Tag Archives: comics

She-Hulk Volume Four #1

Posted on by

“Many Happy Returns”

A few months back (or maybe a few years – I’m getting old and losing all track of time!) there was a brief flutter of attention in comics fandom, because Bendis! Was offering a money-back guarantee on his Avengers Disassembled issues.  At the time, I thought, “What kind of a stunt is that?  Why not just make them good to begin with?”  Now, with only 25% of the Avengers Forever community saying they’ll be buying the new She?Hulk, I’m beginning to wish I had the funds to make a similar offer on Dan Slott’s behalf.

Bendis! never really needed to make such an offer, because both he and the Avengers command enough built-in interest to sell anything with either of their names on  it.  But, for reasons which escape me, neither Dan nor She-Hulk’s names seem to do the same.  That’s too bad, because, as is probably no secret around here, I think Dan is the best writer Marvel has right now.  (Aguirre-Sacasa’s catching up fast with Knights 4.  If you’re not reading it, you should be.)  Dan respects history, believes strongly in continuity, and the guy’s freakin’ funny to boot.

But, since I don’t have the funds to offer all of you your three bucks back (even though I don’t personally think you’d have cause to ask for them!), I’ll have to settle for continuing to tell you how good this book is.

The first issue of She-Hulk’s latest series came out this week.  As you may recall, we’re picking up on a Jen Walters who lost her ability to become Shulkie at the end of her last, 12-issue outing.  She’s found a way around that – a device called a gamma charger.  Like the super-weapon in your average Xbox game, however, the gamma charger needs to, well, charge.  So, when Jen, out jogging, comes upon a mugging, she has to handle it as plain Jen Walters.

Nor is this a bad thing, really.  We see that Jen’s learned Badoon spine-busters and Centauiran nerve jabs during She-Hulk’s travels, and that she can handle two very big muggers very well.  So well, in fact, that the watching Captain America and Mrs. Bendis – er – Spider-Woman – ask her to join the New Avengers.  This is a nice touch, because it lets us see that She-Hulk’s alter ego is no slouch, and that her strength of character is rooted in Jen.  We also get to see Jen tell Cap and Jessica “don’t call me, I’ll call you,” and even threaten to sue them on behalf of the mugging victim.  Nice little dig at the great New Avengers, and nice way to establish that Jen’s got her confidence intact.

In a scene which is an aftermath to a sort of mini-Disassembled, Jen returns to work at her newly-rebuilt law firm, and learns that the long boxes of comics, the super-human law firm’s reference library, are to be replaced by trade paperbacks… which are back-ordered.  Then, keeping up the Boston Legal feel of the book, we cut to the firm’s latest case – two minor super villains versus the Young Avengers, with a nice cameo by Vision and Cassie Lang.  This is one of the great parts of She-Hulk as a title: it’s very intergrated with the regular Marvel Universe.  House of M and its ilk notwithstanding, this is a quality which is very much part of the classic Marvel feel which Marvel at large has lost.    There’s a big difference between a cash-hungry, multi-title event and a happy integration of all the books in the line.  The former tends to annoy you, the latter just makes you feel like you’re reading a fully realized fantasy world.

Jen’s continuing therapy sessions with Doc Samson are refreshing, for all that many of us are probably tired of the therapy culture.  In a Marvel book, it’s nice to see a character take the time to feel bad about the awful things that have happened lately – particularly when she herself has been a mind-controlled tool of much awfulness.  Geoff Johns had Shulkie go nuts and trash a town, while Bendis! had her rip Vision in half.  She also feels some survivor’s guilt over the death of Hawkeye.

* SPOILER WARNING *

And, as luck and a healthy use of coincidence in storytelling would have it, Jen winds up trying a case which involves time travel, and requires a jury made up of people from other times.  One of those people is Clint Barton, presumably prior to the explosion which killed him in Avengers.  Jen’s reaction?  “Yep.  I’m gonna do it.  I’m bringing back Hawkeye.”

Here, we can only hope she’s speaking on behalf of her writer.  Like Jen, Dan probably realizes there are a lot of people out there screaming, “You can’t do that!”  Jen’s contingent is probably adding, “You must respect the laws of time travel!”  Dan’s is more likely expostulating, “You must respect the unwritten rule that a hero’s death is final for five year’s longer than a villain’s!”

Fortunately, both of them can answer, “Why not?  No one else does.”

Bobillo’s art is satisfying.  It’s not the heavy realism we see on House of M or New Avengers, but it suits the tone established in the previous series.  There’s a cartoony edge to it, but the action sequences are fluid, the characters’ faces and body language carry definite expressions, and there are variations of color and contrast which keep the book from looking murky and dark, as many current titles do.

Overall, a promising start and a welcome return.

She-Hulk, Volume Three, Issue Twelve

Rating: 4.5
Writer: Dan Slott
Penciler: Jan Bobillo
Inker: Marcelo Sosa
Colors: Avalon Studios’ Dave Kemp
Letterer: Dave Sharpe
Asst Editors: Schmidt , Lazer & Stitterson
Editor: Tom Brevoort
Editor-in-Chief: Joe Quesada
Publisher: Dan Buckley
Decmember, 2005
2.99
T+
Cover by Greg Horn

Great Lakes Avengers #2

Posted on by

“Dismembership Drive”

Warning:  Spoilers throughout

This one nails it all: much-hyped Super-Hero deaths, Infinite Crisis, the Justice Department and its owners, the RIAA and MPAA, Batman…  Nothing is safe in the Great Lakes Avengers’ second issue.  We begin with another intro by Squirrel Girl, in which, in grand Lemony Snicket style, she warns us that this issue will be a downer.  She goes on to ask us if we, like her, miss the days when super-heroes fought super-gorillas on the Moon, and that.  She bemoans the coming of an age when comic book reality is something you want to escape FROM, not TO.

