Purple Man returns in Jessica Jones' title

[cyberghostface]

"The only thing worse than what the Purple Man did to her originally is the thought of what he could do to her now that she has a child. Writing this has been so scary. This is scary stuff. This is psychological horror unlike anything I think I’ve ever seen in mainstream comics. We’ll see what people think." -- Brian Michael Bendis



And a bonus 'homage' variant:


Thoughts? I'm excited, Bendis wrote a pretty creepy Purple Man in 'Alias' and I think there's a lot of potential having him as Jessica's main antagonist again.

Comments

[long_silence]

David Tennant is also returning in Jessica Jones season 2

[cyberghostface]

I only just started watching the show the other day. Pretty good so far with Jessica's voice-overs nailing the character but I do think they should have let her say a few f-bombs.

[dewinged]

I hope to hell he's coming back as a hallucination or a flashback. If they brought that character back to life, making everything that happened in Season 1 pointless, I'm done with it.

[long_silence]

Probably hallucinations and flashbacks. A big part of the show so far has been about how abuse stays with you long after you've escaped.

Even with Kilgrave gone that doesn't mean Jess and Malcolm are actually over it

[deh_tommy]

Plus, the first few episodes did show she suffered from some mild flashbacks of Kilgrave when she was overstressed, so Purple Man as a vision or hallucination isn't entirely unprecedented.

[shadowpsykie]

also Trish.

an interesting thing they might do is that Killgrave left a psychic imprint in them... there is also the stuff about the aborted Fetus that Jeri took. so they left loop holes. I love Tenant. I loved Kilgrave. he was horrible and needs to never come back.. but his effects would definitely linger.

[starwolf_oakley]

There's nothing that says he's going to appear in all 13 episodes.

"Killgrave as Jessica's imaginary friend." It has some story potential.

[leoboiko]

> the thought of what he could do to her now that she has a child.

> We’ll see what people think.

Well, what I for one think is "someone please kill the purple asshole already".

[akodo_rokku]

They gave him a healing factor just so that it's hard to keep him dead.

[thanekos]

That healing factor helps him catch the amounts of blunt force trauma that he does in post-Alias stories and still be a viable character.

[leoboiko]

Could someone introduce Jessica to Sg. Cole-Alves?

[balbanes]

I don't like Purple Man as an ongoing primary antagonist for the same reason I don't like telepaths as ongoing primary antagonists: because all fights boil down to "can the hero resist the villain's mind powers?" We all know the answer will be "yes" at the climax due to Heroic Willpower (less often: technical trickery), which makes for a very boring resolution. Note that there are very few ongoing Marvel villains who are telepaths, probably for this reason.

Don't get me wrong: Purple Man/ telepaths are great as the occasional antagonist, since they allow for great character building. Just not as regular villains.

[beyondthefringe]

I am sick of the Purple Man.
I despise the Purple Man.
He's one of those characters who should be killed, buried out back, and forgotten about for a long, long, long time. Mainly because between Bendis and the Netflix show, they've really done all they can and need to with him as a completely loathsome, amoral, vicious, disgusting person. Like, once you've gone full mind control sadist/rapist, there's no hope of ever dialing it back again.

Plus, he just showed up in Daredevil, and that's too recent for me.

[super_fly]

I'm only interested in one thing about him: what colour does his face turn when you strangle him?

Comics Kilgrave was an evil man, TV Kilgrave was a monster

[deh_tommy]

I think the Purple Man in the book is a different kind of evil than the one from the show.
Comics Kilgrave is more of a short tempered crook who happens to have mind control powers, perfectly content to just faff about until he gets bored and decides to do crime again. He knows and understands what he does is wrong but doesn't really care, since if he has the power to do those kinds of things then why shouldn't he?

TV Kilgrave, on the other hand, knows what he's doing is wrong but seems to genuinely not understand why. He's spoilt and not used to being told "no", and, unlike Comics Kilgrave (I think), is also a master manipulator without needing to rely too heavily on his powers (like keeping Jessica oblivious to her immunity, or buying the house despite said house not being for sale, or making himself look sympathetic for the tape in the Faraday cage).

Comics Kilgrave had Jessica around as a kind of stress doll to take out his frustrations on other heroes like Daredevil. TV Kilgrave, meanwhile, was much more deeply obsessed with her, first as a pet or trophy then as a the girl who got away, who somehow managed to resist or was unaffected by his control and therefore the only person who could theoretically have feelings for him (he's basically an evil Sakie from Interviews with Monster Girls).

(also, to be fair, he was dead for some time)

Re: Comics Kilgrave was an evil man, TV Kilgrave was a monster

[leoboiko]

Might not be the same as the show, but that's way beyond "comic-book criminal crook" levels for me.

Re: Comics Kilgrave was an evil man, TV Kilgrave was a monster

[icon_uk]

And it's a recurring pattern. Persuasion of Beta Flight is his daughter, and he controlled her mother for a long, long time, before realising that he actually DID love her (as he understood the term), and released her from his control, at which point she basically ran like hell from him and never looked back. It was only later she found out she was pregnant by him.

So he mind controlled her, raped her, and still expected her to believe that he genuinely loved her? That is not a man who will ever understand the concept of love.

It's like Doctor Light, rape is the sort of crime that just soil a character completely and taint every use thereafter no matter how much you try to work around it.

Re: Comics Kilgrave was an evil man, TV Kilgrave was a monster

[cyberghostface]

Dr. Light was turned from a goofy villain into Rapey McRapeRape. That was his defining character trait, he liked to rape people. There's really no progression to go from there. Whereas Purple Man was more along the lines of making him the Hannibal Lecter of the MU.

What Bendis did to Purple Man however was A.) a logical extension of the character and B.) managed to revitalize him to such an extent that they were able to get a prestigious actor like David Tennant to play him.

Show spoilers

[flint_marko]

I think the comic version is still a lot worse. They're both horrible people, but at least with the TV version there was some pathos to his character with how he was damaged and warped from what his parents did to him in his childhood.

Re: Show spoilers

[shadowpsykie]

kinda.... they show basically showed that that was kinda bull....

Re: Show spoilers

[flint_marko]

How was it bull?
http://marvelcinematicuniverse.wikia.com/wiki/Kilgrave#Torturous_Childhood

Re: Show spoilers

[deepspaceartist]

It's certainly no excuse for what he does, but the show did make it kind of clear that he never really had a fair shot at being a normal person. Going through a childhood of excruciating medical procedures and little to no human affection, to developing mind control powers that cannot be controlled or shut off while still a child is not something that will leave you a mentally or emotionally healthy person with a functional moral compass. He was still a monster that needed to be put down, but there is some tragedy in how he only became a monster because of his parent's attempts to save him.