(Or She-Hulk, Vol. 1, #99)

“Cause and Effect”

“99, I’ve waitin’ so long.  Oh 99, where’d we go wrong? Oh 99…”

Sorry.  Pardon the fragment of lyrics from Toto.  (“Who?” ask half the readers.  “Dorothy’s dog, right?”)  It’s just that I wanted to call attention to the fact that, 25 years after the first She-Hulk #1, we’ve finally reached issue #99.  That’s an average of less than four issues per year! Okay, so it says issue #2 on the cover.  Next issue it will say #100, promises our worthy assistant editor.

We continue the recent She-Hulk tradition of beautiful covers, and this one even has something to do with the story inside!  (Someone at Marvel musta missed that!)  And, although She-Hulk is very likely wondering, “whose comic is this, anyway?” as Hawkeye literally upstages her in the picture, it’s nice to see Hawkeye on a cover pretty much anytime.  Certainly, Greg Horn does justice to both our heroes.

We ended last issue with Jen and Pug entering his apartment at the end of the day, debating Jen’s professed intention to flout the rules of time travel and save the life of her dear friend Clint Barton, AKA the man called Hawkeye.

Detour #1:  Unless it’s just me being very dense (always possible), last issue left us with the clear impression that Pug’s unrequited love for Jen throughout Volume three had become, well, requited during the hiatus between volumes.  This belief is perpetuated as the argument over Jen’s “save Hawkeye” campaign continues between Jen and her boyfriend from opposite sides of the bathroom door.  It is Pug’s apartment, after all… and he did start the argument.  But he’s not the one finishing it.  I won’t say more.  Surprising (and disappointing) twist.  We’re clearly building toward something here, and building nicely.

Now, back on track with Jen’s time travel court case, for which the jury, selected from the recent past, includes Clint Barton.  Jen plans to let him know that he’s about to die.  She tries sign language during her cross-examination of a witness.  This is a nice reminder that Hawk should know sign language, being partially deaf and all.  Sadly, he’s also dense, like me, and doesn’t pick up on Jen’s message.  So, later, like Marty McFly, Jen writes Clint a letter, which she plans to hand to him at some point during the trial.

I think the most enjoyable part of this story, for me, is Jen’s refreshing disregard for the rules when Clint’s life is on the line.  This is atypical in modern comics, where death is slightly more inevitable on any given day than breakfast.  This, we are constantly reminded, is part of being alive, and should be viewed with detachment yada yada yada blah blah blah…

I’m glad that our Heroine doesn’t agree.  I hope other readers are also tired of hearing that death should be put in perspective.  Death should be told to take a flying leap.  Death is the enemy.  And comic writers need to stop giving aid and comfort to it!  (End of rant.  Swallowing my blood pressure meds, my prozac… okay… and we’re back.)

For those curious just where in the timestream this Hawkeye hails from, it’s confirmed that this is Hawk less than one year before his death.  So, if Jen happens to be successful in saving him, he won’t have missed much.  Hell, the only thing he’s likely to have forgotten would be Chuck Austen’s run on the Avengers, and that’s a good thing.  He and Hank and Jan can all be friends again.
The story arc is clearly not over with this issue, and I’ll not throw out any more spoilers.  Jen’s court case is resolved, though, with a very nice twist, and some nice slamming of petty lawyers (as opposed to good ones like Jen) in the personification of the prosecuting attorney at the end.

We’re building up to issue 100, where the Time Variance Authority has promised to erase Jen from history.  (Not sure how that could be in any way construed to be within safe guidelines for protecting the course of history, but these are bureaucrats, so…)  This is a result of her attempt to divulge knowledge of his imminent demise to Hawkeye.  I won’t say whether she succeeded in passing the info or saving Hawkeye, mostly ’cause we don’t really know yet.  Time — and issue #100 — will most likely tell.

The big centennial issue promises 40 pages of new material, plus reprints of issues #1 of both Volumes 1 and 2.  Pretty cool, even if you already own the reprinted issues.  Reprints keep comics history alive!

Until then, keep your gamma changer plugged in!

She-Hulk Vol. 4, # 2
“Cause and Effect”
Writer: Dan Slott
Penciller: Juan Bobillo
Inker: Marcello Sosa
Letterer: Dave Sharpe
Colorist: Dave Kemp
Editor: Tom Brevoort
Ass’t Editors: Schmidt, Lazer & Sitterson
Editor in Chief: Joe Quesada
Publisher: Dan Buckley
Cover: Greg Horn

“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

“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

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

“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