Jessica Jones made her welcome MCU return in Daredevil: Born Again Season 2. This was a very different Jessica; no longer the traumatized, down-on-her-luck private eye, now a mom who seems to have left New York City. Unfortunately, you can take the superhero out of Manhattan, but Manhattan will come calling anyway. To Jessica’s fury, agents working for Wilson Fisk’s ostensible ally Mr. Charles launched an attack on Jessica’s home.
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There’s a reason she seems to have retired from New York, though; it’s the same reason Jessica’s powers are acting up. Jessica Jones Season 3 was set before Thanos’ snap, in 2018, and the MCU is now in the year 2027. Sometime over the last nine years, Jessica has actually had a daughter, Danielle. Amusingly, the episode goes to great lengths to avoid confirming who the father is; but it’s not hard to guess (especially to anyone who’s familiar with the comics).
Danielle Cage-Jones is the Daughter of Jessica Jones and Luke Cage
Played by twin sisters Isabella and Annabelle Ivlev, Danielle is the daughter of Luke Cage and Jessica Jones. The character made her comic book debut in 2006, but time runs differently in comics, so she’s only three years old (this technically means every comic book story over the last 20 years has taken place in just three years, as far as Marvel is concerned). We have no way of knowing whether Danielle’s origin story is remotely similar; in the comics, Jessica was dating Scott Lang but had a drunken hookup with Luke Cage. Danielle was the result, and the two got together for real, eventually marrying.
Daredevil: Born Again Season 2 doesn’t reveal much about the relationship between Jessica and Luke. In fact, it does its best to keep the relationship a secret, presumably intending to have some sort of payoff in a future episode – as well as, hopefully, a cameo from Mike Colter’s Luke Cage. There are strong hints Luke is currently out of the country, ironically doing work for Mr. Charles. No doubt he won’t be too happy with his employer when he gets back to the USA.
Danielle Cage is a Future Avenger
Danielle Cage is an important character in the comics, not least because she was raised around the superhero community. The child grew up in Avengers Tower, and Luke and Jessica hired the unbeatable Squirrel Girl as her babysitter. Squirrel Girl is one of Marvel’s most whimsical heroes, who’s proved worthy of the “unbeatable” title by taking on everyone from Doctor Doom to Galactus. That naturally made her the perfect choice to babysit the daughter of two Avengers.
Danielle’s superhero future was an open secret from before she was even born. It was actually how Jessica found out she was pregnant; she began experiencing visions of her future with a child, only to learn Danielle was real. Different future timelines have confirmed Danielle will grow up to possess the powers of both Jessica and Luke, meaning she’s almost invincible and packs a punch that would make her parents proud. She’s also a deeply moral character, and in one timeline Danielle became a future Captain America. In other, she proved worthy to hold Mjolnir and wield Thor’s powers.
What Danielle Means for the MCU’s Future
Danielle has always been a symbol of the Marvel Universe’s future. That’s why she’s a mainstay in so many future timelines: good ones have her as a hero (Captain America or Thor), dystopian futures kill her off to show how bleak they are. The mainstream character is basically locked in as a three-to-four-year-old simply because of Marvel’s sliding timeline. That option will not be available to the MCU, of course, given the passing of time is a key component of the shared universe, meaning this Danielle will age.
This isn’t a bad thing, of course. Change is baked into the MCU, simply because time passes (unlike the comics). It means Danielle really does feel like an investment in the MCU’s future, in that her story will surely continue in Daredevil: Born Again Season 3, and hopefully in some new seasons of Jessica Jones as well. She’ll age with an appearance, perhaps discovering her powers and securing a place to stand as part of some kind of Young Avengers or Champions team.
For now, the interesting question is why Danielle’s birth has had an effect on Jessica’s powers. In the Marvel Netflix world, Jessica derives her abilities from experiments with IGH – a clear riff on “Mutant Growth Hormone,” likely “Inhuman Growth Hormone” instead. Given her abilities were granted by exposure to a hormone treatment, it makes sense that Jessica’s daughter would absorb some of those hormones while in the womb. This introduces an interesting new vulnerability for Jessica, but already sets up Danielle as a powerhouse.
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