She-Hulk (2004) #12

February 19, 2005

Quick Rating: Excellent
Title: Some Disassembly Required

It’s She-Hulk versus Titania in the title bout!

Writer: Dan Slott
Pencils: Paul Pelletier
Inks: Rick Magyar
Colors: Dave Kemp
Letters: Dave Sharp
Editor: Tom Brevoort
Cover Art: Mike Mayhew
Publisher: Marvel Comics

This may be the first time doing a review has ever almost gotten me in trouble. I’m working the sound effects for my community theatre this weekend, and since I had a little downtime (and have already seen the play five times by now), I made the mistake of reading this comic book in the booth. I almost laughed loud enough for the audience to hear me.

Here’s the bullet points – Titania, who hates the She-Hulk, has taken the Power Gem from the Champion to take her down. Forced to stay in her human form for reasons that are perfectly logical, although will take people by surprise if they aren’t familiar with some Marvel continuity, She-Hulk is trapped in human form and is forced to call in reinforcement. Lots of reinforcements. Unexpected reinforcements.

Since the first issue, the two best things about this title have been the humor and the rampant mining of Marvel continuity. This issue Dan Slott turns both of these factors up to eleven. She-Hulk goes to an incredibly unlikely source to figure out how to take down Titania, and the guest-stars make perfect sense and exist to complement her, not steal the show. There are some outrageously funny moments here – such as Hercules asking his Damage Control foreman if he can take a break to go save the city and Stu telling off not only some obnoxious characters, but taking a good-natured poke at readers who may take things too seriously.

Since this is the last issue of “season one” (Marvel has promised to bring this title back later this year, and the last page even includes a self-referential gag to let the readers know when it will be back), Slott wraps up a lot of storylines or at least brings them to a point of logical resolution, where we can accept things being left for a while. We get resolution for She-Hulk, Titania, Southpaw and the law firm. We even get a little resolution for some story threads left over from Avengers Disassembled, which tie into story elements in this book.

Paul Pelletier is at the absolute top of his game. The characters look great, the fight scenes are fantastic and the visual gags all just plain work. There are panels where your jaw just drops and panels where you laugh out loud. I’m in love with this book.

This same creative team is going to take some time off to do the upcoming GLA (that’s Great Lakes Avengers) miniseries, which promises to have a lot of the same comedic sensibilities, so you can bank on me following them there. But man, I can’t wait for this book to come back for season two.

Rating: 10/10

Avengers (1963 Series) #221

February 4, 2012

Title: New Blood

Plot: Jim Shooter
Writer: David Michelinie
Pencils: Bob Hall
Inks: Brett Breeding
Letters: Janice Chiang
Colors: Christie Scheele
Editor: Jim Salicrup
Publisher: Marvel Comics

If there’s one thing I’m a sucker for, it’s an old-fashioned “Who’s going to join the Avengers?” issues, and this is a really fun one. Following some dastardly doings by Moondragon, the Avengers are down to four members. Captain America, Iron Man, Thor and the Wasp each set out to look for recruits to join the ranks of Earth’s mightiest heroes.

Shooter and Michelinie really used the personalities of the Avengers they had well here, picking the new members based largely on how the others would go about finding them. Cap and Iron Man attempting to bring back Hawkeye makes sense, as does the Wasp throwing a garden party of sorts to invite some super-powered femmes who may be ripe for membership. The only thing that feels a little off is Thor’s attempt to recruit Spider-Man, but even that is easily justified with a quick conversation with Jarvis, who inadvertently points Thor in that direction.

Bob Hall and Brett Breeding do distinctive 80s art – the textures on the floors of Avengers mansion, the decorations at the Wasp’s house, the clothing and hairstyles of the characters involved… it’s all the sort of thing that you only saw in comic books of this particular time period. The book is quite a nostalgia trip for me as a reader.

The resulting team isn’t necessarily one of the legendary line-ups, but all six of the Avengers we’ve got at the end of the issue are characters who really define the team. Each of them feels like a classic Avenger, and four of them are actually going to be in the upcoming movie. What’s really amusing to me, though, is the list of “potential” Avengers we see on the cover (many of whom don’t appear in the issue at all). Of these 15 characters, only two of whom had previously been members of the team, eleven of them have been Avengers at some point in the 30 years since this issue was published. Funny how the Marvel Universe works, isn’t it?

Rating: 8/10

Sensational She-Hulk #8

December 17, 2011

Title: The World’s Greatest Detective

Writer: John Bryne
Pencils: John Byrne
Inks: Bob Wiacek
Colorist: Glynis Oliver
Letterer: Jim Novak
Cover Artist: John Byrne
Editor: Bobbie Chase
Publisher: Marvel Comics

In his run on Sensational She-Hulk, writer/artist John Byrne did a wonderfully funny, irreverent version of the character that fully was aware of the fact that she was in a comic book. She’d frequently converse with the creative team, use the conventions of the art form to her advantage, and otherwise have way more fun than most mainstream comics think they’re allowed to have these days. This early issue actually came out in the summer, but it’s got a distinct Christmasy tinge to it.

