The final homage cover is to West Coast Avengers #1, sort of. It’s pretty different, but close enough to be recognizable. This month, it’s Tan & Banning joined by Michael Gaydos, with Justin Ponsor coloring everybody. What a jarring team of artists. It begins, we’re told, “weeks ago,” with Luke Cage looking disgusted.
This is very early in them being parents. Jessica encourages Luke to talk to her and make her feel safe, so Luke decides to tell her about the day he fell in love with her mother. And then he flashes back within this flashback, which is always a bold move. He talks about how annoyed he is when people don’t pull over for emergency vehicles…
Ugh, that man is inescapable. Maybe he’s finally dead by the time you’re reading this. I hope so. This whole idea of Luke forcing a car out of the way of an ambulance was a thing Bendis talked about, a sort of wish fulfillment thing from being annoyed by this stuff himself. Well, now we’re straight into an issue of Alias, like we never left, with the client laying out their need. In this case, that means Luke explaining he wants her to find his dad. That his family doesn’t like him, and keep moving to hide from him, because his dad is an old man who believes bad things that aren’t true about Luke, like he killed Danny Rand, who is, you know, not dead. Luke says he already tried Dakota North and couldn’t find Jessica Drew. Jessica cautions him that he probably won’t get what he wants out of this, but Luke says he just wants to look the old man in the eye and tell him the truth.
So, wonder of wonders, that’s a flashback to Daredevil 60, which we happened to cover, but a moment we didn’t see the first time. Then we’re with Jessica in Atlanta, looking for his dad. And she’s probably found him, living under an assumed name, but she’s talking to a lady at his door instead of him, and she says he doesn’t want to talk to Luke.
Rough. Shortly, Luke & Jessica are at a Dairy Queen, and he’s dealing with this. Jessica makes some jokes, and gives him a hug, then makes some more jokes. And that was it.
Not as illuminating as it could’ve been. I tell ya, it’s obvious Billy Tan is a lot better here than he was on MKSM, no doubt, but be that as it may, if I was gonna be drawing Jessica Jones in a comic that was mostly gonna feature her drawn correctly by her co-creator… I woulda tried to draw her like Gaydos. Call me crazy! If nothing else, so as not to embarrass myself. But… the days of Jessica Jones looking like Jessica Jones are basically over. And now for something… well, not completely different, but… pretty different…