Patsy Walker, a.k.a. Hellcat!, v. 1: Hooked on a Feline

Collects: Patsy Walker, a.k.a. Hellcat #1-6 (2016)

Released: June 2016 (Marvel)

Format: 136 pages / color / $17.99 / ISBN: 9781302900359

What is this?: After being let go from her private investigating job, Patsy Walker (the superhero Hellcat) comes up with a new business idea but has to deal with particularly feckless villains.

The culprits: Writer Kate Leth and artists Brittney L. Williams (#1-5) and Natasha Allegri (#6)

Last week, I praised Squirrel Girl in general and the latest volume of the series, Squirrel, You Really Got Me Now, specifically. This week, I’ll go from one animal-themed Marvel superhero humor book to another …

Patsy Walker, a.k.a. Hellcat!, v. 1: Hooked on a Feline follows Patsy Walker, last seen as She-Hulk’s private investigator in the recent short-lived She-Hulk series. But at the beginning of Feline, She-Hulk has to let Patsy go, and to support herself, Patsy comes up with a new idea: a super-powered temp agency, matching those with powers with jobs that suit those powers.

Patsy triumphantly presents at the beginning and end of #1, at least, but we see very little of the execution in the rest of Feline, save for a recommendation to an adversary and a page of bookkeeping in #6. In other words, it takes five issues before she even begins working on her grand plan, and that’s indicative of the book’s level of focus.

Writer Kate Leth makes the wise decision to not get into Patsy’s history as Hellcat, since Hellcat continuity is a bit involved. After all, any story in which you say, “I spent some time dead” will tend to derail the narrative a bit. Leth leaves nothing relevant out and retains enough plot hooks to give herself a lot of potential storylines.

Unfortuately, Leth can’t seem to focus on any idea. As I mentioned, she avoids Patsy’s business idea — the idea presented in literally the series’ first panel — for most of the book. The book’s largest conflict is the decision by her former teen rival, Hedy Wolfe, to reprint the romance comics Patsy’s mother wrote and based on the lives of Patsy and her friends. This should be a story that develops throughout the book, but five issues after the conflict is introduced, I have no idea whether Hedy had any right to reprint the stories without notifying or gaining permission from Patsy. She-Hulk, Patsy’s lawyer, says Hedy doesn’t have a case, but Hedy clearly has a contract — literally, she possesses a piece of paper with “CONTRACT” written across the top of it — that she puts a lot of faith in. Then again, Hedy hires a private investigator (Jessica Jones) to dig up dirt on Patsy, so maybe she realizes her case isn’t so great. The one face-to-face interaction between Patsy and Hedy is a great moment of tension, with Hedy insulting Patsy and Patsy coming up empty in response. The book could have used more close-quarters conflict between the two.

Leth and artists Brittney Williams (#1-5) and Natasha Allegri (#6) are trying for a breezy, fun tone, which explains why the story might lack focus. But for this concept to work, Feline has to be funny, and it just doesn’t.

Take, for instance, issue #2, in which Patsy gets a job working retail — for “research,” she says, although all I can see that she learns is that she’s awful at working retail. She can’t relate to the customers or the merchandise at the hip-but-cheap clothing store she works at; she’s baffled by the garments’ logos and the customers’ reasonable requests. She’s constantly interrupted by friends and enemies, keeping her from getting any work done. Her cluelessness and poor results are frustrating rather than funny. By the end of the issue, I would have preferred to follow the adventures of the supervisor who gave Patsy the firing she so richly deserved.

The closest thread Feline has to an overall arc is the threat of Casiolena, an exiled Asgardian who entices various low-powered superhumans into committing crimes. Casiolena is an ineffectual villain, and that’s supposed to be funny, but she comes across as more petulant than humorous. She wants inspire superhumans to sow chaos, destabilizing New York, but she’s too lazy to do a good job or research the Midgardian quirks she needs to know to be successful. Hellcat and Valkyrie don’t take her seriously, even when Casiolena has captured them both, and the villainess makes unachievable promises to her aspiring minions. As soon as the heroes reveal that Casiolena’s promises can’t be fulfilled, her movement falls apart, and she’s easily captured.