She-Hulk, alias prosecuting attorney Jennifer Walkers when she’s not busy saving the world, is called upon to handle the case against a man who is accused of seven murders. Although everybody – even his public defender – believes him to be guilty, there’s no concrete evidence of his guilt. Jennifer gets a call from a tiny elf of a man who calls himself Nick St. Christopher – the world’s greatest detective – who believes he can help her on the case.

Although the story plays a little coy with Nick’s true identity, if you haven’t figured it out simply by the picture of him on the cover, something is seriously wrong with you. Byrne follows the two of them with a trail of evidence just in case you missed it – Nick leaving snow in his wake, entering a building via the chimney, and informing Jen that he always knows who has been naughty and nice among them. The book, as it always was at this time period, was really funny, but also managed to balance itself against the relatively serious moments of Jennifer working as a prosecutor. These elements combined to make a unique kind of comic book that I loved back then and just wish still existed today.

On a side-note, the book includes a scene where Nick gives Jen a gift and warns her not to open it until Christmas. Byrne clearly was setting something up here, but he left the book with the next issue. Fortunately for us all, he returned to it a few years later, and in issue #36 he finally picked up on this thread. I’ve got to find a copy of that one and add it to the ol’ Christmas review pile.

Rating: 8/10

She-Hulk Sensational #1

April 2, 2010

She-Hulk Sensational #1 (Marvel Comics)
By Peter David, Jonboy Meyers, Gary Frank, Brian Reed, Ivan Coello & John Byrne

It’s She-Hulk’s 30th anniversary, and although Jennifer Walters is MIA in the Marvel Universe at the moment, that’s not going to stop the celebration. Peter David and Jonboy Meyers tell a magnificent tale of Jennifer struggling with getting older. As she tries to wrestle with the big 3-0, she finds herself facing her past, present, and future. Yep, David takes the ol’ Christmas Carol route and mixes it nicely with the sort of metafiction, self-awareness and fourth wall-breaking that made John Byrne‘s run on this title in the 90s such a classic. David gives us a wonderfully funny story full of winks to the camera and nods to classic continuity. Meyers‘ artwork is great, with just a hint of Manga flavor, but not enough to bring down the story. If the entire special was just this story, it would score an easy 4.5 out of 5. Unfortunately, this isn’t the only story. It’s followed up by “Ladies’ Night,” a terribly by-the-book story of Jen, Spider-Woman and Ms. Marvel teaming up to face off against a bunch of generic villains. She-Hulk isn’t even the focus of this story, it almost feels like she and Spider-Woman are guest-starring in a leftover issue of Ms. Marvel that got shelved after Secret Invasion changed the status quo for the characters. We also get a reprint of John Bryne‘s Sensational She-Hulk #40 from the 90s. After several pages of She-Hulk jumping rope (seriously), she and her galpal Weezi get whisked off to outer space where the trucker superhero US Archer needs their help. I like having a Byrne reprint here — he arguably made the character what she is — but this is a really poor choice. It’s not that it’s a bad issue, but there’s not much of a story here. It’s 100 percent set-up for the storyline that followed and it ends on a cliffhanger, making it terribly incomplete for inclusion in a one-shot. Byrne‘s run was fantastic, but there must have been a one-off story they could have included instead of this one.
Rating: 7/10

She-Hulk (2004 Series) #11

January 14, 2005

Quick Rating: Great
Title: Imbalance of Power

Titania’s on a rampage – and even an enhanced She-Hulk may not be strong enough to save the day.

Writer: Dan Slott
Pencils: Paul Pelletier
Inks: Rick Magyar
Colors: Dave Kemp
Letters: Dave Sharpe
Editor: Tom Brevoort
Cover Art: Mike Mayhew
Publisher: Marvel Comics

Dan Slott deserves a ton of credit for how he pulled this issue out. He’s taken Titania, a character who has always been an emotional arch-foe for She-Hulk but has never been able to match her in combat, and made her a real threat. Even better, he found a way to reconcile all of the various storylines involving Shulkie from the last few years of other Marvel Comics and made them all fit perfectly within the context of this title.

Titania, now armed by the Power Infinity Gem, is ready to take on the woman she hates more than any other, and the way to draw her out is to tear up the city. Meanwhile, She-Hulk is having a chat with her old buddy Doc Samson. This sequence is where this issue really shines. Slott reaches back to She-Hulk’s days with the Fantastic Four to pick up a thread, which he laces into the “Red Zone” arc of Avengers, back into his own title and then through Avengers Disassembled, explaining perfectly how everything fits together in Jen Walters’ life. He even finds a way to explain the abominable Juggernaut incident from Uncanny X-Men, for which he shall have my eternal gratitude.

