“Remember the Titans”

The word for the day is “Oops.” But we’ll come back to that in the spoilers.

To open, what can I say about She Hulk #12 other than, “Score!” This issue is a gem, bereft of any reference to the super-human registration act, Spider-Man’s non-secret identity, Iron Man’s transformation into a super-villain, or any other aspect of the MU’s Civil War. It’s what I’ve loved She-Hulk for being in its two recent incarnations – an oasis of fun comic storytelling in a desert of videogame deaths and dark, muddy artwork.

Remember last time (okay, two times ago) , when I yelled, “You b______, you killed ___?”

Well, now it can be told – Mr. Zix is actually Z9, the Recorder from Rigel. Stu deduced this two issues ago while explaining (in hilariously nauseating detail) the numbering of the many incarnations of She Hulk. During this, he saw a Roman numeral nine (IX) on a long box, et voila. He knew what “Zix” stood for. He went to Zix to say “aha!” (Actually, comic book research specialists for prestigious superhuman law firms hardly ever say, “aha!”) Zix congratulated him on his detective work… and shot him dead.

We pick up two issues later with Zix asking Ditto the shape-changer to pose as Stu, so no one notices that he’s dead. Ditto protests that he can’t fake Stu’s knowledge of decades of comics history and continuity. Zix wryly observes that, in the modern age of comics, no one will notice anyway.

Meanwhile, back on Titan, Eros (Starfox) is back on trial for abusing his powers of love while on earth. But this isn’t a trial, exactly, it’s more of a proceeding intended to clean up young E’s reputation. It’s sort of like Bill Clinton being tried by a Democratic Party ethics committee, or Fox News doing an exposé on George Bush. Eros is on trial by people who want to believe he’s innocent, and are gonna find a way to prove it.

Enter the Living Tribunal, who doesn’t like the fact that the Titans have interfered with Terran justice, and insists that they conduct a /real/ trial of Eros, with impartial observers. He summons his contracted impartial observer from some time back, She Hulk. Together with the Recorder, she travels to Titan to, well, observe. Hilarity, of course, ensues. Mentor makes a terrible witness. He believes his son can do only good. Pip the Troll is a disaster, quite misunderstanding just what testimony will help, and what will hurt his friend. In a violation of her contract so great that anyone can understand it, She Hulk the “impartial witness” takes the stand. Here she learns that Eros did, in fact, use his powers to make he reconcile with John Jameson, which false reconciliation led to her current, unfortunate marriage.

And then Thanos shows up. The big guy. The big bad guy. The death-lover. He must have some family loyalty, for he testifies as to what a swell person his brother his, how Eros was there when he accidentally killed his pet with his great strength, how Eros encouraged him to embrace death, laying his hands on him and… turning on his love powers.

Remember I said the word for the day was “oops?”

Now, I hate retcons. They so smack of a current writer proclaiming himself smarter than a past one. But this one’s just so darn clever, is all. And it doesn’t really mess with Jim Starlin’s legacy on Captain Marvel. It’s more of a neat, unrevealed fact of Titan’s past, and one which reminds us that, even with love in our hearts and the best of intentions, our actions always have unforseen consequences.

It’s nice to see Moondragon, Mentor, Pip and Phyla again. I don’t recall Phyla looking quite so… butch… when Peter David’s /Captain Marvel /was still with us, but… whatever.

A good read, filled with promise for the future. Provided, of course, that we don’t get suck three issues hence into /Bride of M, Marvel Universe: Reconstruction, New Avengers: Some Settlement May Occur in Shipping, /or whatever the next cynical, cash-hungry crossover event is.

She-Hulk, Volume Four, Issue Twelve

Rating: 4.75
Writer: Dan Slott
Pencils: Rick Burchett
Inks: Cliff Rathburn
Colors: Avalon Studios’ Dave Kemp
Letterer: Dave Sharpe
Asst Editors: Lazer & Stitterson
Editor: Tom Brevoort
Editor-in-Chief: Joe Quesada
Publisher: Dan Buckley
NOV 2006
2.99
Rated T+
Cover by Greg Horn

“I Married a Man-Wolf”
“Six Shots to the Heart”

With She-Hulk issues 10 and 11, we’re on the road to recovery – both from Civil War, and from Jen’s ill-advised love affair with and marriage to John Jameson. So far the “I Married a Man-Wolf” saga has been satisfying, if not quite as sparkling and fun as earlier story arcs.

