Jessica Jones got the spider bite… Peter Parker got weird
There are some What If…? concepts that require a flowchart, three multiversal diagrams and a degree in Kang Studies.
This one?
What if the radioactive spider bit Jessica Jones instead of Peter Parker?
Done. Sold. Let’s go.
What If…? Jessica Jones #1, written by Justina Ireland with art by David Messina and colors by Brian Reber, takes that simple switch and has a surprising amount of fun rearranging Spider-Man history around it. Jessica Campbell gets bitten at Midtown High, becomes Spider-Girl, and winds up living the sort of colorful superhero life Peter Parker was supposed to have.
Years later, however, Jessica Jones has quit.
She bartends at Luke Cage’s place, drinks, swears, wants absolutely nothing to do with superheroes and seems perfectly happy letting her old Spider-Girl posters gather dust.
So basically?
We eventually arrive at Jessica Jones anyway.
Destiny apparently has GPS.
PROS
The most enjoyable part of the issue is how it plays with familiar Spider-Man ingredients without simply putting Jessica inside Peter’s costume.
Her Spider-Girl career became something much brighter and more public. We get this wonderfully retro montage of Jessica as a media-friendly superhero complete with a very ’60s-looking costume, magazine covers and the sort of superhero celebrity that Peter rarely enjoyed.
And then life happens.
Jessica loses her family, discovers Norman Osborn was the Green Goblin, and eventually walks away from the whole superhero business. By the present day, she has all the power in the world and practically zero interest in using it.
Which feels extremely Jessica Jones.
When Kingpin turns up dead and evidence points toward someone using old Green Goblin equipment, Jessica initially wants nothing to do with it. Unfortunately, curiosity is apparently another superpower she cannot switch off.
Her investigation is probably my favorite stretch of the book.
She breaks into the crime scene using her old abilities, complains about how exhausting superhero work is, webs up Misty Knight when she gets caught, then escapes under gunfire while realizing:
Oh right.
Being Spider-Person is HARD.
There’s a great recurring joke in Jessica discovering that having powers doesn’t automatically mean knowing what you’re doing with them. At one point she catches herself with a giant web hammock after falling from a building, only to immediately crash through it anyway.
Peter Parker would be proud.
Probably after he stopped laughing.
Luke Cage also works wonderfully as Jessica’s anchor. Their relationship here is different from the main universe, but the chemistry is still there. Luke recognizes that Jessica is struggling long before she’s ready to admit it herself, and his simple observation that being a hero is easier with friends becomes one of the issue’s recurring ideas.
Then we get the reveal.
The new Green Goblin is…
PETER PARKER.
And this is where the issue goes from cute alternate-history exercise to gloriously ridiculous.
Peter didn’t become Spider-Man in this universe. Instead, Jessica’s Spider-Girl career helped make Peter’s career as a reporter. Once she quit, his professional life apparently collapsed into what he describes as “beer-scented obscurity.”
So his solution is to steal Green Goblin gear and recreate their old hero-villain rivalry.
Peter.
Buddy.
LinkedIn was an option.
His pitch is basically: Spider-Girl versus Green Goblin was great material, you need superheroing, I need journalism, so why don’t we emotionally regress together?
Jessica’s response is appropriately:
Absolutely not.
It’s ridiculous, pathetic and strangely believable for this broken version of Peter.
David Messina also deserves credit for visually distinguishing Jessica’s bright Spider-Girl past from her darker present. The old-school flashbacks have an intentionally vintage flavor while modern Jessica’s world looks moodier and more grounded.
CONS
My main complaint is that I actually wanted more alternate Spider-Girl history.
The issue throws out fascinating little changes—Jessica’s superhero fame, Norman, Peter’s different career, her relationship with Luke—but some are presented so quickly that I wanted another few pages just exploring how drastically this Marvel Universe changed without Peter becoming Spider-Man.
Also, Peter’s Green Goblin reveal is hilarious…
…but perhaps too hilarious.
His motivation works within the issue’s deliberately playful tone, but “my journalism career needs Spider-Girl back, therefore I shall become a supervillain” is an impressively aggressive career-development strategy.
Indeed.com, Peter.
Please.
FINAL THOUGHTS: 8 SPIDER-LEGS OUT OF 8!!!
This is exactly what I want from a fun What If…? one-shot.
It changes one famous moment, follows the dominoes, plays with Marvel history and ultimately finds an entertaining way to bring its characters surprisingly close to who they were always meant to become.
Jessica rejects Spider-Girl fame—but helping people makes her feel better than she has in years.
Misty Knight even plants another familiar idea in her head:
Ever thought about becoming a private investigator?
There it is.
Different spider.
Different Goblin.
Different history.
But somehow Jessica Jones still finds Jessica Jones.
And Peter Parker?
Maybe keep him away from Goblin masks in every universe. 🕷️
