do.” She contemplates grabbing the girl and running, but that might put them at risk, including the Jamesons. “Jesus, she looks even worse than she did in my apartment a couple of days ago. What is she on? Heroin?”

Jones makes up the name Madeleine when she is introduced to Denny. He thinks he recognizes her. “This is it,” Jones thinks. “This is what that psychic bitch Madame Web was babbling about.” She described this exact scene, and this is it. And what else did she say? Oh yeah, someone was gonna die. Ha ha ha! Um.

“You a cop?” Denny asks. It’s entrapment if Jones is a cop and she doesn’t tell him, you know. It’s in all the law books. Jones thinks, fuck it, just get out of here and regroup. Wait for them outside and then grab the girl and run when they leave. So she tries a little “fuck you asshole I’m actually leaving right now, byeee” but Denny goads her to stay with this sleazy-ass smile on his dumb face.

She asks Denny what they’re doing that he’s worried about cops. He says that they’s just partyin’ is all. Want a brick of heroin, doll?

Like a kite, sir! Does crushing up and snorting Tylenol Cold & Flu count?

Jones settles down with a glass of vodka while Denny attempts to wake up the addled Mattie. “Hey, baaaby, what’s goin’ on?” she says in a weak voice.

“She a little young for you?” Jones says, staring daggers.

“No,” Denny responds.

“What’s with the costume?”

“She likes to wear it. It makes her feel special.”

Now there’s this whole weird sequence where it looks like Denny extracts blood and tissue from a gross, gaping wound just below the back of the nape of Mattie’s neck. And at this point Jones realizes that she’s been drugged as she slowly fades out.

Enough of this! “You fucking animals!!” Jones screams and she punches Denny right in the face. Denny’s friend calls Jones a cunt and knocks her lights out.

She comes to however many minutes later with Denny yelling to “get this crack whore out of here!! Last thing we need is another OD on the premises.”

Jones gets bounced out of there tout suite and thrown in the alley, where she lays prone for what I want to assume is 137 hours. But instead of cutting her arm off, she is approached by Ben Urich of the Daily Bugle! He likes to prowl around alleys in the middle of the night, no big deal. Just lookin’ for stories.

Jones realizes that Jameson has sent Urich to spy on her. “He thinks you have this girl, Mattie… but I know you don’t. I just want to figure out exactly what happened.” And Jones growls and clenches her fist. “I fucking had her. I had her.”

She tells Urich everything about her night. Urich asks if Denny and his gang had protruded foreheads, which is not something I noticed at all and I’m an astute and detail-oriented comic book reader! They’re taking MGN – Mutant Growth Hormone, an expensive drug where apparently “hormone” starts with an N. They get it from the blood and tissue of someone with superpowers and then they freebase that shit. Wild, huh? Cannibalistic, you might even say! “There’s been rumblings about a couple of B-level superheroes – no offense – selling parts of themselves, or trading it for who-knows-what.”

Anyway, nice chat. Jones heads to the emergency room to tend to her broken nose.

I’m positively happy to say I’m not! Heh heh. That’s an AIDS joke for ya.

The information that she needs to divulge is that she used to be a superhero. Not a mutant. So, uh, is there anyone on the staff that can… like… withstand my superblood? Or something?

Yes! You get Dr. Cirello! He’s a man who says “That’s quite a bonk to the beezer you took, Jessica,” so you know that he’s an insufferable virgin. By now her nose has stopped bleeding and she feels stupid for coming to the emergency room.

A couple of nurses whisper outside the room.

“She says she’s a superhero.”

“Oh yeaaah. She’s the Scarlet Witch. I recognize her.”

“She looks like shit.”

“She’s on something. They’re all on something. Their bodies can’t take the stress.”

“I wonder if she knows Captain America.”

“Honey, look at her. She doesn’t even know Quasar.”

The cops show up to the room looking quite coppish. Interrogation time! Denny’s gonna get so busted! Bonk to the beezer, son!

“I enjoyed every bullshit lie I told them about how I was mugged,” Jones thinks later as she walks home. That’s right, lady. ACAB! “Fuckers. Fuck them! Eff you, little-dick, badge-wearing assholes.”

She hopes Urich finds out information about Mattie, and then tells Jameson to leave her the hell alone. She turns the key to her apartment door and stumbles inside.

Jones is not met with a warm welcome.

Oh no, not Elektro-Man, Mr. Human Lightning! My one weakness!

“Listen up, Bitchcakes,” says the assailant. “My name is Jessica Drew. I’m the original Spider-Woman, and what you just got was a face-full of my spider bite. Where the fuck is Mattie Franklin?”

The long night has just gotten longer. Yowza!

Final Thoughts

Well that’s a real bonk to the beezer, innit? Just try fighting Jessica Drew, you B-level superhero. Ass on a platter.