Peter David Closes The Book On One Incarnation Of She-Hulk With She-Hulk Volume 9: Lady Liberators!

The Good: Good banter, Excellent morality, Much of the artwork, Initially engaging plot
The Bad: Abrupt end, Some of the artwork
The Basics: She-Hulk Volume 9: Lady Liberators is a fine end to this chapter of She-Hulk as the heroine teams up with other powerful women to do right and save her friend!


For a while with my blogging, I would pick a hero or heroine for my graphic novel studies and would devote a year to truly immersing myself in that subject. A few years ago, I wanted a compelling female subject and when I put out feelers, my blog readers actually helped influence me. That was the beginning of my She-Hulk Year and She-Hulk turned out to be a pleasant surprise for me, even though over the course of my She-Hulk Year, I was not able to get in nearly as many volumes as I would have hoped. Since then, though, I have tracked down some of the lingering books and She-Hulk has been one of the few characters I have enjoyed catching up on. Of course, as it frequently happens, just when I discover a character in a good arc, the arc ends and such is how it is for me with She-Hulk Volume 9: Lady Liberators.

She-Hulk Volume 9: Lady Liberators represents the end of She-Hulk's journey right before the Marvel Now! reboot of the Marvel Universe. I found my joy in discovering Peter David was writing She-Hulk came right before the title ended and it is hard not to feel bad for David; he came in right as Marvel was reworking its own universe, at the end of a successful run that left many dangling plot and character elements up in the air and when David or the Powers That Be at Marvel Comics were looking to take the title in a different direction, which had She-Hulk as a part of a team of powerful super heroes. She-Hulk Volume 9: Lady Liberators explores She-Hulk as a component of a team dynamic as she spends the book working with Valkyrie, Invisible Woman (Sue Storm), Thundra, and Jazinda, the Skrull bounty hunter Jennifer Walters befriended before the Secret Invasion crossover event when the Skrull were exposed on Earth. She-Hulk Volume 9: Lady Liberators tells a story that deals with the lingering effects of the Secret Invasion (and Jazinda's continued presence on Earth in its aftermath), She-Hulk's affiliation with the Lady Liberators, and works to wrap-up the lingering solo-She-Hulk threads before the title got cancelled. The book deals with those various threads with impressive results.

Peter David opens She-Hulk Volume 9: Lady Liberators with Jennifer Walters considering God and there is something to be said about David's quality as a writer in general when he can open an graphic novel with effective use of quotes from Voltaire and Mark Twain at the outset of his own, original work. Walters is a good character to use to make such allusions as she is an educated woman, with a strong scientific and legal background . . . who would feel that if there is a divine presence, it is probably somewhat demented and doles out karmic balance with a terrible sense of irony. So, having a calamity come shortly after Jazinda has survived her long-dreaded confrontation with her father (the Super-Skrull) and after She-Hulk and Jazinda have recovered their stolen R.V. to continue their skip-tracing bounty hunting, is a clever star and makes for an instantly engaging read.

Jennifer Walters trolls for work at Freeman Bonding and, after getting a critique on the Lady Liberators super-hero squad from Emilee (he boss there), she and Jazinda decide to go to the earthquake ravaged nation of Marinmer to help with the rescue effort. Marinmer has a repressive government and the U.S. Government refuses to intervene, so Walters convenes the Lady Liberators to go and help on the ground. With Jazinda bringing in transport, the quintet heads to Marinmer to get the aid that has been sent there to the citizens who need it the most. But when Marinmer's President-For-Life Darqon Par calls in the Winter Guard, the fight between Russia's Avengers and the Lady Liberators nearly costs both sides their lives. But when citizens of Marinmer arrive at the scene of the fight, She-Hulk is able to make a rhetorical argument to stop the Red Guardian.

