She-Hulk, v. 7: Here Today ...

Collects: She-Hulk #28-30, She-Hulk: Cosmic Collision (2008-9)

Released: March 2009 (Marvel)

Format: 112 pages / color / $14.99 / ISBN: 9780785129660

What is this?: She-Hulk finally tracks down her tormentor from Peter David’s first arc and reveals why she was disbarred.

The culprits: Written by Peter David and Pencils by Val Semeiks and Mahmud Asrar

I like writer Peter David usually. His X-Factor was great in the ‘90s, as was his Incredible Hulk. Madrox and its current follow-up, X-Factor, v. 3, are excellent. Really, David is one of my favorite comics writers, great with characters and humor, and I consistently look forward to his work.

But there are times … there are times he seems to misfire. Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, v. 1: Derailed was one of those times. I wasn’t wild about David’s first She-Hulk volume, She-Hulk, v. 6: Jaded, either. Unfortunately, She-Hulk, v. 7: Here Today... seems to be another misstep.

In Here Today, David finally lets slip why She-Hulk was disbarred before Jaded: she was goaded into attacking a client and revealing his guilt. On the surface, it makes sense; however, any criminal defense lawyer knows they will occasionally defend a guilty client and might even get them acquitted. None of her explanations — her “savage” nature getting loose or wanting to punish herself — are entirely convincing. Mind control might be convincing, but it’s not offered as a solution.

There seems a bit of laziness in the plotting, and because of that, the story in #28-30 mostly fails to engage. There’s a shadowy conspiracy behind She-Hulk’s torments; sure, there is. Why? I don’t know, and not only do I not care, I can’t summon the energy to tell you how little I care. She-Hulk goes back to the casual sex, this time with a passing Hercules, who happens to know how to take out the villain of the story most easily. (Who really doesn’t do much, despite being used as a plot device for a half-dozen issues.) And there are still jokes about Juggernaut, which should have been retired at the end of Dan Slott’s run.

(And a personal objection: I’m not sure there’s anyone who knows the Cleveland Browns were 4-12 in 2007 and doesn’t know about the Dog Pound and the loyalty of Browns fans, unless Jen is some secret fantasy football freak. I had no idea what Cleveland’s record was in any year, frankly, but Cleveland football fandom is easily remembered. It’s like knowing Oliver Twist was first published as a serial from 1837 to 1839 but never having heard of Fagin.)

Overall, I like the art from Val Semeiks, who pencils #28-30. There are the usual distortions of She-Hulk — one extremely peculiar one in which the reclining She-Hulk’s butt and shoulders seem to keep her waist about a foot from her cot — but his straightforward style fits the story and character. There’s some strange shift in style during #30 — a change in inkers, perhaps — that is less enjoyable, one that makes the Skrull Jazinda look like a half-plant creature when she transforms.

The last part issue of the collection, Cosmic Collision, comes out of nowhere. At the end of #30, Jazinda has a sudden flash about “the Talisman,” whatever that is, and then she and Jennifer are off. Then Collision skips to the pair tracking a minor superhuman in Milwaukee before they are whisked off by the Collector to battle the avatar of a cosmic force. I get the feeling this issue was shoehorned into the collection to make the collection book length; Collision was released several months after the other issues in Here Today and doesn’t seem to dovetail well in terms of continuity.

As for the content of Collision, I appreciate David’s attempt at humor, giving a light touch to Marvel’s space characters who could easily be taken too seriously, but the plot doesn’t engage me: gather together a bunch of heroes solely on the basis of being female, despite their differing shticks and temperaments. (It’s the only way you can stick Storm and Thundra on the same team, really.) Cosmic avatars bore me, especially when they rampage blindly and are nearly all powerful. The art, supplied by Mahmud Asrar, is compellingly simple while avoiding cartooniness and still telling the story; his faces are a little dodgy occasionally. However, I wonder whether he was in on the joke of giving the unfeminine female killing force, Unum, a stereotypical “sexy” costume, given some of his angles on She-Hulk, and the art on the “friendly fire” incident makes Quasar look like an idiot or malicious.

The disinterest inspired by Here Today essentially quashes any curiosity I had about the rest of David’s She-Hulk run, which goes for two more volumes. I can hold out hope that it improves, but since the title’s been cancelled, the apathy is overwhelming. Even if he does turn it around and develop something interesting, why should I care? She-Hulk, as I know it, is over.

Rating: (2 of 5)

Howard the Duck: Media Duckling

Collects: Howard the Duck v. 3 #1-4, Howard the Duck v. 1 #1 (1976, 2007-8)

Released: April 2008 (Marvel)

Format: 128 pages / color / $11.99 / ISBN: 9780785127765

Steve Gerber was, after Jack Kirby, probably the most outrageously imaginative people to ever work at Marvel Comics. Among the many strange (and almost always commercially unsuccessful) ideas he had was Howard the Duck, a duck-like humanoid who found himself in a world of hairless apes: “trapped in a world he never made,” as the oft-repeated tagline said. Gerber used Howard in the ‘70s as an outside observer to drive home his satires and occasionally to break through his own creative difficulties.

It is easy to argue Howard should have been retired after Gerber had a falling out with Marvel over the character; certainly, no one has ever really made Howard seem to matter like Gerber did, and it’s difficult to imagine anyone pulling off the outrageous setups Gerber wrote monthly without seeming cheesy or idiotic. Even when Gerber resurrected Howard for a miniseries with Marvel in 2002, it didn’t quite reclaim the magic.

But any character that has been good once is begging to be reused, and into this breach steps writer Ty Templeton and penciller Juan Bobillo. In Howard the Duck: Media Duckling, Templeton seems to have an idea why Howard is so perfect for satire: he can take himself seriously, but not the world of the hairless apes, and the hairless apes take themselves seriously but not Howard. So Templeton uses Howard to fire a scattershot of satire at media, pundits, human rights in the era of Homeland Security, and the Internet. Easy targets, for the most part, but Templeton gives Howard enough surly character to make it amusing.

Templeton also realizes Howard is part of the Marvel Universe but exists uneasily with it; accordingly, the only Marvel characters / concepts Howard interacts with are She-Hulk (a lawyer / gamma-irradiated Amazon) and MODOT (Mental Organism Designed Only for Talking, a creation of Advanced Idea Mechanics). The absurdity practically drips off the page.

I generally like Bobillo’s art, and I’m mostly pleased with his work here. His style is well suited for the book, with the lack of realism allowing him free rein, and he does a good job of capturing the general cloud of chaos around Howard. I suppose what I have trouble with is his design for Howard; oddly, Howard doesn’t look cartoony enough, and he looks like he’s either sick or wet throughout.

As a bonus, this trade paperback includes the first issue of the first volume of Howard the Duck, written by Gerber and with art by Frank Brunner. It’s interesting if you want to know how that series begins, but it doesn’t give the flavor of Howard as much as later issues of that series do. Brunner’s style is smooth and rounded, completely different from Bobillo’s, so the contrast makes Bobillo’s work look a little unpolished.

There’s also the Howard the Duck story from Civil War: Choosing Sides, which is a real treat. Written by Templeton, this amusing story captures Howard registering as a superhuman, despite having no superpowers. Those in charge tell Howard, appropriately enough, they aren’t interested. Roger Langridge’s art echoes Brunner’s quite well.

Gerber died on February 10, 2008, and Templeton dedicated this trade paperback to him.

Rating: (4 of 5)