One confusion point with the story’s continuity is the question of where Two-Gun Kid’s summer one-shot fits into all this. It detailed, amid flashbacks, Jen and Matt’s tracking of JJJ, and ended with the Kid putting a silver bullet or so into our lupine former astronaut. It was also published three months before Jen and John even got married in the regular monthly title, which was additionally confusing. I guess that makes it so much the better that Slott wrote the She-Hulk issues so that nothing seemed to be missing if you didn’t read the one-shot.

Greg Horn’s covers for this arc are his best to date. They’re still not the action-shots that used to be the Marvel style. (whereas the ‘concept’ shot was DC’s – stuff like Superman, sitting in a barber’s chair, getting his head shaved and thinking, “I knew I shouldn’t have bet on the Super-Bowl against Luthor…” Okay, that never happened, but you get the idea.) The fifties-horror poster for number 10 – complete with folds! — and the American Gothic takeoff for number 11, certainly add a whimsical touch to an otherwise dark and dreary chapter in Marvel history.

Burchett’s penciling style is working nicely for this book. I liked Bobillo’s cartoony work, but, for this story especially, more of a John Byrne fusion of cartoon and realism is called for. I have to say I prefer Nelson’s inks to Rathburn’s over his pencils. They both look good, but Nelson’s heavier lines give the book a more defined, finished look.

Issue 10 begins with a guest appearance by Hellcat. Huzzah! She’s been missed, and bringing out the “whatever happened to” set had been this book’s stock in trade. Then it gets spoiled by having Jen sign Patsy up for the Super-Hero Registration Act, and Patsy blithely agreeing. Sorry, but Steve Englehart’s Patsy would’ve blown a gasket. This just reminds me that Civil War is mostly just a piece of characterization rape, and dulls the shine of an otherwise pleasant cameo.
We get Awesome Andy teaching morals to Mallory in this issue, which is a nice touch. We see Pug doing some decent investigative work, following up the Eros case, and continuing his quest to prove that Jen doesn’t really love JJ.
A really fun touch is provided by Stu and the boys in the comic archives in this issue. In a recent review I complained that the editors’ footnotes referred to this current She-Hulk series as volume two, and I accused Marvel of trying to forget the twentieth century. I don’t flatter myself that Dan Slott or his editors noticed my complaint, but Stu answers it in this issue, explaining that the first two She-Hulk series were “The Savage She-Hulk” and “The Sensational She-Hulk,” and thus weren’t volumes of the same series. It’s silly and geeky and goes on for far longer than anyone but an aging comics fan could pay attention, but the argument works brilliantly into the plot of the story, leading to a big reveal (and a big damn death ™) at the end of the issue. Although I don’t buy it, one can only salute the author.

And then one can only yell, “You b______, you killed ___!”

Issue 11 is a lot of a “Big, Blazing, Battle Ish!” with Jen trying to restrain her husband, and Matt trying to kill him and prevent Pug, who got bit, turning into a werewolf. (Jury’s still out on whether Pug will become a werewolf, as the killingdoesn’t take, but doesn’t take for other-worldly reasons.)

We do get the reveal here that Jen has been under the influence and does not love JJ. Whose influence she’s been under is the question, and the answer is delightfully not an obvious one. It does leave a favorite supporting character extremely sad, however. Who says this isn’t the Marvel Age of Stan-Lee-inspired angst?

It’s nice to see Dr. Jane Foster again. I don’t think nurses become doctors in real life as often as they seem to in fiction, but still…

Next issue looks to wrap the story arc, the first year of She-Hulk volume 2/4 (take that, Stu!), and Jen and JJ’s marriage. I hope it doesn’t also wrap the series again. But time will tell.