The superhumans who turn to crime at Casiolena’s call aren’t bad people. They’re just … well, maybe they are bad people, in a banal way. They turn to crime as a shortcut to making their lives better, and that’s a horrible choice. None of them seem to be in desperate straits; they appear to prefer to work legitimately, but if legal work is not simple to find, crime’s fine. Patsy goes easy on them, which I don’t mind; the more quickly they get off the page, the more quickly I can forget about them forever.

Well, maybe not all of them — I do like the design of Bailey, a minor adversary who has a handbag of infinite capacity. She looks like a cute witch wearing bike shorts, and while I’m not sure how that fits thematically with “bag of holding,” I’m not the artist! And it’s good that I’m not the artist because I’m bad at drawing.

On the other hand, I’m not fond of Williams’s art, either. In the one opportunity she has to cut loose, the book’s big fight scene in #5, she fails to make an impression. Her tight, careful line and cartoony exaggeration does seem well suited for broad character work, and if the book were funnier, perhaps the art would mesh well with the story. But her detail-oriented art often makes her panels seem to cramped, and I don’t understand her visual vocabulary, at times; for instance, I can’t figure out what it means when Patsy suddenly shrinks to two-thirds size and shows her pointed teeth. (Is she feisty? Angry? Adorable? All of these? What does it mean?) Her Howard the Duck is misshapen, and her Hedy … When she comes to mock Patsy at her retail job, Hedy does not dress in a way that says, “I have room to mock those who work at the mall.” Instead, she looks like she should be picking up the kids at soccer practice in 20 minutes. That’s not how Hedy would dress on her way to insult Patsy.

I won’t discuss Allegre’s art in #6, as it makes me irrationally angry. Let’s just say that any comic that makes Arcade look like a cute teenager and She-Hulk appear unimpressive has a problem.

I do like Williams’s She-Hulk, though: she’s large without being grotesque, physically impressive without losing her attractiveness. The supporting cast and cameos from the rest of the Marvel Universe are the most appealing part of the book, actually; She-Hulk is a great friend to Patsy while being allowed to get angry at her, and the scenes with Howard the Duck (art aside), Dr. Strange, and Jessica Jones are all effective. The scene in which Patsy texts all her female friends, leading them to believe she’s in danger when all she wants is a consolation burger with them after getting fired, is a good illustration of why I would prefer to read about almost anyone in this book other than Patsy: they all excuse her mistake with a shrug. They realize you just have to put up with that nonsense with Patsy, which I do not want to do. She has a good heart, but she’s not that interesting or fun to be around.

And honestly, what kind of person gets a tattoo of themselves? And not a representative one, but a sort of a manga-version of their alter ego? I mean, Alex Rodriguez, who just retired from his baseball career, was seen as a narcissist, but I bet even he did not have a manga-style tattoo of himself in his Yankees uniform.

Rating: (1.5 of 5)

FF, v. 1: Fantastic Faux

Collects: FF v. 2 #4-8 (2013)

Released: July 2013 (Marvel)

Format: 112 pages / color / $15.99 / ISBN: 9780785166634

What is this?: Four heroes with ties to the Fantastic Four fill in as guardians for the Future Foundation kids while the famous quartet is away.

The culprits: Writer Matt Fraction and artist Mike Allred (with help from Joe Quinones)

A book written by Matt Fraction and drawn by Mike Allred should be fun. I mean, I’m not the only one making that assumption, right? Fraction’s ideas and Allred’s expressive and cartoony art should combine into something that should put a smile on my face. And for the most part, that’s true of FF, v. 1: Fantastic Faux, but there’s darkness lurking in the background that I wasn’t prepared for.