You go, Squirrel Girl!

Again, SG (who actually joins this issue!) reminds us not to mimic the actions of the suicidal Mister Immortal, “especially on page seven.  That’s where he downloads stuff from the Internet for free.”  Yeah, that’s much more dangerous than shooting yourself in the head or throwing yourself, weighted down, in a river, as he did last issue.  Sadly, our Justice Department would probably have us believe this is the case.  The slam against the Internet Gestapo is also subtle enough that it might be mistaken for a clever reminder that Marvel’s copyrights should be respected.

The GLA goes on a recruiting drive this time ’round, asking, well… everyone to join.  Some of the invitees get a whole sequence to themselves.  The new Swordsman:  “I’m not Clint Barton.”  “But I heard on the Internet…”; Moon Knight:  “the Moon Knight must remain an urban legend!”  (No mention is made that MK was a West Coast Avenger.); Spider / Wolverine / Daredevil “I’m a loner.”  The rest of the heroes (Including Awesome Andy and that Perez-drawn guy from FF in the 70s… Captain something or other) are shown in a montage of single panels, saying, “No!”  This is a beautiful copy of the recruitment sequence from Villains United #1, released the same week as GLA #2.  I don’t know if Slott knew this was coming, but the parody works very well, even if it’s not intentional.

Finally, with Flatman and Doorman announcing themselves as the (great lakes) AVENGERS, Squirrel Girl and Grasshopper join, Grasshopper to die only moments later, accidentally shot through the head.  Brilliantly reminiscent of the death of another colorful bug, but a lot less painful to watch, cause’ well… sorry, guy, you’re not a Ditko-created character with a forty-year history.

So we get the “death of an Avenger.”  I, personally, was sorry to see the grasshopper go.  He was no more of a shameless ripoff or a buffoon than any of the other GLA members, and I thought he really had that silly, old Marvel feel.  Like someone who really would wind up working security for one of the big corps of Marvel Land.  (I reference Guardsman working for Stark, Hawkeye working for Cross Security, the Squadron Supreme working for Roxxon.)  His intro and death in one issue work very well, though.  He was an Avenger for a matter of minutes, so the promise of last issue is filled on a mere technicality.  Another jibe, this one at the practice of slithering out of the  advance hype by killing someone we’ve never heard of.

An aside, just ’cause I like to pretend I’s a knowledgeable comics historian…  The concept of “One of these heroes will DIE!” goes back to Adventure Comics #353, dated February, 1967.  The Legion of Super Heroes story in this issue featured the death of Ferro Lad, quite possible the first death of a continuing comics character, and certainly of a costumed super-hero, ever.  (Steve Trevor, Larry Lance and the original Doom Patrol would not buy their respective farms for at least another year.)  If you can think of an earlier one, I’ll ask Stan Lee to send you a No-Prize.

This then-fresh concept was written by then-teenager Jim Shooter, later to become EIC at Marvel.  Of course, the death-eater-tempting verbiage on the cover probably came from editor Mort Weisinger.  Still, it’s interesting to note that Shooter appears to have touched off a rash of deaths in 1967.  John Byrne later apologized to comics fandom (no, not for being the godfather of Disassembled, for which he should apologize!) for touching off the rash of deaths by killing Phoenix.  But, while Byrne reportedly did want to kill Phoenix when X-Men 137 was plotted, the death didn’t actually get written and drawn until it was order by Marvel EIC… um… yeah… Jim Shooter.   Coincidence?  I think not.

Back to GLA, another death is promised for next issue, of course.  That seems to be the point of the series.

Overall, another fine job by Slott, Pelletier, Magyar and company, in the fine tradition of She-Hulk.  This issue is even a little step up from last issue, in which the Dark part of “Dark Comedy” occasionally outweighed the “Comedy” part.  This one is more fun, despite the untimely death of poor Grasshopper.  (Who, after all, could easily join the Unliving Legion and show up again.)  GLA is like one long in-joke for long-time and recent comics afficianados alike.  It’s almost a review in itself of the state of the comic industry, at least at the big two companies.  Gotta say, I’m enjoying this a lot more than I’ve enjoyed an Avengers comic since the first half of Busiek’s run.

Great Lakes Avengers, Volume One, Issue Two
“Dismembership Drive”
Rating: 4.75
Writer: Dan Slott
Pencils: Paul Pelletier
Inks: Rick Magyar
Colors: Will Quintana
Letters: Dave Lanphear
Editor: Tom Brevoort
Cover Art: Pelletier, Magyar, & Quintana
Publisher: Marvel

Great Lakes Avengers #1

Posted on by

I will not say that Dan Slott has made comics fun again.

I won’t.

Because, if I did say it, it might mean that he’s taken characters we loved, squeezed them through an emotional and physical wringer, re-written their history as everyone understood it (into something no one ever will) and replaced the old concept with something highly marketable… this month.

Sorry, but every time someone writes an Identity Crisis, an Avengers Disassembled, an Infinite Crisis… there’s always a text page or an interview with the editor, saying “when we conceived this, we all sat down and asked ourselves, ‘what do we love about comics?’  And we’re going to use that information to make comics fun again!”  Not that there wasn’t some value for someone in all of those works.  Personally, I enjoyed Identity Crisis.  But I’ve learned to distrust the promise about making comics fun.  The stated intent to do so too often accompanies a product that gets your attention, but leaves you feeling doubtful about the benevolence of God at worst, the creative team at best.

