'Marvel's Jessica Jones' An inspired, dark twist on superhero sagas

The latest Marvel comics-inspired series, "Jessica Jones," gives us a heroine who's a cross between Sam Spade, Walter White, and Wonder Woman.

While that sounds like a recipe for failure, the true super power shown by "Jessica Jones" is how well it blends elements that seem like they shouldn't be in the same universe, let alone the same show. And it gives Krysten Ritter, as Jessica Jones, a role as complex as any of TV's memorable antiheroes.

"Jessica Jones," which begins streaming its 13 episodes on Netflix on Friday, Nov. 20, is part of a Marvel/Netflix deal, which will ultimately give us five series derived from Marvel properties.

But these aren't the quippy, action-bloated blockbusters that lumber into movie theaters. The first Netflix/Marvel series, "Daredevil," set the dark, adult tone that "Jessica Jones" continues.

"Jessica Jones" is adapted from a comic book series created by writer Brian Michael Bendis -- who lives in Portland -- and artist Michael Gaydos.  While other TV series have tried to give us female heroes as flawed and fascinating as Don Draper in "Mad Men," or Tony Soprano in "The Sopranos," "Jessica Jones" succeeds where others have fizzled.

Jessica has super powers, we gradually come to find out. But because of something terrible in her past, she hides them, and works as a low-rent private investigator. Jessica's main goal seems to be keeping a low profile, and throwing herself away by drinking to excess, and hiding out in her rathole of a New York apartment.

Despite her self-destructive habits, Jessica is good at her job, however underhanded her methods.  In the first episode, she investigates a case involving a nice young woman from the Midwest who's missing. This simple-sounding set-up turns deadly when Jessica discovers the man behind it all is the diabolical Kilgrave (David Tennant), who has the power to make people do things they desperately don't want to do.

Naturally, Jessica and Kilgrave have history. And it's bad. She's so terrified, she wants to run, but ultimately she finds the courage to stay and try to protect others from the damage Kilgrave can do.

In the first episode, executive producer and showrunner Melissa Rosenberg (who wrote the "Twilight" movies), overdoes Jessica's film noir-style narration ("In my line of work, you gotta know when to walk away. But some cases just won't let you go.")

But things improve with the second episode, as we learn more about Jessica, and her relationship with Luke Cage (Mike Colter), who's also trying to lay low, and also turns out to have super powers. (And he's in line for his own Netflix series, too, in 2016.)

Ritter is terrific, in a role that showcases her talents for black comedy (shown in the sitcom, "Don't Trust the B---- in Apartment 23") and tragedy (her role as Jesse's short-lived junkie lover in "Breaking Bad.") And she has sizzling chemistry with Colter, who was memorably intimidating as the drug kingpin Lemond Bishop in "The Good Wife."

The entire cast, including Rachael Taylor and Carrie-Anne Moss, is strong. The show does an excellent job of portraying female characters, especially, as complicated, conflicted and multilayered.

Tennant's Kilgrave is shown, at first, almost as a shadow, but the menace that emanates from him hovers over the story like a blanket you want to throw off, but you can't.