But as the rescue efforts get underway, Darqon Par calls for She-Hulk and she separates from her friends to try to uncover his true agenda. While discussing his reign, Sue Storm abruptly appears and falls unconscious and Darqon Par reveals the nature of his trap; the burning candles have releases a knockout toxin and even Jennifer Walters is susceptible. But before Sue and Jen can be raped by Darqon Par, Jazinda arrives for the rescue and the solution she and She-Hulk come up with allows them to both be proud of the results. But upon returning to the United States, Jennifer Walters is taken into custody by the Justice Department and must rely upon Mallory Book to secure her release. While Jennifer Walters gets an offer from Book, Jazinda assumes her identity in the trailer park and begins a hunt for a villain who broke bail . . . running into another villain with a vendetta in the process!

Peter David has a great handle on dialogue and that comes through immediately in She-Hulk Volume 9: Lady Liberators. While one might get the feeling that Emilee's comments early on in She-Hulk Volume 9: Lady Liberators are the result of a creative argument David himself lost with Marvel Comics (why not call the group the Liberators? It's pretty obvious they are all women!) and tackling the idea that She-Hulk's super-hero group might just be a teenager's masturbatory fantasy early on by ridiculing the idea of the group as simply the "bod squad" frees up the rest of the volume for character study, witty dialogue and an actual story. But right off the bat as Valkyrie has to coax her horse and Thundra laments Jen not being a lesbian, She-Hulk Volume 9: Lady Liberators is a fun read.

More than just being fun, She-Hulk Volume 9: Lady Liberators promotes a higher standard of ethics than most graphic novels and it is refreshing to see. While there are moments that David is a bit heavyhanded pointing out (through Walters) that natural disasters seldom get international intervention unless oil is involved and there are a few dated references (like a Cheney hunting joke), for the most part, She-Hulk Volume 9: Lady Liberators finds absolutely the right balance between an ethical argument and super-hero buttkicking.

For a writer as talented as Peter David, there is something odd about the way the author does not use the word "rape" in the book. Perhaps it is a Comics Code thing, but Jennifer Walters is tied down to a bed, spread-eagled (albeit dressed) when President Darqon Par comes in to rape her repeatedly, with the threat to Sue Storm being the very same . . . yet every sentence that seems to be leading there gets cut before the character can acknowledge explicitly that the man was about to rape the women.

That said, She-Hulk Volume 9: Lady Liberators holds up remarkably well on its own, without any strong prior knowledge of where She-Hulk has been to understand everything that is going on (though Mallory Book's role is certainly enhanced by reading prior volumes, the context clues are enough to get casual readers by).

The artwork in She-Hulk Volume 9: Lady Liberators is erratic with many of the panels being beautiful, with clear depictions of the characters involved and a decent sense of movement to them. Some, however, are simple and a couple of panels with head shots of Sue Storm and Valkyrie feature virtually interchangeable likenesses. Outside a few times when the hair colors are a bit close, all of the coloring in She-Hulk Volume 9: Lady Liberators is wonderful.

At the end, She-Hulk Volume 9: Lady Liberators makes the reader wish that She-Hulk had been more like this volume all along and wish for more. Alas, it was not to be and the abrupt ending of the book feels like a kick to the crotch for anyone who enjoys reading a story that includes an intriguing super hero team led by a formidable, wisecracking leader with an intriguing backstory and amazing abilities!

For other She-Hulk books from this period in Jennifer Walter's life, please visit my reviews of:
Single Green Female
Superhuman Law
Time Trials
Laws Of Attraction
Planet Without A Hulk
Jaded
Here Today
Secret Invasion

8/10

For other book reviews, please check out my Graphic Novel Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2016 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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She-Hulk Volume 7: Here Today Completes The Dangling Storylines Before The Next Big Event!

The Good: Good character elements, Most of the artwork
The Bad: Short, Does not stand on its own well, Mixed artwork in the one-shot
The Basics: She-Hulk Volume 7: Here Today would have been much more effective a work had it simply been folded into the prior volume.