So I will not tell you that, first with She-Hulk, then with Spidey/Human Torch, and now with GLA, Dan Slott is making Marvel comics fun again.  It’s a shame I can’t tell you, too.  Cause’s there’s quite a list of stuff that’s, well… mustn’t… use… f-word…

The “Misassembled” logo stamped across the cover, reminiscent of BMB and Joey Q’s excellent marketing campaign a few months back?  Fun?  I neither confirm nor deny.  But it does set a tone of parody for the whole project.

Squirrel Girl’s Laemmle-esque* appearance on the splash page, for instance, to tell us that she won’t appear in the story, and that kids shouldn’t try at home what the Great Lakes Avengers try on the printed page.  Not anything.  Can’t tell you it’s fun.

The “Monkey Joe Says” asides, cajoling fan-boys to write Marvel and protest being stereotyped as overweight, aging basement-dwellers, or reminding us that child-endangerment is never funny.  Would you say they were fun?  You probably would.  I can’t.  I took the oath.

Mr. Immortal’s completely inappropriate reaction to the news of Hawkeye’s Death?  (“This is awesome!” Don’t you get it?  This means from now on… we’re the Avengers!”)  Hawkeye’s death could never be funny for a longtime Avengers fan, but this at least gives it that hint of farce which says, “Hey, it’s comics!  Nothing is forever!”

Learning Mr. Immortal’s origin?  Okay, not fun a lot of the time.  Poor guy had a tragic life.  Dead Mom.  Dead Dad.  Dead girlfriend.  Death as an imaginary friend.  The key word, Mr. Spock, is d-d-death.  This tale really brings out the not-fun side of being immortal.  Sometimes you just want it all to end, and, for him, that ain’t gonna happen.

(And in the Not fun at all department?  The Cup O’ Joe column.  Seriously.  It’s like always being reminded who’s President.  Bipartisan slam, kids.  That’s been painful for me since about 1980.)

Actually, I don’t know if Dan Slott and company set out to make comics fun again.  Given the road-to-hell type examples above, it’s probably better if they didn’t.  But they have made a practice of  making their stories incorporate everything that was fun for me in the Marvel Comics of the pre-Shooter days.

Slott’s comics bring back the pleasure of discovery, or re-discovery.  He touches on all the characters, new and old, who make up the tapestry of the Marvel Universe.  Some of them are heavy hitters.  Some of them are second-rate.  Some of them are jokes.  Some of them are just downright bizarre.  They’re all colorful, though, ’cause it’s comics.  (Pre-eighties comics, I stress.  Isn’t it a crying shame that, as color printing has become more sophisticated, comics have gotten less colorful?)

The GLA are generally likable.  No, they don’t always like each other.  And sometimes they’re not always nice.  But even their fights are funny.  Like Johnny and Ben.  Cap and Hawkeye.  Spidey and Jonah.  The Hulk and… well… everyone.  Despite their flaws, we could love the characters.  I wouldn’t want to hang with Wolverine or the Punisher, ’cause they’d probably bring rope.  I wouldn’t want to date the White Queen, ’cause she’d probably burn my mind out before the evening got good.  And take my wallet.  I wouldn’t want Jarvis to serve me tea in the Avengers Mansion now, even if it weren’t still standing, ’cause it might blow up at any moment, and I’d be surrounded by death and dismemberment.

Don’t get the impression that GLA is all pretty, either.  [SPOILER ALERT]  Like I said, it parodies Disassembled, and has some of that epic’s elements.  There’s a lot of death.  The book begins and ends with Mr. I shooting himself in the head.  We see his whole family die in flashback, except for the foster father we despise and want to see die…   We see the tragic death of Dinah Soar, poor mute thing, right after she has found her voice and declared her undying love for Mr. I.

And, while taking some cues from AD, it doesn’t feel the need to deliver an explosion a minute, or make us cry “Game Over, Man!” with every third panel.  It does give the feeling, though, that change is in the air.  We get the sense that this whole team might just bite the big one, so Slott can create the New Great Lakes Avengers. 

But I bet Spidey and Wolverine won’t be invited to that party.  She-Hulk, though… now there’s a thought…

* Carl Laemmle, father of Universal Studios’ classic 1930’s horror films, including Dracula, Frankenstein and the Invisible Man, introduced his first horror outing by appearing “on stage” and warning viewers that the movie might actually scare the pants off them.  Who says this isn’t still the Marvel Age of the Fabulous Footnote?  — Not Stan Steve

GLA, Issue One

Rating: 4.5

Writer: Dan Slott

Penciler: Paul Pelletier

Inker: Rick Magyar

Colors: Will Quintana

Letterer: Dave Lanphear

Asst Editors: Schmidt, Moore & Lazer

Editor: Tom Brevoort

Editor-in-Chief: Joe Quesada

Publisher: Dan Buckley

June, 2005

2.99

PSR

 

She-Hulk Volume Three #12

Posted on by

“Some Disassembly Required”

“Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp’d towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.”

(William Shakespeare
From The Tempest, Act 4 Scene 1)

What can I say but… oh, I promised the guys at AF.org I wouldn’t swear, didn’t I?  In that case, I guess I can’t say much.  You just pick your favorite obscene and profane words and fill in the blanks on what I’d like to say about having just discovered that the twelfth issue is the last issue of the current She-Hulk series.  I had no idea.  See, I read comics.  Not Previews.  Not CBG.  I read comics.  (Not that I don’t also read books, but… you get the idea.)  So I very rarely know (especially in these days of Marvel marketing) just what is and what isn’t a mini-series.