On the surface, FF is a comedy book. The Fantastic Four has left Earth to go exploring, and they have left a team of second-string heroes (She-Hulk, Medusa, Ant Man II, and Ms. Thing) to look over the wacky cast of kids that the Fantastic Four’s Future Foundation is educating. I mean, the student body includes Moloids, fish people, and Artie and Leech. How could that not lead to craziness?

Fraction uses his cast to great effect, and #4 — the first issue in this collection — is an almost perfect issue. She-Hulk has dinner with her ex-boyfriend, Wyatt Wingfoot, while the Moloids who have a crush on her enlist the help of fellow student Bentley-23 to ruin their date. Bentley’s plots, however, have the opposite effect, and the night out turns into an enchanted evening for the couple. The issue is funny, heartfelt, and touching, accented by Allred’s simple yet effective art. I don’t usually associate “heartfelt” or “touching” with Fraction, but he pulls it off here.

Fraction maintains the humor throughout, letting all the characters get into the absurdity of multi-purposed HERBIES, an erudite Dragon Man teaching, Darla using “Thing rings” to turn into Ms. Thing, and postman Willie Lumpkin teaching the kids about the birds and bees. As “absurdity” is a specialty of Allred’s, his art is outstanding, of course. Whatever Fraction gives him to draw, Allred doesn’t flinch at, whether it’s Ms. Thing in weird headgear or the FF kids attacking Bentley and Medusa’s son with Home Alone traps. Allred also gets to draw fish creatures, Inhumans, and monsters from the deep, and he excels at all of them. He doesn’t draw the entire volume, but Joe Quinones does a great job filling in on #6, drawing in a very Allred style.

Fraction is obviously having fun with the title, even beyond the whimsical elements of the story and cast. The issue titles are ludicrous — “That Was the Worst Field Trip Ever!” and “Spooky Kids or, Merrily into the Eight Arms of Durga the Invincible We All Go” — or inexplicable (there is no Durga in #5, and I can’t figure out why #6 is titled “Save the Tiger,” as it has no relationship to either real tigers or the ‘70s Jack Lemmon movie). Fraction shows a predilection for continuity that I also didn’t know he had; he resurrects the Thing suit that Ben Grimm used when he lost his powers in the ‘70s, the Thing rings from the 1979 Thing animated series, and a variety of headgear from the series.

But throughout Fantastic Faux, Fraction is weaving some dark threads among the Moloids discovering gender and HERBIEs dressed up as Dr. Doom. Mind control is a standard superhero plot device, but there’s something more sinister about an old abuser returning to a former victim, as happens in this volume. Scott still has trouble dealing with the death of his daughter, Cassie, and being in charge of a whole school of children only exacerbates a dangerous situation for him. Dr. Doom is more vicious, eschewing grand plans and going for the gut to get what he wants. John Storm, returned from the future, is suffering from PTSD and has lost an eye. The grimmer elements sit uneasily next to the comedic bits … or maybe Fraction’s more serious plot developments should make me feel uneasy; violence, death, and sinister plots shouldn’t be comfortable, perhaps, despite what a half-century of Marvel Comics have taught us. I can’t be sure.

Allred is one of my favorite artists, and I hate to complain. But … at some points in the story, neither the art nor words explain what is going on. Fraction has never been a writer who overexplained matters, and that’s certainly true in Fantastic Faux. Some of the information either isn’t important or can be gleaned from the text, like why the Fantastic Four started teaching these kids in the first place or what exactly Bentley-23 does to make Blastaar disappear. Some information, like who Darla Deering is, could have been communicated to the reader with a better introductory page, and that’s not Fraction’s fault. And being behind in Marvel continuity, I was just mystified by things like Black Bolt’s return from the dead and the Inhumans’ return from space.⁹⁴ That being said, the first volume of a series should explain things more fully, not leave readers wondering if they missed a previous volume.⁹⁵ A footnote or two would go a long way, for Odin’s sake.