Despite the popular terminology, there are actually very few, true, graphic novels. Most "graphic novels" are actually trade anthologies that are merely collections of previously-published comic books, without their advertisement pages. The difference is an important one and one of my pet peeves in recent years has been in watching how trade paperback anthologies are compiled from the comic books. In addition to major storylines that keep fidelity to the original releases, as opposed to the story - i.e. integral chapters that are in multiple titles are separated by title, as opposed to the overall storyline - there are often problematic compilations that are in no way organic to the story being told. She-Hulk Volume 7: Here Today is one such anthology.

She-Hulk Volume 7: Here Today is a compilation of only three comic books and a non-related one-shot (She-Hulk: Cosmic Collision) and it is not nearly enough to hold its own as its own book. The three chapter story picks up where Peter David's tenure on She-Hulk left off with Volume 6: Jaded (reviewed here!) and one has to wonder why (outside profit motive from Marvel Comics) the chapters were kept out of the previous volume. After all, Jaded left off with a pretty huge dangling story element what was unresolved. She-Hulk Volume 7: Here Today completes the incomplete plotline and fills in the important character gap from Peter David's start and the She-Hulk volumes that preceded his tenure.

Following the trail of Bran, Jennifer Walters is arrested in Cleveland, hours after her last incarceration. Flashing back, Walters and Jazinda learn that Bran Murphy is at a Cleveland Browns game and track him to the stadium. When cornered, Bran throws She-Hulk, much to her surprise. Bran is guarding Mr. Moore and claims to have never been to New York City when She-Hulk vows to take him back to stand for his crimes. Moore believes that She-Hulk has been sending him death threats for his part in getting her disbarred two months prior. While Walters tells her story to her cellmate, Bran gets Arthur Moore's story of the past few months and takes action of his own.

Walters's incarceration ends when she is visited by George Wanamaker, who cuts a deal with She-Hulk. Moore has been killed and the logical suspect is Bran, who is now super-sized and rampaging through Cleveland. Walters assists Hercules in stopping Bran, while Jazinda visits Murphy's wife and discovers the truth about Bran. Defeating the current incarnation of the Celtic demigod leads to answers and Walters hooking up with Hercules right before Jazinda senses the presence of the Talisman on Earth.

The book concludes with a one-shot, which has She-Hulk and Jazinda working with the Lady Liberators. Jennifer Walters and Jazinda are hunting a minor criminal, Captain Feral, when they are attacked by the vastly-powerful Unum. They are teleported away, Walters to the Lady Liberators (Thundra, Sue Richards, Valyrie, and Storm), while Jazinda finds herself among aliens like Gamora and Mantis. The two teams break through the barrier separating them from one another when they are attacked again by Unum, the embodiment of Enmity.

The flashback to explain Jennifer Walters's disbarment makes Mallory Book's appearance two chapters prior make a lot more sense and the lack of the story in the prior volume make no narrative sense. Walters was working at Goodman, Lieber, Kurtzbery & Book when Moore, also known as Dark Art, hired her to defend him in court (while promising to destroy She-Hulk later). The idea that the Marvel Civil War event kept powerful heroes from noticing important crimes being perpetrated against humans is a very clever one and it motivates Jennifer Walters to rage against Dark Art and break attorney/client privilege after kicking his ass. She-Hulk Volume 7: Here Today puts the character elements for She-Hulk and Jazinda together well, but they do not stand at all well on their own as a coherent story.

She-Hulk Volume 7: Here Today is also hampered by some ridiculous comic book dialogue. Even Peter David cannot sell likes like "Sod you and your facts" and ". . . no blessed idea what you're talking about."

While the three main chapters of She-Hulk Volume 7: Here Today have recognizable characters and impressive coloring, that is not consistent throughout. She-Hulk Volume 7: Here Today is plagued by erratic artwork from the main story to one-shot, which has many panels that are not as detailed.

Ultimately, She-Hulk Volume 7: Here Today is not bad, it is incomplete and so heavily dependent upon other works that it cannot effectively stand on its own.

For other She-Hulk books from this period in Jennifer Walter's life, please visit my reviews of:
Single Green Female
Superhuman Law
Time Trials
Laws Of Attraction
Planet Without A Hulk
Secret Invasion

4/10

For other book reviews, please check out my Graphic Novel Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2016 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Peter David Makes She-Hulk Into A Buddy Dramedy With Jaded!