But on to my reactions to She-Hulk #12.  And now I can give utterance to my first reaction:  “Wow!”  I don’t know what was my favorite part of this incredible finale to an incredible series.  Oh, yep, I do.  More in a sec.  First, the shining moments that made this book such a pleasure:

Seeing the Scarlet Witch (if only for a panel) with no reference to her Bendisization, and no suggestion that she would have been better served if only Jessica Jones had been around to keep her on the straight and narrow.

Doc Samson suggesting that Titania’s obsession with She-Hulk might be sexual.

Hercules as a construction worker.

The Avengers in action in broad daylight, without dead bodies falling from every window.

Jen and Stu at a comic shop, looking for a way to combat the infinity gem, and their resultant verbal battle with a local fen over the perceived continuity errors in the book this past year.  S’a much nice way to answer your critics than flaming them on the internet, or getting your associate editor to call them names on the letters page.

Awesome Andy’s pathetic message “Help… Dying… Scared,” and Holden’s paternal reaction to same.

Stu telling off the continuity creeps and showing off his precious No-Prize.  Jen telling Stu he’s her favorite kind of fan.

Titania, imprisoned, asking Jen to be her lawyer.

Holden telling Jen that “This will all be back… in time.”  “When?” asks Jen.   “Eight months…”  We can only hope it’s true.

But my hands-down favorite part of this book is Holden’s speech  at the end: “… It doesn’t matter how much good work we do here, month in and month out… In the end, it’s far easier to garner attention by tearing something down.  We’re a race of rubber-neckers, Jennifer.  A society more entertained by acts of destruction than by the fruits of creation.”  Consider Holden’s talking about the ruins of Timely Plaza, and the offices of gentlemen with names like Lieber (Lee) and Kurtzberg (Kirby), it’s pretty easy to take his inference: that much of what’s “hot” at Marvel Comics right now (and, for that matter, at DC back in the 90s) plays on the perverse love of seeing great works torn down.  That the Bendises and the Marzes (and sometimes the Byrnes) of the world can make it seem that it’s more exciting or important to disassemble the Avengers, or invalidate Green Lantern’s legacy than it was to build that group or establish that legacy.

Really, it’s neither, and Dan Slott’s work shows us that.  He’s writing, good, solid comics, comics which respect the traditions we grew up on and love.  Comics which make us laugh with joy and irony, and sympathize with the pains and cheer the triumphs of our heroes.  Seems to me a couple guys names (gasp!) Lee and Kirby used to do that kind of work.  And they did it without finding it necessary to tear down all that had come before.  And they could do that because they were talented.  They didn’t have to use gimmicks.  They didn’t have to shock us to make us feel something.  They didn’t have to kill people just to get our attention.  They didn’t have to turn our heroes into psychopaths to prove to us that they were humans and therefore flawed.

I know, I know.  Change is necessary for growth.  We can’t just keep telling the same stories over and over again.  (Though we can twist them around, weaken their punch, slap “Ultimate” in front of their title and try.  To quote a comics fan named Cheeks, “I’m just sayin’ is all…”)  But I don’t think Dan Slott and company told the same story we’ve seen before.  He’s told new ones, but they feel as good as the old ones did.  Better, they feel as good as our memories of the old ones do.  After all, reading The Avengers Celestial Madonna saga for the first time in 1975 isn’t nearly as much fun as as being 40 and remembering being ten, reading it for the first time.

Sometimes, as the title implies, some disassembly is required.  Some of the established concepts bear a second, critical look.  Some things should change.  Some things can be made better.  And some of the worst mistake in history are really just our poor, human attempts to try and make it all better.  Still, in the case of the Marvel Universe, and with that sense of Deja Vu I’m still getting after having lived through Heroes Reborn ’bout ten years back, I can’t help echoing Jen’s sentiment when she looks at the ruins of Timely Plaza, which Herk has offered to rebuild as an Olympian palace.   “I’d rather they just put it back the way it was.”

Lady, you said an ever-lovin’ mouthful!

She-Hulk, Volume Three, Issue Twelve

Rating: 5.0
Writer: Dan Slott
Penciler: Paul Pelletier
Inker: Rick Magyar
Colors: Avalon Studios’ Dave Kemp
Letterer: VC’s Dave Sharp
Asst Editors: Lazer, Schmidt & Wiley
Editor: Tom Brevoort
Editor-in-Chief: Joe Quesada
Publisher: Dan Buckley
April, 2005
2.99
PSR
Cover by Mayhew

She-Hulk Volume Three #11

Posted on by

Okay… I predicted the time would come, and it has.  After eleven issues of blissful ignorance of the events of Avengers Disassembled, the She-Hulk comic has, with issue 11, acknowledged that this travesty — er tragedy — occurred, and begun dealing with the consequences.

One of the wonderful things about pre-Ultimate Marvel is that all the events took place in one world.  Events which happened in one comic were not only remembered in others, but actively reinforced in our memories in other comics.  So, when the Avengers lineup changed on live TV in issue 151, we saw Ben Grimm watching the proceedings in a Thing exo-suit, reminding us that, in FF, Ben was currently de-powered.  And when the Beast made a three-issue guest shot in his alma-mater book, The Uncanny X-Men back around issue 112, he was not only absent from the Avengers, his absence was a significant story point in Avengers — he had to leave monitor duty, and thus pissed off HP Gyrich.