For all the character development, though, this issue is ultimately a lot of set-up to lead to a great cliffhanger, which promises a real slam-bang next issue.

Paul Pelletier’s artwork is as good as ever. He draws a lot of characters in a lot of environments, showing She-Hulk and Titania both in various levels of musculature, and recreates scenes from other titles (the brutal death of the Vision, for instance), with grace.

Most amazing of all, though, is the fact that this book never loses its sense of humor. Never. It’s not as laugh-out-loud funny as some earlier issues have been, but even in the midst of a few really heavy scenes, Slott eases in a joke to keep it from going to far.

This book is getting a much-needed profile boost in the coming months, and the critical buzz couldn’t be better. This is one of the best comics Marvel puts out every month, and if you’re not reading it, you should be.

Rating: 9/10

She-Hulk (2004 Series) #10

November 10, 2004

Quick Rating: Very Good
Title: Skeeter

Who can take down the She-Hulk? Only the person who hates her the most…

Writer: Dan Slott
Pencils: Paul Pelletier
Inks: Rick Magyar
Colors: Dave Kemp
Letters: Crave Sharpeopoulos
Editor: Tom Brevoort
Cover Art: Mike Mayhew
Publisher: Marvel Comics

It’s not as funny as this title usually is, and She-Hulk herself is barely in it, but this is a really good installment of Marvel’s most underrated series nonetheless. While still basically a standalone issue, it picks up threads from an earlier story arc as a mysterious being approaches another with a plan to exact revenge on She-Hulk by using the person who hates her more than anyone else in the universe, the super-strong supervillain Titania.

The book is a flashback, not just to Titania’s origin during the original Secret Wars, but even earlier, showing us a sad story of a scrawny little girl who grasped at what she thought was a chance to take revenge on the people who’s ruined her life. It’s remarkably easy to grasp – many of us have felt put-upon and persecuted in our lives, hoping to lash out at the people who won’t just leave us be, and many of us would have leapt at the chance to dish out some revenge.

The book feels a little superfluous for the She-Hulk fan, but it’s an important one to help us understand someone who’s always been a pretty one-dimensional villain. Geoff Johns has been employing a similar devise with the rogues in Flash for years now, and it works just as well here as it does over there.

Paul Pelletier is still on pencils, and we’re still lucky to have him. He does a great job with the outer space scenes, and has a neat little energy effect to show the transition between certain scenes. He’s called upon to draw two extremes in this book – the tiny, scrawny girl that was Mary “Skeeter” McPherson, and the brutal Amazon she became, and he handles both very well.

I love this book. Love it, love it, love it. And if you’re not reading it, you’re missing out on some of the best comics Marvel currently offers.

Rating: 8/10

Recent Reviews: August 17 Releases

So what’d I review over at CX Pulp in the last seven days? Here’s the list…

• Avengers Academy #18
• Batman #713
• Darkwing Duck #15
• DC Retroactive: Batman-The 90s #1
• DC Retroactive: The Flash-The 90s #1
• DC Retroactive: Wonder Woman-The 90s #1
• Fables #108
• Fear Itself: Fearsome Four #3
• Flashpoint: Abin Sur-The Green Lantern #3
• Flashpoint: Wonder Woman and the Furies #3
• Green Lantern Corps #63
• Justice League of America #60
• Power Girl #27
• Superboy #11
• Tiny Titans #43
• The Walking Dead #88
• X-Men: Schism #3

Fear Itself: Fearsome Four #2

August 2, 2011

Title: Stranger Bedfellows

Writer: Brandon Montclare
Art: Simon Bisley, Ryan Bodenheim, Ray-Anthony Height, Don Ho
Colorist: Simon Bisley, Tony Avina
Letterer: Nate Piekos
Cover Artist: Michael William Kaluta
Editor: Mark Paniccia
Publisher: Marvel Comics

She-Hulk, Nighthawk, and Frankenstein’s Monster have teamed up with Howard the Duck to stop the rampaging Man-Thing, being fed by the copious amounts of fear floating around thanks to that whole thing that’s happening over in those other comics. After being temporarily swapped with alternate reality versions of themselves, the team gets a recap of Frankenstein’s origin for some reason, then stroll off to face the enemy responsible for Man-Thing’s rampage: Psycho-Man.

And it’s just… a… mess.

