In "Reason to be Excited," I spotlight things from comics (usually recent comics, but who knows, I might go into the past, as well) that I think are worth getting excited about. As a quick aside, it's funny how I'll sometimes forget features and "suddenly" years have passed. I did three of these in a month back in 2016 and then none since! Weird.

Anyhow, today we look at the comic book that showed that Kelly Thompson, the new writer on Marvel's new ongoing Jessica Jones series, was already a fine Jessica Jones writer (and thus, giving us even more reasons to be excited about her taking on Jessica Jones's new series). Even Brian Michael Bendis noticed, as this was the same comic book that he looked to when he recommended Kelly for the gig succeeding him on the character. Now, don't get me wrong, I already would have wanted to see Kelly get the gig even BEFORE this story (I may be a tad biased), but Jessica Jones' guest appearance in Kelly's recent Hawkeye series made it a lead pipe cinch that she was the clear choice to take over Jessica Jones when Bendis left Marvel.

Hawkeye, which Kelly primarily worked on with the wonderful artists Leonardo Romero and Jordie Bellaire, revisited the set-up from Matt Fraction, Annie Wu and Matt Hollingsworth's Hawkeye series, where Kate Bishop went to Los Angeles to try to make it as a private investigator. Kate set herself up as an unlicensed private investigator and hijinks,as they are so wont to do, ensued.

Since the series was all about a private investigator, it only made sense for one of the most famous P.I.s in the Marvel Universe to make an appearance, and sure enough, issues #5-6 of Hawkeye guest-starred Jessica Jones. The great Michael Walsh paired with Bellaire for this two-parter (Walsh would do another fill-in later in the run, but otherwise, Romero drew pretty much the entire series, which is an impressive feat nowadays).

Jessica actually makes a shocking appearance at the end of Hawkeye #4, at the resolution of Kate Bishop's investigation into a twisted mind control cult....

Julian Totino Tedesco did the covers for the series and right from the cover, you had to know that this was going to be a great team-up...

Now, if you recall, Jessica Jones had taken on a mentoring relationship with the Young Avengers way back in the day, so Jessica and Kate are already quite familiar with each other and Jessica obviously has a soft spot for her old charges, especially one who has taken up Jessica's own professional (in a sort of haphazard way, but still). Kelly plays that well without having to go over the top with it (like, there's no footnote "Jessica and Kate are really familiar with each other", ya know?).

A fun bit that Kelly does throughout the issue is Kate noting various tips she picks up from Jessica (with the gag being that sometimes, Kate's take on what the "lesson" is does not necessarily match what the actual lesson was)...

Jessica is in California working a missing persons case, and Kate works the case with her. There's a great bit where they are in a closet together as part of the bit and Jessica's world-weary attitude about her job really shines through here...

Then, while they are trying to find the missing person, a dragon shows up and knocks Jessica Jones into a pool, but that's neither here nor there for the moment.

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After the dragon flew off, Jessica and Kate regrouped.

Here, in #6, you can see Kelly just nailing the patented Jessica Jones banter...

Of course, it turns out that the dragon really IS the missing girl (due to some sort of funky science) and we get to see Jessica literally fly into action...

In the end, Kate ends up talking the girl down from the whole "rampaging dragon" thing and Jessica returns to the East Coast, having now found the missing girl who was never really missing. Jessica and Kate get a nice heart to heart before Jessica leaves.

One of the highlights of Hawkeye was the dialogue in the series, but also the way that the various character are so well delineated (something that was shown to be particularly true in Jem and the Holograms, where there were 356 characters in every issue and yet they all had their own "voice"). So here, Jessica Jones really felt like she was herself and not just a guest-star in someone else's book.

So, in other words, this really was like reading a Jessica Jones comic book already and it was really good, so we should all be super pumeped for the upcoming Jessica Jones series.