I’m sure part of this connectedness was an attempt to sell more comics — to make you feel you were missing something if you didn’t read all the Marvel books.  Maybe part of it was sales.  Still, it’s a helluva a lot nicer tactic than splattering “Disassembled” on the front of books which have nothing to do with the Avengers or their storyline.  It was a subtle tactic, and it had the by product of making the Marvel Universe seem more real.

We don’t get that today — no even across all those books which are nominally part of a big story arc.  When Washington was decimated during the Kang War, its destruction was mentioned in no other Marvel title.  Even in the Disassembled books, when Manhattan was kidnapped in FF, its absence was not mentioned in books which were set in Manhattan.

But count on She-Hulk to buck the trend, and do things the old Marvel way.  Most of this issue — the parts that don’t consist of Titania threatening death to everyone in her wake while she looks for Jen — deals with Jen trying to come to terms with the tragic events of the last year or so in The Avengers.  I don’t mean that Brevoort let Austen and Bendis fillet the Avengers, I mean that Jen’s gone all Cousin-Bruce-bestial twice, trashed a town and ripped the Vision in twain.

It was good to see Jen crying over Vizh’s demise.  It was good to see anyone crying over it.  Marvel has become the stiff upper lip set lately, when it comes to death.  Vision gets torn in half after erupting baby Ultrons, and his teammates barely even say “oh bummer.”  Phoenix gets killed in what is perhaps the worst piece of plotting Grant Morrison ever committed, and Scott Summers just hops into bed with Emma Frost without so much as an “Oh… Jean…”  Where’s the feeling that these characters, if not their writers, consider each other to be something more than plot points in something that looks more like a shoot-em-up video game than a comic?  Apparently, that feeling is in She-Hulk, maybe Astonishing X-Men, and nowhere else.

That said about the welcome moment of mourning, I feel Jen’s ability to distance herself from responsibility is a little too easy.  Yeah, Wanda made her do it (would someone please explain WHY?), but it was her hands that killed Vizh.  We think.  Jen seems to think.  Is he dead?  Wasn’t he dead when the Ultrons pulled that John-Hurt-From-Alien stunt on him?  I’m not sure.  Maybe Bendis is.  It really hasn’t been explained, because, well, Vision doesn’t really matter.  He hasn’t been ultimized, so why should we care?

Back to She-Hulk…  Reflecting on all this, she asks, “Why do I have to live in a world where stuff like that can happen?”  And that strikes a responsive chord for me, as I’m sure it does for many readers.  We’re asking, “Why do I have read about a world where stuff like that can happen? Can’t things just go back to the way they used to be?”  This makes Jen very identifiable for the audience this book seems to really be geared to — longtime Marvel readers who miss the old Marvel Universe, and readers who might like to know how that Universe survived almost forty years before being Ultimized.

Along with this, because this is not, primarily, an angst-driven book, we have Jen wondering why she’s, well… Jen again sometimes.  Didn’t she lose her ability to change back to her white-skinned form?  Like, forever?  Reed told her — and herein Slott lampoons one of the oldest cliches of the Marvel Universe — “I’m sorry, Old Friend, but this time it’s permanent” — without making Reed look like an ass, or, worse, the Ultimates’ Hank Pym.  Reed told Jen wrong.  But he did it on Doc Samson’s orders.  She can change back to Jen, when her subconscious has had enough.  And, at issue’s end, it’s apparently had enough right as Titania wants to kill She-Hulk.  Hidden death wish?  Time will tell…

The issue has the usual round of humorous bits and asides.  Ditto being crushed by a door under Titania’s weight can’t be fun for him, but it’s quite an image.  Southpaw begging to be let out of her ultra-secure room so she can pee… She’s not allowed to pee a night?  Get a jar, girl! My favorite humorous throwaway has to be the hero in purple at the law office, who’s been thrust forward in time from the forties.  He wants to have his will revoked, so he can get some cash.  We’ll probably never see him again, but the book is full of these little asides which would be stories in themselves… reminding us that the Marvel Universe is still there, even if all those Ultimized books are only showing us a drab, narrow slice of it…  When we’re ready for it, it’ll be there waiting for us… Pretty good feeling for $2.99.  Cheaper than Prozac, anyway.

She-Hulk, Volume Three, Issue Eleven

Rating: 4.5
Writer: Dan Slott
Penciler: Paul Pelletier
Inker: Rick Magyar
Colors: Avalon Studios’ Dave Kemp
Letterer: VC’s Dave Sharp
Asst Editors: Lazer, Schmidt & Wiley
Editor: Tom Brevoort
Editor-in-Chief: Joe Quesada
Publisher: Dan Buckley
March, 2005
2.99
PSR
Cover by Mayhew

She-Hulk Volume Four #21

Posted on by

“Another Me, Another U”

And here we are again… another “Dan Slott’s last issue of She-Hulk.”  Seems like only… well, it was only 22 issues ago, wasn’t it?  But this time, sadly, it looks to be not a dream, not an imaginary story.  Dan’s off to other projects, notably Avengers: The Initiative.  Hardly a fit substitute for his 37-issue run on She-Hulk, is it?  We can but hope that his humor and his love of Marvel as something other than a platform for shock-and-awe will begin to show through on that lamentable title.  (And AI is improving, to give Dan his due.)

And what a send-off Dan and Ty and Rick and Cliff have given us!  “Another Me, Another U” is a loving parody of the DC Comics Earth-One / Earth-Two stories of days gone by, and a pleasant nod to the Distinguished Competition’s current Countdown series, in which the powers-that-be are attempting to deal with the problem of a reborn multiverse, and the resultant problem of those pesky humans insisting on opening doors between its component universes.

