The fifth issue of the groundbreaking series Alias, which introduced former superhero and current private investigator Jessica Jones to the Marvel Universe, involves Captain America in an oblique but interesting way. It also introduces writer Brian Michael Bendis’ take on the character he will start writing as an Avenger starting in 2004, and highlights the groundbreaking artistic approach of Michael Gaydos. (Mea culpa: The cover shown here is not issue #5 but issue #2, because it alone has our hero on the cover.)
To set the stage for the issue we’re covering, I’ll need to show a few pages from the first issue (by the same creative team), after Jessica accepts a case from a woman whose sister has disappeared. Jessica easily locates the “missing” woman on the internet and sits in her car outside the woman’s house until she comes home, apparently from a date…
…and you can guess who the “big piece of beefcake” is.
Jessica finds it suspicious when the beefcake receives a page (look it up, kids) at 2am and has to leave…
…and even more suspicious that he didn’t leave the same way he came.
She happens to look in her camcorder’s viewfinder while it’s pointed at the roof and sees Joe Beefcake change into Captain Beefcake and leap off the roof.
Initially, Jessica is torn up about what to do with the videotape, but then she learns that the woman she was trailing was killed later that night and things quickly spiral out of control. Over the next few issues she gradually realizes she was set up by powerful men to reveal Captain America’s secret identity (back when he still had one) to damage his friend, the sitting United States president, who was insufficiently grateful for their political contributions to his last campaign.
After the case is wrapped up, the beefcake pays a visit to Jessica in issue #5 to get the videotape and passes on her kind invitation (which may also have been her “shooting her shot,” who knows)…
…but takes an awkward pause before ambivalently noting what she did for him.
Then he recognizes her, and while he never forgets a face of someone he served with in battle, he’s fuzzy about her, despite her short time as Jewel fighting alongside the Avengers.
Jessica gives her condolences about Cap’s date, which triggers his perpetual regret about inviting any “civilian” woman into his life and his responsibility to keep them safe. Jessica tries to comfort him (but she really isn’t the comforting type).
Then he has a question for her, given her unique career choice.
It almost seems that she is going to give a stock, sappy reply…
…but it actually develops into something more revealing about her impressions of herself, which Cap naturally tries to counteract by pointing out, this time more positively, what she did for him.
And then a corny sitcom moment breaks the tension.
Cap shows he’s just as awkward at leaving at anyone: He lets Jessica know she can always ask for anything, especially if she wants to Jewel up again, and recommends she reach out to Carol Danvers (whom she contacted earlier to get in touch with Cap, and with whom she catches up in the next issue).
ISSUE DETAILS
Alias (vol. 1) #5, March 2002: Brian Michael Bendis (writer), Michael Gaydos (pencils and inks), Matt Hollingsworth (colors), Richard Starkings (letters). (More details at Marvel Database.)
Collected in Jessica Jones: Alias, Vol. 1.
ALSO THIS MONTH: Captain America: Dead Men Running #1 and Avengers #50 (March 2002)
THE VIRTUES OF CAPTAIN AMERICA 
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