A series of retcons across multiple titles revealed that not only were Spider-Man and Jessica Jones former classmates, but he was VITAL to her growth.
Thanks to the connected nature of the Marvel Universe, many characters can turn out to have plenty of unexpected bonds that they don’t even fully realize. It’s not just secret twins or startling revelations either, but something as simple as once being peers in their youth — such as the case with Spider-Man and Jessica Jones.
Although she wasn’t introduced to the Marvel Universe until the events of Alias, Jessica Jones was retconned to have a deep connection to Peter Parker, with Spider-Man actually being a big part of her formative years.
As revealed by her full origin story, Jessica Campbell grew up in Queens at the same time as Peter Parker, and had a much closer connection to the young wall-crawler than anyone ever realized at first. In Alias #22 by Brian Michael Bendis and Michael Gaydos, Jessica’s history was delved into — including her time at Midtown High School as a classmate of Peter Parker’s. In fact, the then-dorky Jessica saw a kindred spirit in the fellow wallflower and developed an intense crush on him. Peter was completely unaware of this, with the chaos of his own life distracting him from ever noticing her feelings for him. Later in life, Jessica would describe it as if she were “in love” with Peter Parker.
Jessica even once made a move to talk to him while on a field trip to the New York Hall of Science, and was present when the fateful radioactive spider bit him, starting him on the path to becoming Spider-Man. Not long after, Jessica was caught in an accident that resulted in her exposure to radioactive material that would empower her (while also killing her family and leaving her in a coma). When she finally awakened, Jessica was adopted and given the “Jones” surname when she returned to school, where she was consistently bullied. Notably, Peter finally tried to reach out to Jessica due to their similar situations of having lost loved ones, only for the depressed young woman to be enraged that Peter only noticed her out of “pity.”
This in turn led to Jessica storm away and inadvertently discover she had powers. It wasn’t long after that Jessica witnessed an battle between a superhero and super-villain — specifically, Spider-Man’s very first battle with Sandman in Amazing Spider-Man #4 by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko. Inspired by his heroics, Jessica decided to try and become a hero herself — setting her on the path to becoming Jewel and then, following the trauma of her encounter with the Purple Man, opening the Alias detective agency. The two would later realize the full weight of this connection during New Avengers #51 by Brian Michael Bendis, Billy Tan, Matt Banning, Justin Ponsor, Chris Bachalo, Tim Townsend, and Antonio Fabela.
It was at this time that Peter revealed his identity to his teammates — prompting a huge response from Jessica, who opened up about their full connection (to Peter’s bemusement and her husband Luke Cage’s jealousy). Jessica is ecstatic at the connection, but is insulted when it turns out Peter never remembered her name, and only truly knew her (like many of their classmates) as “Coma Girl.”
However, Peter and Jessica would later make peace with this revelation in Amazing Spider-Man #601 by Brian Michael Bendis and Joe Quesada. Visiting Jessica while she’s minding her daughter Dani, Spider-Man learns that Jessica became a hero because of his actions, reminding him of the positive effect being Spider-Man can have on the lives of others. Peter even shared his credo of “with great power must come great responsibility,” convincing her to return to heroics to set an example for her daughter as Peter had once inspired her. It’s a clever and surprisingly sweet connection between the two heroes.
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