We open with Shulkie battling the Rhino.  But didn’t Tony Stark (Boo! Hiss! Oh, and don’t miss the Iron Man trailer!  http://www.apple.com/trailers/paramount/ironman/  ‘Nuff Said!)  Didn’t Tony de-power She-Hulk forever?  And isn’t Rhino in a wheelchair?  Turns out the combatants are something called Alphas.  They’re arrested, we turn the page, and… God bless you, Dan Slott!  Thanks for one last set of cameos by old friends.  What more can this 33-year Avengers fan ask than to see a non-disassembled Scarlet Witch, not to mention a living Jack of Hearts, the 3-D Man, Monica Rambeau… wow.  Sorry, but the Scarlet Witch is and always will be my favorite Marvel character.  Seeing even one panel of her whole and healthy is therapeutic for me since she’s been sacrificed on the alter of courting new readers with death, destruction and darkness.

What’s going on here?  What’s an Alpha?  Why are we seeing people we shouldn’t be seeing, in forms they shouldn’t have?  It’s all about a guy named Albert DeVoor.  Surely you remember him?  No?  Neither did I, till this issue came out.  He was the guy who bought the Fantastic Four, way back in FF #160.  (Coincidentally the first issue of FF this reviewer ever bought at the ole’ 7-11.)  DeVoor was part of a storyline concerning a multi-dimensional war, and one of the involved dimensions was an alternate earth where Reed Richards had become the Thing, while his dear friends Ben and Sue Grimm had not similarly become cosmic-ray powered heroes.

Seems DeVoor’s new business is inter-dimensional vacations.  It works like this: denizens of the alternate Earth-A are sent through an atomic re-sequencer to Earth-B (the real one), where they’re realigned at the atomic level, so that they now share the powers of their Earth-B counterparts.  (On Earth-A, only Reed is super-powered.  On Earth-B, pretty much everyone is.  Except maybe J. Jonah Jameson.  Heck, even Aunt May has the power to have a heart attack every month!)

Some time back, Jen Walters Alpha went through this process, and became Earth-B’s second She-Hulk.  (Mystery solved! It was THIS Jen who slept with the Juggernaut during Chuck Austen’s time on X-Men.)  Now she still has the powers, because Tony Stark didn’t get his creepy little nanites into her.  All of this is exposited (exposed?) in a nice little sequence featuring Slott-standby Captain Ultra.  Nice to see him again, too.

In the classic fashion of stories in which the heroes of two earths meet, Jen-B and Shulkie-A become buddies, and even propose trading places in dimensions, since Earth-B needs a She-Hulk, and Earth-A knows how to live without one.  The big sequence where all the Alphas are returned is nice.  Jen gives Reed Richards-Beta the telling-off he absolutely deserves, and Teddy Altman’s Earth-A counterpart demands of our own Hulkling, “You registered?  You joined the army under our names?”  Meanwhile, his laddie-love Wiccan of Earth-A wonders, “We’re in the Initiative?  What idiot thought that was a good idea?”

The final resolution and set-up for the Peter David run of the title is cleverly done, and actually manages to give readers of all stripe the endings they wanted to see for Jen and Pug.  (Except for those mental cases who probably wanted Pug to die with the Baxter Building dropped on his sternum.  You know who your are!)

Next time, a whole new beginning for Shulkie.  I’m reserving judgment as to whether I’ll continue reviewing the title.  I have to look Peter David in the eye when he makes his multi-annual trips to my home town, after all.  I’m sure he’ll do a great job, but I’ll certainly miss the She-Hulk we’ve come to know and love for the past four years.

She-Hulk, Volume Four, Issue Twenty-One
Rating: 5.0
Writers: Dan Slott & Ty Templeton
Pencils: Rick Burchett
Inks: Cliff Rathburn
Colors: Avalon Studios’ Andy Troy
Letterer: Dave Sharpe
Production: Rich Ginter
Asst Editors: Molly Lazer
Editor: Tom Brevoort
Editor-in-Chief: Joe Quesada
Publisher: Dan Buckley
JULY, 2007
2.99
Rated T+
Cover by Greg Horn

She-Hulk Volume Four #20

Posted on by

“The Clock is Ticking”

As Stan Lee might have said back in the day, “This one’s got it all.” Revelations, pathos, humor, universes in crisis and, of course, ducks.

The clock is, indeed, ticking, and not just in Mr. Zix’s robotic chest cavity. This is the next-to-the-last issue of Dan Slott’s brilliant 34-issue run on She-Hulk, and he’s got to get everything wrapped up before Peter David arrives to do what I understand will be a very different kind of book. If the pace is a bit rushed, well, I assume it’s because Dan’s plans for the book were probably cast by the wayside while the powers that be demanded he write six months of dreary Civil War tie-ins, instead of continuing the story he’d started.

And the pace is rushed, make no mistake. It’s so rushed that a story that should have been told in two issues or an annual is summarized in two panels, as if it had occurred in a back issue, though it never did, to my knowledge. I refer to She-Hulk’s memories of defending the existence of the Marvel Universe to the Living Tribunal, who thought that the Ultimates Universe (ugh!) was cleaner and more elegant, and that it should replace the original. Shulkie’s defense? “Our universe is fun!” (I wonder if Joe Quesada, Emperor of Gloom and Doom Marvel, would agree. Or would he declare that Dan Slott is backsliding, after “coming of age” by writing Avengers: The Initiative, which kowtows to the party line that all Marvel Universe Comics should be dark, angry and childishly sarcastic.)