And it’s not like a general audience is going to recognize this cast. She-Hulk, probably; Medusa, likely. But Scott Lang, the second Ant-Man, maaayyyyybe, although I’m not sure the words “Ant-Man” was ever used in the book, and he never gets near an ant. But no one knows who Darla Deering is, and the Thing costume she wears is an obscure bit of continuity. Among the students, some people will remember Leech and Artie, but that’s it. Aiming a book at established Marvel audiences limits your readership.

Some would say Fraction respects his audience’s intelligence, but there’s a limit to how much I need to be respected. Fraction’s unanswered questions make it hard to gauge what he intends in other parts of the book. The villainy of Fraction’s Doom does not seem to match previous depictions of the despot; in this book, his villainy is ignoble, resorting to stratagems a man of honor (as Doom frequently claims to be) would never use. But I don’t know whether Fraction intends this to be a different aspect of Doom’s character, an evolution for the Fantastic Four’s old foe, or whether this is a clue that Doom isn’t Doom.

Despite feeling like I entered the story in the middle, I enjoyed Fantastic Faux. Sometimes I had to fight to enjoy it, but the fight was worth it. Given how many loose ends the story had, though, I’m concerned about continuing with FF, since Fraction has announced he’s leaving with #11. Will the stories pay off? Will FF retain its sense of lunacy? Neither question affects Fantastic Faux’s grade, but it does affect whether I would recommend anyone start reading the series.

Rating: (4 of 5)

X-Factor, v. 6: Secret Invasion

Collects: X-Factor v. 3 #33-8 and She-Hulk v. 2 #31 (2008-9)

Released: May 2009 (Marvel)

Format: 168 pages / color / $19.99 / ISBN: 9780785128656

What is this?: X-Factor! She-Hulk! Skrulls! Darwin! Longshot! Try and contain yourself.

The culprits: Writer Peter David and penciler Larry Stroman (along with three others)

The math, at least, makes sense: She-Hulk is a second-tier title that had a reason to do a Secret Invasion (a subtle invasion by the shape-shifting aliens, the Skrulls) tie-in despite having little connection to the main plot. She-Hulk is written by Peter David. David also writes X-Factor. Since neither sell phenomenally well (She-Hulk has since been cancelled), make them cross over!

It makes sense, but the final answer, X-Factor, v. 6: Secret Invasion, doesn’t quite come out right. It’s a shame, really.

Jazinda, a Skrull, is She-Hulk’s sidekick. She and She-Hulk bull their way into Detroit (X-Factor’s new home town!), where the talisman of Skrull victory, a figure just below the Skrull gods, is hanging out, waiting for the war to begin (or end, perhaps). Why Detroit? you might ask. Why not Detroit? Not everything has to happen in New York … admittedly, everything does have to happen in America or within 100 miles of its northern border.

What’s amazing is what David manages to get out of the crossover. Admittedly, I expected nothing good to come of it, and he’s writing both ends of the story. But given how his story seems shoehorned into the cracks of the Secret Invasion event, it’s very readable. Not the plot, so much; that feels as if David said, “Plot? Who’s concerned about plot at this late stage in Secret Invasion?” No, it’s the characters that make the story readable and fun. The characterization of the X-Factor members doesn’t feel forced: it feels like a normal issue. The same goes for She-Hulk and Jazinda, although I’m not a big fan of Jazinda, and She-Hulk is in a “not playing well with others” stage. Darwin, introduced in Ed Brubaker’s wretched X-Men: Deadly Genesis, seems to flail around, but that seems to be his role: the person confused by everything as the plot revolves around them, and unable to do much about it.