She-Hulk, Volume Four, Issue Six

Rating: 4.0
Writer: Dan Slott
Pencils: Rick Burchett
Inks: Nelson, Cliff Rathburn
Colors: Avalon Studios’ Dave Kemp
Letterer: Dave Sharpe
Asst Editors: Lazer & Stitterson
Editor: Tom Brevoort
Editor-in-Chief: Joe Quesada
Publisher: Dan Buckley
OCT/NOV 2006
2.99
Rated T+
Covers by Greg Horn

“The Big Reveal”

Okay, last month I said that the melding of /She-Hulk /and /Civil War/ was a good jumping-on point for readers who are new to the Marvel U and only care how it moves forward, not how well it continues existing traditions. I also said it might be a good jumping-off point for readers, like me, who had been with Marvel since before it became the X-Company.

So, at CW plus one month, where do we stand? Well, She-Hulk #9 makes it worth hanging around for at least one more month,anyway. For one thing, I want to read part /one/ of the story that Marvel published part /two /of a month ago in the /Two-Gun Kid /one shot. (How’s /that/ for bad production management?) But I also think there might be light at the end of the tunnel of CW, and it might not be just the headlight of the Bendis Express.

We had some good moments here. I think my favorite was the return of the patented Dan Slott “page o’ reaction shots” — nine panels of various characters commenting on whatever’s happening in the story. This time it was a series of spit-takes in reaction to the news that Jen and JJ Jr. had gotten married in Vegas, with annotations, letting us know what each spitter was drinking. It finishes on a beautiful shot of Mallory Book and Awesome Andy in a bubble bath.

The Antics at the Jameson family home were enjoyable. The usual dinner with the folks: the profanity, the awkward silences, the spider-slayer being brought down from the attic, the daughter-in-law trying to kill her husband’s father. I won’t reveal the resolution of the Jen/Jonah slugfest, but it’s very in-character for Jen, and promises to bring a lot of laughs. (Though She-Hulk and Spider-Man may not emerge as friends.)

Down-sides to the story would be the obligatory re-hash of the Spider-Man unmasking that’s been dubbed “Marvel’s Greatest Moment EVER” by a lot of people who probably don’t remember comics that didn’t have shiny pages. Even the characters in the story are sick of it — “that again? It’s been running continuously on cable for ten hours!” For me, it’s hardly a great moment. Did anyone notice that Clark Kent /also/ unmasked as Superman a couple of months ago in a flashback to the JSA story that CW is a blatant ripoff of? And Clark did it as an act of defiance, not because he’d succumbed to political pressure. Of course, Clark’s a hero, and Peter is… well, a guy who deserves what Jen’s about to hand him. Sad to say that Spidey has pretty well been given the Cyclops treatment. After all these years of adventures, he’s being shown up by real life as not necessarily a very admirable or moral character.

And, of course, Jen is still paying lip-service to her part in CW, reminding her hubby that she’s pledged to fight all of her former comrades who won’t play ball with Lord Stark. It doesn’t really ring true, though, and it still doesn’t fit Jen’s character. Even she seems not to be comfortable in the role in which she’s been cast. Might that be because the entire storyline is one big piece of miscasting, from Iron Man on down?

Oh well, next issue looks promisingly free of CW-inspired drama. We left Pug hanging with evidence that JJ Jr. is not, in fact, Jen’s true love, and JJ himself is in for a world of hurt, we know if we read the aforementioned Two-Gun one-shot. So things may be looking up.
Sadly, things aren’t looking up for She-Hulk’s companion book, /The Thing. /Like the first series of /She-Hulk, /what was meant to be an on-going series wrapped all too soon. I wonder, this time next year, if they’re be a trace of the old Marvel U. left on the stands.