The Good: Good character development, Artwork, Much of the plot
The Bad: Lack of plot resolution/subplot that goes nowhere, Artwork for Jennifer Walters at the end of the book.
The Basics: She-Hulk Volume 6: Jaded finds Jennifer Walter making another big life transition after she loses all of her friends and allies and teams up with a Skrull.


I grew up reading the Star Trek novels of Peter David and his writing style was part of what encouraged me to become a writer. So, as my tastes have grown and changed and I have gotten into different franchises or characters, I am always excited when I find works by Peter David in the new thing I'm into. As I continue to revisit She-Hulk - my She-Hulk Year gave me a real appreciation for the character! - I was pretty psyched to see that Peter David had a stint as head writer for the She-Hulk comic book for a while. The first anthology of his works as writer for the continuing story of Jennifer Walters is She-Hulk Volume 6: Jaded, a book that follows She-Hulk's life after the events of Civil War (reviewed here!).

David picks up the story of Jennifer Walters at a potentially awkward place. Walters is without a job, without any recognizable allies and she has essentially renounced her position as a super-hero. As a simple narrative device, it makes perfect sense that She-Hulk Volume 6: Jaded would feature some new characters and that Jennifer Walters would need a sidekick. Lacking a sidekick, David would have been forced to resort to extended external narration (the comic book equivalent of voiceovers) or the inorganic technique of having the protagonist talk to herself the whole time. Jennifer Walters's sidekick, Jazinda, is a surprisingly strong addition to the character's narrative, which helps make She-Hulk Volume 6: Jaded instantly intriguing and readable.

Jennifer Walters has left her life as a lawyer (and as an Avenger) behind and is now working as a skip tracer for F.B.I. (Freeman Bonding, Inc.). Rockwell Davis, Hi-Lite, attempts a museum heist when a guard walks in and has a heart attack. Unwilling to let the guard die, Davis saves the guard's life and is captured by the police, but goes on the lam before his trial begins. Walters hunts Davis down in Minnesota, but before she can take him away, Davis's cousin, Carl Creel (the Absorbing Man) arrives to take on Walters. She-Hulk is beset both by Creel and Titania, who is in a miniaturized form, pounding away at her eardrum. She-Hulk's fight with Creel takes them through the Mall Of America where She-Hulk has to rely upon her partner, who appears to be Jennifer Walters, for back-up.

She-Hulk's partner is Jazinda, a Skrull, and together they bring Davis to Brooklyn. Despite problems with F.B.I.'s insurance provider, Walters gets paid and goes out to a bar, where she meets Bran. While she is immediately attracted to Bran, she is thrown when his flirting quickly transitions into him setting off a bomb. Returning to the trailer park after saving as many lives as she can, Walters and Jazinda identify Bran and begin a hunt for him. En route, Jennifer and Jazinda are waylaid by an alien ship which is carrying a Froma, a green alien from a Gamma Radiation-saturated planet, who mistakes Walters for a relative. Cazon convinces Jazinda to help him escape the bounty hunters who are after him, but in the process she discovers he is the killer he is accused of being. She-Hulk fights the bounty hunter who is hunting Cazon, until the truth is revealed. In dealing with the consequences of that fight, Jennifer Walters finds herself forced to turn to the life she rejected for resolution.

She-Hulk Volume 6: Jaded works well because the characters are interesting and the book has a decent grounding in very relatable human morality. Even the first villain has a decent sense of ethics to him. Davis puts the human life of a guard over the potential profit he would make stealing the (potentially) Holy Grail. The morality adds a sense of character to an otherwise flat character (and gives readers the hope that Peter David still has his wry wit to him in that he immediately calls out the potential plot hole of a guy stealing the Holy Grail, but giving his inadvertent victim CPR).

