Special Guest Post - She-Hulk Review #1 by Eugene Liptak


Well here we are again. Another She-Hulk #1 has made its debut and questions abound about how these new adventures of Jennifer Walters will complement and contribute to her mythos. Writer Charles Soule best known for his current work on Swamp Thing, Thunderbolts, Red Lanterns, Inhumans, and Superman/Wonder Woman gives us a simple tale of shattered expectations, justice sought, and a new direction for our hero to travel. 

Despite her time spent with the Future Foundation and guest starring in other titles, Jen has managed to accomplish an incredible amount of work at the law firm that employs her. Yet her not-unreasonable hopes for a bonus are dashed by management and her disappointment compounded by the blunt revelation that she was hired for her super-powered connections, not her skills and experience. With a tap of her finger, Jen quits before finding herself aiding a widow with two young children in a patent dispute with Stark Industries. Despite her friendship with Tony Stark, Jen’s hope to quickly resolve the case with a chat is hindered by his ultra-efficient legal team and security robots. When her charm and legal abilities are stymied, Jen relies on brute strength to win the day, whereas the payoff allows her to go into private practice.

Soule does not waste words nor space with the dialogue, and the wordcount alone makes this issue feel like a bargain at $2.99. Soule’s profession as a lawyer suits him well in crafting an engaging legal drama that highlights the quagmire of litigation without bogging the reader down in the details. One wonders how well he would do in a legal debate with Dan Slott over Superhuman Law. Apparently Jen will forgo her human form for the time being, yet this does not mean her wardrobe will get a reprieve any time soon.


Although Jen’s legal skills are not new to readers, the parade of upcoming guest stars and Jen working for herself for the first time makes one eagerly await the second issue to see where Soule will take her next. Artist Javier Pulido’s She-Hulk is an acquired taste. His depiction of Jen comes across as a very tall and slender gamma powered Ali MacGraw. Her facial expressions convey well her reactions to the events surrounding her, yet she appears more visually appealing at a distance than close up. The backgrounds are richly detailed with Muntsa Vicente’s colours that make Jen’s world warm and inviting. The page layouts invokes the current Hawkeye title, and while that format will not work for every Marvel character, it choreographs Jen’s gigantic frame nicely. One hopes the artistic team does not take offence if fans do not object to guest artists contributing to the series from time to time. 

The issue concludes with a display of all the variant covers (usually reserved for the trade paperback) and the introduction of the “Legal Briefs” letters page where readers can submit their thoughts and questions to the editors. The news that the series will have at least 12 issues of standalone adventures tied to an overall story arc gives hope that this title will have some longevity. Now if you excuse me, I have to send an email to “Legal Briefs” on when Wasp will drop by.

Eugene Liptak is a librarian and author. His next book “World War II US Navy Special Warfare Units” will be published in October 2014 by Osprey Publishing.

Comments

  1. Thanks for a great review, it's always good when Jen gets a series. And I'm all for a Jan/Jen team-up!

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  2. This definitely piqued my curiosity. I didn't care for the Dan Slott version, but I've enjoyed the most recent iteration of Jen in FF which made me feel there was still untapped potential in the character. I'll have to check this series out.

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    1. I loved the Slott version, and while Jen was good in FF, she was awfully underused.

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  3. I agree with your statement that Pulido's work is an acquired taste. I flipped through the book
    Wednesday and decided against picking it up, mainly because I just wasn't digging the look they went with.

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    1. I'm not terribly keen on the too-big features Pulido gives Jen, but in sure he could make me happier by tweaking her head a size or two.

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  4. I would love to see the day when Jennifer Walters(in her human form) gets to compare notes with her old pal Peter Parker.

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    1. That's be fun, perhaps it'll happen after Peter comes back - April is it?

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  5. The book is definitely a lot of fun (I gave it a 9 out of 10 on AIPT and it was my book of the week), with good characterization, fun humor, and an enjoyable done in one story. My only problem was with the art, where it fits the tone it just doesn't work well with me. Jen's eyes often look like they are looking in two different direction for instance.

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    1. I'm glad it's not just me who has a problem with the face - mind, rather this than a house style.

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  6. I enjoyed this a lot and will be coming back for more. I didn't have any problem with the art.

    I thought the Wasp was currently dead. When did she resurface?

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    1. Back in 2012, she'd instinctively shrunk into the Microverse, or something!

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  7. I absolutely loved this first issue. I approached it with trepidation because, well, I thought it couldn't get better than the Slott series, and, in interviews, Soule sounded like his approach would be similar. While I do think the runs are going to bear similarity, it seems that Soule's will be less overtly jokey, and if subsequent issues play out like this one, I may end up like this run more than Slott's.

    What most impresses me about the art is the panel layouts and overall composition. This is a text-heavy issue, but it never feels like the words and the art are competing for attention, and the panel layout on some pages, lke the page on which Tony tells Jen she's magnificent, are just spot-on awesome. I only have 4 titles on my pull list because I tend to not want to be committed to sudden creative shifts that are dreadful; however, I just added a 5th.

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    1. Thanks for the comments Frank. Now I'm a little curious - what are the other four titles on your pull list?

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    2. Hey Mart!

      Saga, Astro City, Hawkeye, and, yes, Wonder Woman. And now She-Hulk. :-)

      I've had others on my pull list, but comics I ask to get pulled tend to get cancelled, like Demon Knights, Secret Six, and Gotham Central (if we were to step back in time, titles like Vext, Chase, & Aztek). Or they just end as they were originally intended, like Y the Last Man and Starman.

      I buy more comics than I have pulled; I like the freedom of bowing out in times of awfulness or times that I'm just not particularly interested, like the stuff currently going on with JLA. I'll probably pick up the Metal Men issue ('cause hey, it's the Metal Men!), but this whole Johns-driven Forever Evil event is boring me to pieces and the Nu-52 JLA doesn't have enough legs for me to want to read a title in which the central characters aren't actually appearing for many issues in a row. Maybe I'll get it in trade, but I'm more likely to check it out of the library.

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    3. Ah Frank, such great taste. I didn't know you were still reading Wonder Woman, I wonder who the new creative team will be.

      I was enjoying Hawkeye, but the irregular schedule, the rambling and constantly interrupted Death of Grills story, the increasing reliance on gimmicks and the awful art on the annual have soured me somewhat. I'm still buying, that's something, I suppose.

      Action Comics and Daredevil, they're just great, have you tried them? Sorry, you can treat this question as rhetorical, otherwise you'll never escape this place!

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