What doesn’t help is Larry Stroman. He teamed up with David on his acclaimed ’90s X-Factor run. Unfortunately, it’s not the ‘90s any more, and his distorted style makes the characters look more like refugees from Marvel Apes, at times, than humans or Skrulls. It’s … not good, not good at all. Figures are distorted, exaggerated, twisted, and stripped of their differences, and not in a good way. It’s impossible for me to evaluate the work of Valentine de Landro, Nelson, and Vincenzo Cucca, who each contribute an issue; after Stroman’s work, anything looks good.

The second half of Secret Invasion is much better. The real Longshot, from Chris Claremont’s long X-Men run, is dropped into the cast, and the team’s reactions are both funny and spot on. The story is mainly an excuse to drop him and Darwin into the cast and see what happens; meanwhile, subplots aplenty advance satisfactorily, and there’s an unexpected twist at the end. Madrox’s development in particular is going in directions I didn’t expect.

Secret Invasion is a poor jumping-on point for new readers, not so much because it would leave them confused but because they would be put off by Stroman’s art or grow attached characters who might not be around for much longer (Darwin and Longshot). Even She-Hulk readers are unlikely, I think, to jump over to X-Factor, even if it’s continuing after She-Hulk has been cancelled. But it’s another of those books that reward the readers, the ones who are watching the development of the characters and appreciate all those character jokes.

The value of Secret Invasion lies not so much in its intrinsic qualities as it does in how Peter David manages to get excellent returns on a cast and idea I wouldn’t have bet would last a year. And that’s so amazing we lose track of how amazing it is.

Rating: (3 of 5)

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)

She-Hulk, v. 6: Jaded

Collects: She-Hulk #22-7 (2007-8)

Released: August 2008 (Marvel)

Format: 152 pages / color / $14.99 / ISBN: 9780785125631

I getting a bit weary and leery of direction changes on titles I enjoy.

I’ve made no secret of how much I enjoyed Dan Slott’s run on She-Hulk, and although I’m happy he has a high-profile job on Amazing Spider-Man, I have no interest in following him to a step backwards into Spider-Man’s development.

So for She-Hulk, v. 6: Jaded, the new writer is Peter David. David has a good track record, especially with titles that he can play tongue in cheek, and She-Hulk hasn’t been played straight for quite a while.

David introduces a new status quo, in which She-Hulk has been disbarred and is now working as a bounty hunter for a company affiliated with her old law firm. She’s teamed up with Jazinda, a Skrull bounty hunter on the run from her own race. It’s been a long time since I’ve been a fan of storylines that jump ahead weeks or months from the previous, leaving the reader to guess what happened, and Jaded doesn’t change my mind. David seems to be setting up the story of those missing events for another time, but that doesn’t help now.

All right — so that’s what I don’t like about the setup. Putting that aside — since some readers won’t be bothered at all — what about the actual story?

There’s two storylines. The first is a two-issue story setting up the new status quo. She-Hulk fights the Absorbing Man and the tiny Titania for two issues while Jazinda captures their quarry, the Absorbing Man’s cousin, and then they go back to their camper park home. It works well enough, setting aside my reservations; those who are willing to forget about Jen’s time at the law firm will probably find it entertaining in the usual Peter-David way. Jazinda’s characterization is definitely not human; even her daddy issues are alien.

The second half of Jaded (#25-7) holds the real meat of the argument. In #24, a man blows up a bar simply to annoy or ingratiate himself with She-Hulk, so she and Jazinda set out to Cleveland to bring him to justice. Or get revenge; She-Hulk has eschewed heroism, so it’s open to interpretation. Near Allentown, Pa., their camper is hit by a spaceship, which is piloted by a fugitive on the run from a Badoon bounty hunter. (I approve; you can never have enough Badoon.)

Without context, a lot of the story rings false. It’s hard to believe long-time Avenger / lawyer She-Hulk would be callous enough not to help someone on the run and begging for help or not at least be curious about a bounty hunter’s credentials. I also have trouble believing She-Hulk would be as cynical as she is portrayed about heroism, especially after saving people from the rubble of a demolished building earlier in the book. Jazinda is also a tough nut to crack, but I can accept her contradictions (pleas for mercy at the beginning turning to cold-blooded murder) as characterization rather than arbitrariness.

