* Part 2 of 4 of the B Level storyline * Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Alias (Vol. 1), Issue #7 – “B Level (Part 2)”! In the previous installment, Carol Danvers wants Jessica to fuck Ant-Man, a creepy kid visits Jessica’s office to tell her he’s a huge fan, and a woman named Jane Jones arrives with a problem: her husband, Rick Jones, has been missing for weeks. Jessica is apparently related.
Intriguing, right? MAYBE NOT, ACTUALLY. Stop assuming.
Alias (Vol. 1), Issue #7 [May, 2002]
Written by: Brian Michael Bendis
“B Level (Part 2)”
Very good. Cover art tells me that Rick Jones is a rock star. Like Rick Springfield. Or Tom Jones! Ha. Tom Jones, famous for being a rock star.
“Just start at the beginning,” Jessica says, taking a drag on her cigarette. “Take your time.”
Jane Jones sits in the chair opposite the desk. She looks fidgety. Jessica waits for her to speak. Jane does not at first. Then she says a lot of things. She says a lot of things that don’t say anything at all.
“See, we’ve been married for six months. I met him at one of his shows. Ever been to one of his shows, the voice of an angel, he has. I mean it – an angel…”
OK lady, we all know you have a boner for your husband. We all have boners for our husbands. Get to the point.
“He told me straight up – that his life is complicated. I mean, did you know that he stopped the ‘Kree-Skrull War’ all by himself? Not a lot of people know that, but he did.”
Well lady, your husband sounds like a liar. Also, I know Krees and Skrulls! That’s some Captain America shit, aka the worst story I read before the first Red Hood story usurped that throne. Anyway, Kree. Skrull. Good stuff.
Jessica stays silent, smoking that cigarette.
Jane thought fucking a superhero was tops. The fact that he ran with such a crowd really diddled the ol’ bean, but she never got to meet any of them. He came home with all sorts of whiz-bang stories and that was good enough for her!
Look, I don’t know anyone named Rick Jones. Ain’t nobody named Rick Jones in this town. Rick who? Jones? Don’t know him. In fact, it sounds like an ALIAS to me!
But he’s gone and missing and it’s weird and help please. “He always spoke highly of you,” she adds, schmoozing the detective nicely.
Jessica not only thinks she’s not related to this missing motherfucker, but, as far as she can tell, they’ve never even met. Jane insists that Rick talks about her all the time, never stops talking about her, misses hanging out, misses shooting up heroin with her. Throwing rocks through pawn shop windows. Catapulting molotov cocktails onto packed highways. He misses it.
“If it’s a matter of money – I’ve got money,” Jane says as she sifts through her purse. Jessica tells her to put that away and that she likes to get paid in hamburgers and manga books. “Tell you what…” Jessica says with an air of skepticism, “let me have your contact info and I.D. – and let me look into this a little.”
Sounds good chief. You can have her social security number too. Just take it. She just wants her cheating husband back!
Jane thanks her, but Jessica tells the woman to stuff her thanks. She doesn’t even know what she’s gonna do yet! She has nothing to work off of except “I miss my husband” and “I want my husband” and “Please find my husband”. What she’d like is a map that says “HUSBAND IS HERE” and it points to a spot and it’s like that Harry Potter map that follows people as they move around. That would really make detective work easy and–
Well, in any case, the woman thanks her for her time and Jessica spends the next panel pooping on the toilet while mulling things over. She did some background snooping and learned that, yes, this woman is telling the truth. She is indeed married to a Rick Jones, and that sucks because that means Jane isn’t some raving lunatic. Plus, she actually does like money and shouldn’t have turned down the money. That was super dumb.
There are almost almost 500 people named Rick Jones in the tri-state area. That doesn’t help. The Avengers are out pulling black guys out of cars and kneeling on their necks, so she can’t even ask them for help even though Captain America himself said she could bug him anytime.
So she has one last resort. She calls her mom.
Ricky Shroeder? Ricky Nelson? Rick Moranis? Ricardo Montalbán? Damnit, mom…
No leads there either, and it sounds like Jessica’s mother is pretty annoyed with this line of questioning. Either she’s hiding something or she REALLY hates people named Rick! Then they yell at each other, and then Jessica tries to get out of the phone call but it doesn’t work!
“I gotta go. Bye, what? No. I told you I don’t wear costumes anymore. No, no I still don’t see how that reflected badly on you as a parent. God! I – you know what? No. No. I gotta go.”
*click* *punch wall*
Cool. So no leads, no nothing. Some guy who thinks he’s related to Jessica, but no one can verify it. Looks like a trip to the library is in order!
