Early on in season two of Daredevil The Punisher and our titular hero have a discussion about morality. Matt's a Catholic, The Punisher used to be. Matt argues that his absolute prohibition on killing is justified because "everyone deserves a chance at redemption". The Punisher counters by saying that not all people can be redeemed, and that killing people before they have a chance to kill others is the utilitarian thing to do. The Punisher then sets up a twisted version of the Trolley Problem. Daredevil can kill the Punisher, and save who he was about to kill, or not kill the Punisher and allow him to kill. Matt chooses a third option, but despite his best efforts someone still dies. During the confrontation the Punisher declares "One bad day and you'd be just like me!" He's wrong, Matthew Murdock has had bunch of bad days. From loosing his sight to losing his father, Matt has had more then his share of misery.
The same is true of Jessica Jones. The same sequence of events that gave her Super-strength also caused the death of her parents. Her career as a heroic vigilante was cut short by some unknown tragedy. Trying to help a person attacked on the street led to her to be made a mind controlled slave, and rape victim, by Kilgrave. Bad fucking days. And yet she wonders wether her rapist can become a good person. She desires not his death, but justice for the innocent, and when she finally does kill him it is only to protect others. In fact it is his order to murder that breaks the spell, doing something that is such against her nature that it severs the link between her and Kilgrave forever.
Matt also shows who is in the dark, turning away from Elektra, and the revenge on the man who killed his father. Not falling back on a higher authority he simply says that its not right for him to kill. Both Jessica and Matt go beyond what ordinary morality calls for, and become moral exemplars. In other words, they good people. This moral exemplary allows them to sidestep some of the troubling implications of vigilantism posed by super-heroics, which will be discussed further in part II.
They may be exemplars, but they don't feel like them. Jessica thinks of herself as a bad person, Matt, feeling the attractiveness of darkness, is constantly conflicted. What's more, we understand why they feel this way, even if we totally disagree. That's good writing. Jessica Jones, which has helped survivors process their abuse, is about consent, survivorship, and ultimately female solidarity in the face of the patriarchy. Season one of Daredevil which ,while less intimately harrowing, introduced the issue of class and was ultimately about gentrification . Season two was about people's different moral codes, and how one bridges the gaps between them.
Age of Ultron was about a giant genocidal robot.
Since 2008 Marvel and DC has made thirty-one live -action films. None of those, with the possible exception of Winter Soldier, and the Nolan films, is as good as Jessica Jones and Daredevil. Especially in regards to the DCEU, and MCU; nearly all the films lack a coherent theme that doesn't suffocate beneath what A.A. Dowd called "franchise obligations"; Attractive people with some kind of power punching each other in face, and setting up the story so it leads to the next film of attractive people with powers punching each other in the face, ad nauseam.
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