It’s great to see Two-Gun, Mallory, Stu, John Jameson and the rest back in this issue. Even Awesome Andy (here’s the pathos) is seen again, though he’s no longer himself. (Color question — when did JJ become a red-head? Or is that just a bad Summer dye job?) The supporting cast was the strength of Slott’s run, and they deserve a decent finale. Even Richard Rory appears again, making me pull out my very oldest She-Hulk issues to remind myself who he was. But no Pug! Disappointing, that.

It’s been revealed that Jen will no longer be with GLK&H in Peter David’s run, so we may have seen the last of a lot of these characters for some time. I’m guessing the question of whether Mallory or Jen gets a partnership will figure prominently into Jen’s parting with the firm, but I could be wrong.

Greg Horn’s Stu the Human cover is whimsical and well-done, summing up a major story point, even if it shows something that doesn’t actually happen in the book.

All in all, the beginning of a pleasant send-off for Slott and company. One can only hope that, post She-Hulk, he can find something equally fun to write, or that Avengers: The Initiative gets a makeover along the lines of the one X-Factor was given after its disappointing start.

She-Hulk Volume Four #18

Posted on by

“Illuminated”

It’s about frickin’ time, is all I can say.

And by that I mean that it’s about frickin’ time She-Hulk realized what a boob she’d been for signing on with Iron Man on the side of SuperHero Registration. (I can’t call him Shellhead. Shellhead is dead, as far as I’m concerned.) Not only that, it’s about time someone offered us a semi-plausible explanation as to why she would have bought into Tony Stark’s fascist party line in the first place.

That said, I’m afraid this issue is only almost emotionally satisfying. It falls short of full satisfaction for a couple of reasons.

First of all, it’s a detour from what we’re accustomed to in She-Hulk (even moreso than the recent “Agent of SHIELD” stories have been), in that the supporting characters play almost no part at all. They’re just there. At times, they even look like they’ve been deliberately drawn to look two-dimensional. The best Marvel Comics – and anything Dan Slott wrote until he began hemorrhaging Avengers Initiative from his pores is among the best of Marvel Comics — have incredibly strong supporting characters. Observe J. Jonah Jameson, Aunt May, Mary Jane Watson-Parker, Pepper and Happy, Alicia Masters, Rick Jones… heck, most of our favorite Avengers are but supporting characters. So it’s sad to see them get shafted by Civil War guano. Even more shafted than they have been for the past six or so issues.

**SPOILER WARNING**

Then there’s the kind-of conclusive battle that Clay Quartermain’s team has with the Leader, in which all the team but Clay himself are killed, and… it doesn’t seem to matter. Okay, two are LMDs, but still… it’s like we start this battle, and then we realize we don’t really care about it, and we win it, but… yeah, we didn’t care… It lacks punch. It lacks power. It lacks point.

But most of all, there’s the fact that Tony Stark does not, in fact, get the thrashing he deserves. Jen learns that he is, in fact, mostly responsible for exiling her cousin (the Hulk, in case you didn’t know) in space. She gets angry. She goes after Stark. Thousands cheer. She shrugs off his claims of superiority and his She-Hulkbuster devices. Thousands cheer louder. Bets are placed. Bookies begin checking out REALTOR websites to find private islands to which to retire…

And then Tony injects Jen with nanites he’s been testing on all the Hulk villains she’s rounded up, and she’s no longer She-Hulk, and never will be again. There isn’t even a next issue blurb, leading us to believe there won’t even be a next issue. (There will, according to Marvel.)

Unsatisfying. Like most of the mega-story of which it’s part. It makes us hate Tony Stark even more, and successfully makes him into exactly what Jen called him – the new Doctor Doom; but it’s not satisfying.

On the plus side, Slott explores Jen’s rationale for signing on with Iron Man in support of SuperHuman Registration. She did so because she believes in law and order, rainbows and unicorns. It makes sense. Jen’s a lawyer and a good one. She’s committed and idealistic. Stark pulled the wool over her eyes, and she believed what he was doing was right. Then she found out what a scheming little schmuck he is. And she’s just as angry now, because he’s condemned her cousin without a fair trial. Consistency in characterization! Is anybody taking notes?

Disclaimer: I don’t believe for a minute that Tony, Reed, Hank and Stephen Strange would do what they’re depicted as doing. I don’t read Illuminati. Correction: I read the first issue, and I found it tiresome, over-written and completely self-serving. Still, not reading subsequent issues of that book, I can’t believe it could contain anything that would make me believe that these noble people would behave this way. Yeah, one or two of them might go nuts. But not all. But I digress. Stipulating that the heroes of my childhood all turned into John Ashcroft, I find the reason given for Jen falling temporarily under their sway plausible.

So, bereft of powers, Jen makes the humorous statement that she may not be a hulk anymore, but she’s a lawyer. She-Hulk might have beaten Stark to a pulp, but Jen will /destroy/ him. She goes off into the sunset, filled with determination, and, by gosh, we know she’s gonna do just that. It’s a real /Porgy and Bess/ ending… but…

This issue’s story is continued in /Hulk /106. I won’t fully review it, but I’ll comment briefly. I enjoyed it, but t’s an inconsistent follow-up. It begins with Jen lamenting to the absent Bruce that she’s screwed everything up. (Um… didn’t… she… just… say… um… that she was gonna destroy Stark? Never mind. She forgot. Now she’s distraught and needs the new Rick Jones to straighten her out.) The story proceeds to show her re-making the decision she’s already made, but making it with less conviction… and then she’s She-Hulk again. Okay. No harm done. But… huh?

Still. The battles scenes with Iron Man are classics. And I don’t even like battle scenes.