The moralization and sense of loss for the protagonist is well-executed. Instead of seeming melodramatic, She-Hulk Volume 6: Jaded finds Jennifer Walters dealing with the full weight of her recent decisions and experiencing loss that is not simply overcome. Even as she explicitly rejects being a superhero, Walters chides Davis for risking his mother's house when he breaks his bail. Walter's attitude when saving Park from the bombed out rubble is equally heroic and moral; she spends She-Hulk Volume 6: Jaded trying to do the right thing, without judging the quality of the people she is attempting to keep safe.

The reveal of Jazinda is fun. Jazinda is a pretty cool character, where her alien nature allows her to get away with monstrous actions, like telling Roz's father that she is dead. There is an initial frustrating aspect to Jazinda's alien biology, but David smartly plays it to the point where it might become unbearable before rewarding the patient reader with making her abilities sensible and the source of future conflict. Jazinda and Walters play off one another well and David writes their banter well and their conflict with psychoanalyzing one another equally well.

While Jazinda is cool, she acts as a medium for the somewhat lamer subplot surrounding the new character Roz, from the trailer park, and her family. She-Hulk Volume 6: Jaded further confuses the reader by immediately throwing in a different troubled married couple to add another subplot. These extra characters are much like the fairly generic villains in She-Hulk Volume 6: Jaded. Carl Creel is written in She-Hulk Volume 6: Jaded as an utterly generic adversary for She-Hulk and I only appreciated his appearance at all because I recognized his character from the Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. episode "Shadows" (reviewed here!). Similarly, Titania's vengeful attitude toward She-Hulk is alluded to without a single example of past wrongs done to her. That makes her appear as unremarkable an enemy as Cazon.

Despite some weak adversarial characters, there is much to recommend She-Hulk Volume 6: Jaded. The artwork in the book features wonderful coloring throughout. While the last chapter's rendition of Jennifer Walters looks very little like the rendition in the first chapter (she suddenly has brown hair, reminiscent of the human corpse from the prior chapter!), most of the book the characters are recognizable. The book has a low sense of movement and some of the book seems rushed in that regard. For example, a single panel is used to indicate a space ship is spiraling down and out of control.

Ultimately, though, She-Hulk Volume 6: Jaded is an enjoyable read which encourages readers to look back into the character of Jennifer Walters and find her journey compelling once again.

For other She-Hulk books from this period in Jennifer Walter's life, please visit my reviews of:
Single Green Female
Superhuman Law
Time Trials
Laws Of Attraction
Planet Without A Hulk
Secret Invasion

7/10

For other book reviews, please check out my Graphic Novel Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2016 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Captain America Hijacks She-Hulk: Disorderly Conduct!

The Good: Moments of concept and character
The Bad: Unremarkable artwork, Story has little to do with She-Hulk, Abrupt resolution
The Basics: Jennifer Walters resolves her cases after a brief, pointless adventure in She-Hulk: Disorderly Conduct.


Recently, I picked up and read, She-Hulk: Law And Disorder (reviewed here!) and I was generally pleased with the new direction of She-Hulk's storyline. The general quality of that book was what encouraged me to pick up She-Hulk: Disorderly Conduct. Unfortunately, She-Hulk: Disorderly Conduct seems an odd combination of random and rushed. The afterward in the trade paperback anthology confirms what one reading of She-Hulk: Disorderly Conduct suggests: writer Charles Soule was leaving the title after a year of writing She-Hulk and needed to wrap up his time on the book.

She-Hulk: Disorderly Conduct reads like a book that was randomly going forth right before it abruptly comes into sharp focus. The book is comprised of three adventures that feature Jennifer Walters/She-Hulk and they continue the basic format from Law And Disorder with Jennifer Walters running her own law firm, using Hellcat for undercover work and employing Angie and her pet monkey as a paralegal.

Opening with Jennifer Walters witnessing a new form of miniaturization technology, She-Hulk and Hellcat are drawn into a case between two scientists feuding with one another about selling the miniaturization technology they have developed. One of the scientists has miniaturized himself in an attempt to keep their work from being sold by the other partner. Jennifer and Patsy track down Hank Pym and enlist his aid in recovering the missing inventor in an attempt to keep the unstable miniaturization technology from causing serious damage to other people!