“Hi, uh – do you have a book – some kind of tell-all by Rick Jones?” she asks the man behind the desk.
“What was the name again?” he asks, punching HORNY-BLOWJOB-GRANDMAS into the search bar.
“Rick Jones. Guy used to hang out with the Hulk.”
“I don’t watch network television,” he dismisses. Then he finds something she’s looking for. It’s a book called “Sidekick”. The first thing I thought of was that fucking Jerry Seinfeld book with his punchable smiling face on the cover.
What is the deal with sidekicks? You’re not kicking anyone’s sides!!
Jessica picks up this book and starts reading with an incredulous look on her face. We, the comic book readers, get to read Page 86. What a joy. I’ll summarize:
Rick Jones got to be Captain America’s right-hand man for a period of time until Jones realized that he was just there to fill a void in Steve Rogers’ sad, pathetic, post-freeze existence. So he stopped. And good for him, because fuck that Captain America dimwit.
Jessica is reading outside on a concrete wall, alone, when a woman approaches and asks what her superpower is.
“Why would you ask if I have powers?” Jessica asks.
“That’s my power,” the woman responds. If I were Jessica Jones I would start punching some teeth in. These people are just showing up to harass her? What gives?
Someone tells the woman, Amy, to get away from Jessica. Amy argues that she felt an aura and had to approach.
“You can tell I have powers?” Jessica asks, amused.
“Yeah – I can, but these fuckers don’t believe me,” Amy responds looking sideways and gritting her teeth. “I tols’ them I’m a mutant and shit, but they think – I can tell, I see it.”
Amy says that she knows it sounds wacko looney, but there’s an orange aura around Jessica that she can see. Jessica does find this quite interesting, but Amy’s friend rushes over and pulls Amy away. After noticing her book, Amy’s unnamed friend calls Jessica a “Jones groupie”. What is with women and Rick Jones, he says. The fuck is that about, he says. Buncha bullshit, he says. Total cunt nuggets, he says. Skullfucked Jesus malarky, he says. Some of that is real. None of it, actually.
This guy apparently knows Rick Jones. “Fucker doesn’t shut up!! Well, he shuts up when he’s fuckin’ every girl in New York City, but…”
Jessica is definitely still intrigued. This guy both knows him and hates him. That’s wild. They eat breakfast and Jones doesn’t stop flapping his gums about the Kree-Skrull War! Enough already! Who cares?!
Preach, brother. NONE of these superhero assholes can write songs AT ALL!
Rick Jones plays at the club two blocks away every night like a jerkoff. A place called the “Ultimate”.
“Rick Jones – this guy,” Jessica points to the smiley book man, “he plays down there?
“Yeah – you gonna fuck him too?” the dude asks rudely. It’s like, hey man, Jessica Jones can fuck anyone she wants.
Finally, Jessica asks when Rick usually shows up. She gets her answer (10ish, 11ish), confirms she does, indeed, have powers, and walks away while Amy’s friend gets a bunch of hearty told-ya-so’s.
The Ultimate is closed and empty at 5pm. Jessica rattles the door and raps on the window, but no one is in there. In the meantime, she reads more of second-rate Jerry Seinfeld’s book.
Page 28 recounts Rick Jones’ involvement in Bruce Banner’s accident (!) and the guilt he felt forever after Banner saved him from the same gamma bomb that Hulked Out his Hulkiness. I’d like to read that story, but instead I’m reading a story about Rick Jones’ music career! I guess this is why I’m supposed to know who Rick Jones is. Whoops. 1.5+ years of reading and writing about comics and I still have a lot to learn.
BOOOOOOOOOO!!
“When does the show start?” Jessica asks the bartender later in the evening. Right away! Go get a fucking spot before the groupies take over and start spreading their legs near the front of the stage!
Rick is singing Bowie and Jessica Jones goes “What the fuck?” I can interpret this: the guy doesn’t even have original material?! Boooo!!
Later, backstage, Jessica approaches Rick as he’s putting away his guitar. “Hi – uh, Rick Jones?” she hazards, and right away he shoots her the ol’ “let me bone you” smirk. But then he looks scared and starts running off!
So she follows him.
And he keeps running.
So she follows him into the basement. There, he jumps her from behind and slams her against the wall.
“Who are you with?” Rick snarls.
“What? Jessica responds.
“Who are you with, the Kree or the Skrull?”
“What?!”
“WHO SENT YOU TO FUCK UP MY LIFE AGAIN?” he spits and growls and froths.
Final Thoughts
This guy seems really fun! Pushing all the women around who meet him backstage and yelling their faces about Krees and Skrulls and Slimes and Shy Guys and Metroids and Cactuars! A class act all the way.
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