The story is all over the lace, the heroes are together for the thinnest of reasons, and the chain of logic is virtually nonexistent. The frequent artistic changes don’t help. While all of the artists working on this book are perfectly competent, their styles are so different from one another that you keep feeling live you’ve spiraled into an entirely different comic book. With the love I have for many of the characters in this book, I was really looking forward to sort of an offbeat Fear Itself tie-in. Halfway through, I’ve felt nothing but disappointment.

Rating: 6/10

She-Hulk (2004 Series) #9

November 19, 2004

Quick Rating: Great
Title: Strong Enough

Back on Earth, She-Hulk’s got to deal with her increased power level. Meanwhile, Hercules has some legal troubles of his own.

Writer: Dan Slott
Pencils: Paul Pelletier
Inks: Rick Magyar
Colors: Dave Kemp
Letters: Dave Sharpe
Editor: Tom Brevoort
Cover Art: Mike Mayhew
Publisher: Marvel Comics

She-Hulk is one of those titles that everyone who samples it seems to love, but there aren’t enough readers. So if I’m persuading people, I can either write a list of each and every thing I love about this book, or I can just tell you to read She-Hulk #9, because it’s all in here.

This is a done-in-one story, but it picks up on the ongoing plot threads of the title and introduces a few more, while still supplying the reader everything he could need to know to enjoy the title. Back on Earth, the She-Hulk discovers that she doesn’t have total control over her increased strength, and she looks for help in a very logical place – her old friend Reed Richards. Meanwhile another attorney at her firm has her own problems – the Constrictor has filed a lawsuit against Shuklie’s sometime teammate Hercules for beating him (badly) in a superhero rumble.

You want to know what this issue has? Guest-stars. Comedy. A dash of romance. A faithful nod to continuity without being confusing. Logic. An ending you don’t see coming but that fits perfectly. And even a few tidbits that warn us there may be some bad times to come for our heroine.

You know what else it’s got? Great art. Paul Pelletier joins this issue as the regular penciller (after doing a two-issue stint a few months back), and he couldn’t be more welcome. He does incredible superheroes, including a more muscular She-Hulk than we’re used to, and does it in such a way that the casual reader is aware that things are unusual. He’s got a great feel for layout and storytelling, and his poses and choreography are second to none. He does a great Fantastic Four as well – his rendition of the Thing is one of the best I’ve seen in quite a while.

Haven’t tried this title yet? No time like the present. This issue gives you two complete storylines twined together (as opposed to some comics that take six issues to tell one), and the trade paperback of the first issue is on sale now. Jump on, folks. You won’t regret it.

Rating: 9/10

She-Hulk (2004 Series) #8

October 16, 2004

Quick Rating: Very Good
Title: Engagement Ring

It’s She-Hulk versus Champion in the title bout for Skaroon!

Writer: Dan Slott
Pencils: Juan Bobillo
Inks: Marcelo Sosa
Colors: Dave Kemp
Letters: Dave Sharp
Editor: Tom Brevoort
Cover Art: Mike Mayhew
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Last issue the She-Hulk got a new position – a magistrate in the employ of the Living Tribunal. Part of that gig means she has to work within the justice system of each planet she presides over – and on the planet Skaroon, where supremacy is decided by combat, that means trouble. The elder of the universe known as Champion has taken over that world and is running it into the ground, spending all his time in the boxing ring. It’s up to She-Hulk to take him down.

I get more impressed with Dan Slott’s writing each and every issue. There are several things about this title that have made me into the fan I am, and you get them all this month. Slott delves into some Marvel Universe history to help the story play out, nut works it in without making it an obstacle for new readers. We get a few surprise (but satisfying) cameos, and we get a lot of humor. There’s a sequence in here that especially cracked me up, reminding me of the episode of “South Park” where they make fun of the “sports training montage.”

The storyline is constructed very well – all the circumstances that lead to the conclusion were set up last issue. Nothing comes out as an utter surprise, but you’re enjoying the ride too much to really overthink it. It’ll be interesting to see if the changes that come about in this issue last in this series – and if they’ll be reflected in other comics that Shulkie appears in.

Juan Bobillo is on his way out as penciller of this series, but he manages a decent job on this issue. His strengths and weaknesses remain the same as always, though – he does well on She-Hulk herself and most of the human characters, but his “monsters” don’t work. They’re too soft and silly-looking in a way that doesn’t really mesh with the humor of the script. (There’s a flashback panel with the Thing that reminded me of how dissatisfied I was with his rendition of the character several issues ago.) Mike Mayhew again serves up a great cover, a funny cover, that taps into a couple of obscure and wacky Marvel characters, but it’s a cover that, as so many Marvel covers are these days, is utterly irrelevant to the story.

This is a really good title, a really fun title, and with Paul Pelletier taking over the pencils soon, I expect it to get even better. The book has been picked up by Marvel at least through issue 15, so you’ve got time now to get on board, start enjoying this series, and help it get the long life it deserves.

Rating: 8/10