And the final issue is a legal battle. With She-Hulk handcuffed (metaphorically), she has to turn to old frenemies¹⁷ to get an innocent bystander in the fugitive / Badoon fight out of legal trouble. It connects to the previous two issues strongly, and it also it teases the story of the changes in She-Hulk’s life. The cameos are quick and effective, although with the appearance of one of She-Hulk’s legal colleagues, it seems to draw a line under the fact that the legal part of She-Hulk’s character won’t be seen much in the future.

I don’t have much to say on the art, although that shouldn’t be taken as a slight to the artists involved. Kevin Moll pencils the bulk of the book and does a good job. He seems to have a good handle on the character, cheesecake and all, and he can do action scenes, humor, and distortion well. Val Semeiks takes the final issue and also does a good job, although it’s distracting how much different his Jen Walters (She-Hulk’s human alter ego) looks compared with Moll’s.

The book is filled with typical Peter David humor, filled with banter and wordplay. That’s really the strength; if you’ve wanted to see David do another Hulk-ish story, you should be on this like green on gamma-radiation poisoning. If not … well, I plan to give David’s She-Hulk another chance and give him a chance to hook me once the more expository parts of the run are over.

But I’m generally a fan of David. Your mileage may vary, and I can’t say Jaded grabbed me enough to anticipate the next leg of She-Hulk’s journey.

Rating: (2 of 5)

She-Hulk, v. 4: Laws of Attraction

Collects: She-Hulk #6-13 (2007)

Released: February 2007 (Marvel)

Format: 192 pages / color / $14.99 / ISBN: 9780785122180

I’m not sure what there is to say about that I haven’t said before about writer Dan Slott’s She-Hulk work.

In v. 4, She-Hulk finds herself wrapped up in Civil War, and once again, Slott uses a great deal of continuity — but he uses it to give the stories richness and color rather than adding useless confusion. These unfamiliar with the ins and outs of of She-Hulk continuity — and that includes nearly everyone, really — or Civil War will have little trouble following the story. Slott makes sure the reader knows the backstory and adds the details with humor so informed readers aren’t bored. I consistently Marvel that Slott can tell stories in his lighthearted tone in Marvel’s grimmer and more political universe without a clash of styles, even poking fun at Marvel while doing it. (And getting the Spider-Man job to boot.

If there’s anything bad to say about this book, it’s the art — well, the number of different artists, at least. Any one style could have served the book, and two could have been tolerated. But perhaps to commemorate v. 4 of She-Hulk, there are four different pencilers in the space of seven issues: Will Conrad, Paul Smith, Ron Frenz (breakdowns, with finishes by Sal Buscema), and Rick Burchett. The Frenz / Buscema collaboration is my favorite — it appeals to my Buscema nostalgia — but Smith and Burchett fit the series quite well, being slightly reminiscent of Juan Bobillo. There’s nothing wrong with Conrads’s work, but it has a fiddly “realistic” look that I’ve never cared for. I will say I’m not fond of Greg Horn’s covers for this series, even if he’s lowered his cheesecake / port ratio for the series by quite a bit.

Well — what are you waiting for? Buy this book. If you’ve already got it, buy it again.

Rating: (4.5 of 5)

Essential Savage She-Hulk, v. 1

Collects: Savage She-Hulk #1-25 (1980-2)

Released: June 2006 (Marvel)

Format: 552 pages / black and white / $16.99 / ISBN: 0785123350

In the annals of Marvel, She-Hulk seems underappreciated. For a character who has been both an Avenger and a member of the Fantastic Four as well as having four solo series, rarely does anyone talk about the character. Sure, the second series, by John Byrne, is remember for being a humor series that broth the fourth wall and not much else, despite running X issues. The third and fourth series, written by Dan Slott are critically acclaimed but low sellers. And I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone talk about the first series, Savage She-Hulk.