She-Hulk, Volume Four, Issue Nine

Rating: 3.5
Writer: Dan Slott
Pencils: Paul Smith
Inks: Joe Rubinstein
Colors: Avalon Studios’ Dave Kemp
Letterer: Dave Sharpe
Asst Editors: Schmidt , Lazer & Stitterson
Editor: Tom Brevoort
Editor-in-Chief: Joe Quesada
Publisher: Dan Buckley
August, 2006
2.99
Rated T+
Cover by Greg Horn

“Beaus and Eros, Part 2: Change of Heart”

Y’know, it’s funny. The friend who originally said to me, “You need to pick up She-Hulk, because it’s a lot of fun,” has recently told me that he thinks it’s gotten too silly, and thus he’s now reading /nothing/ published by Marvel. I wondered if, perhaps, /She-Hulk /had just stayed the same course which he’d once enjoyed, but he’d been wanting something to change, without realizing it. I suppose this is Marvel’s dilemma right now. Half the fans say they want the kinds of comics that attracted them to comics to begin with, and half want the envelope’s walls to be always in motion, always threatening to tear under the strain. And neither half knows its own minds well enough, so, when they get what they asked for, it isn’t actually what they wanted.

But I maintain that She-Hulk, like /The Thing/ and /Knights 4, /is still a very satisfying book for those who truly want to be able to play in a Marvel Universe untainted by the trends of big guns, dig damn deaths, and photo-realistic art laid over scripts lifted from /Law and Order. /Issue Seven did what I ask of a comic: It made me laugh out loud, it made me like the characters (even Eros, whom I’ve never really liked) and it threw out some satirical moments I could really appreciate. All the while, it showed me guest stars and cameos that reminded me that old friends are still around, and it stayed true to the characters as they’ve been established.

I mentioned that this issue made me like Eros. Actually, I felt this issue gave Eros a clearly defined character for the first time since… well, ever. I’ve read all his Avengers appearances, and a smattering of others. I always felt he was mostly a one-trick pony. He’s the guy that makes women fall in love with them, and loves to play. He’s a cleaner-shaved Hercules. He’s not much more than that here, but the impact of such a character on the people around him is more fully realized than it’s ever seemed before. We really delve into how it might feel to have someone manipulate your emotions. We get to laugh and not take it too seriously, but we also get to share the anger of someone like Jen that what she thought was real actually wasn’t.

We get to see what it’s like for a mother and wife to be hit with a spell that makes her want to be unfaithful. We get to see how Eros’s antics polarize his colleagues – the men are pretty much on his side, the women are pretty uncomfortable. Except that Tigra admits that she’s had a fling with him, and Cap put his responsibilities as a role model ahead of Eros’s plight, and Hank realizes that he should /never/ be involved in any discussion of the treatment of women, and Jan, breaking the mold as always, says, sure, she’ll stand up for him. (Probably not because she’s still a victim, or has no sympathy for a woman who’s been ill-used, but because she realizes that the good and the bad need to be balanced. After all, lest we forget, Jan once took advantage of someone’s emotional breakdown to trick him into marrying her.)

As always, the story is made by its nice, little touches: Jan being the one of the Avengers who notices and is disturbed by Jen’s submissiveness with John Jameson (’cause Jan knows a bit about submissiveness, and how it can make a person go wrong) ; a male Hydra agent still being madly in love with Eros (daring, given Marvel’s current mixed-message policy about gays); Starfox playing video games while standing trial; Stu the archives guy, speaking for part of comics fandom, saying that he doesn’t want to see all that sex-stuff filed in his long-boxes.

All in all, great fun, and a great break from everyday life. We need comics like this, and we need them to keep coming. Oh, and if you’re still looking for envelope-pushing but still want the kind of respect for comics history that She-Hulk brings, let me make an unashamed plug for /Young Avengers. /Like /New X-Men /(and by that I mean the ones from 1974. Remember, I’m old), it builds on a classic foundation, but has space to go its own direction without stepping on the toes of its predecessor.

Now, let’s see if She-Hulk can make /Civil War /at all entertaining….

She-Hulk, Volume Four, Issue Seven

Rating: 4.5
Writer: Dan Slott
Artist: Will Conrad
Colors: Avalon Studios’ Dave Kemp
Letterer: Dave Sharpe
Asst Editors: Schmidt , Lazer & Stitterson
Editor: Tom Brevoort
Editor-in-Chief: Joe Quesada
Publisher: Dan Buckley
June, 2006
2.99
Rated A
Cover by Greg Horn