She-Hulk, Volume Four, Issue Sixteen

Rating: 3.75
Writer: Dan Slott
Pencils: Rick Burchett
Inks: Cliff Rathburn
Colors: Avalon Studios’ Andy Troy
Letterer: Dave Sharpe
Production: Kate Levin
Asst Editors: Molly Lazer
Editor: Tom Brevoort
Editor-in-Chief: Joe Quesada
Publisher: Dan Buckley
June, 2007
2.99

She-Hulk Volume Four #17

Posted on by

“Shock After Shock”

After spewing voluminous bile last week in the direction of Avengers: The Initiative, it’s nice to be able to say something nice again. Despite the title, which could describe any other Marvel story of the last two years, She-Hulk # 17 certainly gives me the opportunity to be nice to poor Dan Slott, whom I roundly abused last Wednesday. That’s because She-Hulk continues to be largely a refuge from the ravages of the Civil War.

A note before I continue. Last week, I trashed a book that a lot of people loved, a book that seems to be in tune with what a lot of readers want to read and/or look at right now. This week I’m praising a book that, well… doesn’t seem to be noticed the way, say, Civil War or New Avengers is noticed. And I think that’s a shame.

BUT…

Reviewing is really a silly art (says the reviewer.) It’s silly because storytelling is a collaborative process. That’s not to say that the writer/artist doesn’t or can’t create his content on his own, fresh out of his individual mind. It’s certainly not to say that creativity should occur (Don’t retch now!) by committee. No, what I mean when I call storytelling a collaborative process is that it starts with the teller, but it finishes with a single receiver. Whether that receiver is watching, listening or reading, the story itself is happening inside his head. (Or it’s not happening at all.) Everything that reader / listener / watcher brings to the experience is part of that story. So the story is a separate entity for each person who lives it. If Dan Slott has 50,000 readers, he (hopefully) creates 50,000 story experiences every time he writes a script.

And that’s why reviewing is a silly art. How can I tell you what your experience of the story will be? I only have one piece of the equation that feeds your experience. I can only comment on that, and my piece of the equation may be so critical to my experience that my opinions on that experience are useless to you.

But we press on, having trashed the silly idea of objectivity.

The Greg Horn cover is, as usual, worth the price of admission. Yeah, the scene depicted (Nick FUry flying a hover-car in pursuit of a falling, SHIELD-uniformed Shulkie) doesn’t happen in the story, but it certainly incorporates all the key elements of the “A” story within. Not surprising that the cover doesn’t show our heroine as she appears through most of the issue — in her magenta unmentionables — in this age of superficial, stuffy, middle-class prudery. Equally unsurprising is the absence of a major guest star on the cover, that being Iron Man. After all, if you want to market one of the few books that’s a refuge from Civil War, why put the villain of Civil War on the cover? The guy that long-time fans like me now hate more than we ever hated Thanos? Much better to show SHIELD’s OLD director on the cover, and lull fans into a pleasant euphoria of believing that the House of Ideas is not about to collapse under the weight of its own self-satisfaction.

Truth be told, Tony Stark’s appearance herein is actually one of the best parts of the story. That’s because, in this story, he’s not the villain of the piece. In fact, aside from the fact that he’s now director of SHIELD, it’s as if he’d never made the transition from good guy to utter Nazi. He and Jen share dinner and, well, dessert, putting Jen in her skivvies when the villains strike the heli-carrier. He armors up and fights beside her, without a single speech about how he has, since 1962, known every bad thing that was going to happen, and can prevent them happening, if only he’s allowed to rule the world. For a few pages, Tony is a good guy again, instead of a tool used by East Coast liberals to show the unwashed masses how evil entrepreneurs are.

Another nice touch for those with functioning long-term memory is the bevy of Nick Fury LMDs spouting random phrases of dialogue from the past. It’d be interesting to see a citations list. Knowing Slott, they all came from actual stories from the 60s and 70s. Perhaps, when Roy Thomas has a spare moment…

The annoying (in other books) white-on-black “story so far” page (which is black-on-lavender here) is funny and appropriately disrespectful to the Civil War storyline. The sarcasm employed to remind us that this book once had its own, distinct plot and this character once had a life outside the multi-title crossover is appreciated. It also makes a nice lead-in to some time spent with the (useless to the current MU) supporting characters.

The geeks in the basement have a page of debate over the merits of two-page establishing shots, and how they decompress stories and tell in two pages what Kirby could have done in one panel. (Of course, it was thirty years ago that the late Dave Cockrum and John Byrne were doing them in X-Men.) We get a one-panel reminder that Stu was killed many issues back and replaced with Ditto. We have a humorous break with Mal and Matt, as the former attempts to regain her credibility in the wake of her notorious affair with Awesome Andy. The only downer on the supporting character front is the absence of the Awesome One himself. One fears that, by the time Civil War goes away, readers will have forgotten who he was. Still, it’s nice that the subplots keep plugging along, despite the advent of Civil War.

Overall an enjoyable reminder that Marvel can produce comics in which the colors are not all muted and the heroes are not more evil than the villains.

She-Hulk, Volume Four, Issue Seventeen
Rating: 4.75
Writer: Dan Slott
Pencils: Rick Burchett
Inks: Cliff Rathburn
Colors: Avalon Studios’ Andy Troy
Letterer: Dave Sharpe
Asst Editors: Lazer & Sitterson
Editor: Tom Brevoort
Editor-in-Chief: Joe Quesada
Publisher: Dan Buckley
MAY, 2007
2.99
Rated T+
Cover by Greg Horn

She-Hulk Volume Four #12

Posted on by

“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