Well, there’s a reason for that.

All 25 issues of Savage She-Hulk are collected in the Essential Savage She-Hulk, v. 1, which should satisfy anyone’s curiosity about the series. She-Hulk was created by Stan Lee and John Buscema, making her one of Lee’s last creations at Marvel.⁶ After the first issue, David Anthony Kraft and Mike Vosburg took over. Both do a workmanlike job, but there’s just no spark or life in the book.

The character of She-Hulk has several problems. A female derivative of an already established male character, She-Hulk was created for trademark protection — that is, to head off someone else using the name. She-Hulk reuses the Hulk’s schtick (savage persona hidden in shy personality) without the extreme violence, conflict, or scope of the Hulk. The latter is one of the biggest disappointments to me; I always like the Hulk’s aimless wandering, as if no place was big enough to hold him except the Earth itself, and that only barely. She-Hulk is tied to LA like Philip Marlowe.

The Essential Savage She-Hulk also lacks decent villains. The highs profile villain — actual villain, not just sparring partner — is Gemini, a member of the Zodiac. There are plenty of guest stars — Iron Man, Man Wolf, Man-Thing, Hellcat, Morbius, and Bruce Banner — but there are no threats the reader of the early ‘80s would deem credible (or anyone the modern reader would deem credible either). The back cover mentions that She-Hulk encounters Man Wolf, Man-Thing, and the Man-Elephant — and those are highlights. The villains aren’t even goofy enough to be endearing; Man-Elephant, for example, is just a guy who thinks elephant shaped armor (with weapons) is a reasonable idea to fight crime, but when he’s told his actions are irresponsible vigilantism, he agrees and quits wearing the armor.

She-Hulk’s main opponents are the Mob, which makes a lot of sense for She-Hulk’s altar ego, Jen Walters, but not so much for She-Hulk herself. She smashes whatever morons get in her way, and the bosses often try stupid super-science to stop her. They fail. What they really need is a better hiding place, not Iron Man’s castoff armor. She-Hulk’s lack of credible rogue’s gallery is used for laughs in the second issue of Slott’s She-Hulk series: when pressed for the names of those who would hurt her in her human form, She-Hulk comes up with Man-Elephant, Ultima, and Titania (twice).

The supporting cast is dull, dreadfully dull. Jen engages in the most tepid love triangle in Marvel’s history, with Jen between a Man-Thing castoff (loser Richard Rory) and the med student next door (“Zapper” Ridge). Neither has much of a personality. For some reason, Jen prefers Rory, while She-Hulk’s likes to jump Zapper’s bones. But Zapper has a Magnum moustache and an impressive ‘fro, so he gets the girl in the end.

Jen’s dad, LA County Sheriff Morris Walters, is a jerk; he won’t talk to his daughter about a bounced check, deciding to disown her instead. When her defense of Michael Morbius (“the Living Vampire”) leads to his conviction on involuntary manslaughter charges instead of first-degree murder, he acts as if Jen killed Morbius’s victims himself, saying he wishes she’d never have been born. Rounding off the cast is male chauvinist DA “Buck” Buckowsky, who eggs on the woman’s libber and generally is an ass.

There are altogether too many cheesecake shots of the She-Hulk. Whenever Jen transforms into She-Hulk, her dress is strategically torn in order to titillate; that’s artistic license, sure, but it’s always torn in the same way. I’m not saying Vosburg has an Amazon fetish, since Buscema drew the first issue and give the heroine a cheesecake design and a few “sexy” poses. But there are entirely too many panels where a green-skinned giant is meant to be an object of desire. I can’t decide whether the effect is better or worse in black and white.

This book is just below mediocre, but it isn’t bad enough to excite exceptional interest (like Street Poet Ray).

Rating: (1.5 of 5)