Category Archives: Reviews

Great Lakes Avengers #1

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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

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“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

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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

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“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

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“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

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“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

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“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

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“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

She-Hulk Volume Four #10 & #11

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“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

She-Hulk Volume Four #9

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“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