This is "How Can I Explain?", which is a feature spotlighting inexplicable comic book plots.

One of the first "How Can I Explain?" was all about a continuity paradox, how Fantastic Four #374 had Wolverine slice open the Thing's face with his adamantium claws. But then the Thing guest-starred in X-Men #25 without the scars and the comic noted that it was set before Fantastic Four #374, except that, of course, Wolverine lost his adamantium claws in X-Men #25, so it couldn't have been set before X-Men #25!

Today is about another continuity paradox involving Jessica Jones and her connection to Spider-Man that I just wrote about the other day. Reader Jim S. wrote in after that column to tell me about this bit.

In Amazing Spider-Man #601 (by Brian Michael Bendis and Joe Quesada), Jessica Jones tells Spider-Man about how watching him fight Sandman in Amazing Spider-Man #4 inspired her to become a superhero...

She notes that she had her powers during Spider-Man's first fight against Sandman.

However, as established in Alias #22 (by Brian Michael Bendis and Michael Gaydos), Jessica was in a coma until the events of Fantastic Four #48-50....

Sandman obviously appeared much earlier than Fantastic Four #48. Heck, he even FOUGHT the Fantastic Four in Fantastic Four #36...

TIME PARADOX!

Obviously, this isn't a big deal, it's just a tiny little continuity mistake, but hey, it amused me when Jim wrote in about it and I bet it will amuse some of you, as well.

Thanks to Jim for the suggestion! If anyone else has a similar inexplicable comic book plot (and it doesn't have to be a simple continuity mix-up like this one, it can be any comic book plot that did not have a good explanation for it, like the X-Men never letting anyone know that they were alive after surviving the explosion of Magneto's Antarctic base despite multiple opportunities to do so), then drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com!