Jennifer returns to the office to discover that Steve Rogers needs legal representation. He is being sued out in California for Wrongful Death thanks to a deathbed confession from someone who knew him ninety years ago. As Jennifer prepares the case, she is dismayed to discover that Captain America does not want to fight the case on a technicality. Instead, the legal team has to fight the case on its merits and as the case goes to trial, Walters discovers her adversary in the courtroom will be none other than Matt Murdock! Following the trip to California, the Blue File resurfaces and Walters, Hellcat, and Angie encounter a villain who altered the nature of reality, including She-Hulk's memory!

She-Hulk: Disorderly Conduct is a very basic book without much in the way of genuine character development and little real spark. From the moment Steve Rogers appears in She-Hulk: Disorderly Conduct, his case monopolizes the storyline and much of that section of the book is retelling stories set in the distant past and it kills what little momentum the book developed. As well, the Hank Pym story starts the book as a complete non-sequitor and Hank Pym and the gimmick of miniaturization dominate the book.

That said, despite the lack of character development in She-Hulk: Disorderly Conduct, the volume ends well by revisiting the Blue File. The mystery behind the altered memories of various heroes interviewed in the prior book is revealed in a generally interesting way.

The best that can be said of the book's climax is "generally interesting" because of the artwork. The art in She-Hulk: Disorderly Conduct is largely simplistic and the flow of the panels is awkward. The fight, for example, with Titania is laid out in an inorganic way and the artwork depicting the truth of the events in the Blue File is not of a quality that actually tells the story using both the language and visual mediums effectively.

The result is that She-Hulk: Disorderly Conduct feels like a collection of comic books more than a single, quality, anthologized story and it is one of the books that fans can afford to pass by.

For other She-Hulk books, please visit my reviews of:
The Sensational She-Hulk
Single Green Female
The Avengers: The Search For She-Hulk
Superhuman Law
Time Trials
Laws Of Attraction
She-Hulk: Planet Without A Hulk
Fall Of The Hulks: The Savage She-Hulks
Red She-Hulk, Volume 2: Route 616
Marvel Her-oes

3/10

For other book reviews, please check out my Book Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2016 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Entertaining, But Not Enlightening: She-Hulk: Law And Disorder!

The Good: A fast read, Funny, Engaging characters
The Bad: Simplistic, Poor artwork for a big chunk of the book!
The Basics: She-Hulk: Law And Disorder is a fun comic book anthology, but it lacks the weight of genuine significance or complicated characters.


Both Marvel Comics and DC Comics have undergone reboots in the last few years, which has altered continuity of some of their major franchises. As a reader and reviewer, that has left me a bit wary of continuing with many of the beloved characters I've enjoyed from Marvel and DC. Still, with the latest Marvel Now! She-Hulk books suddenly coming my way, I figured it was worth it to check in on one of the Marvel characters I had devoted a year to. Ironically, with picking up and reading She-Hulk: Law And Disorder, I was treated to the Marvel Now! versions of two of my prior characters: She-Hulk and Daredevil!

Despite the reboots, She-Hulk: Law And Disorder depicts She-Hulk as remarkably unchanged by things like M-Day, changes to the Fantastic Four, and whatever other major events have recently befallen the Marvel Comic Book Universe continuity. She-Hulk tends to be a title that blends fun and humor with engaging stories, most of which blend super heroes and legal matters and She-Hulk: Law And Disorder maintains that trend.

Jennifer Walters has been working for the law firm of Paine & Luckberg for a year when she is called in for her annual evaluation. Expecting a big bonus based on her billable hours, she is shocked when she is hit with bad news of how the partners believe she is underperforming (based on her not bringing any business in from her super hero billionaire friends). Seeing her future at the firm limited, she quits, goes out to a lawyer bar and runs into a woman who has been hitting up every lawyer in the place, trying to get justice for her dead husband. Walters takes the case when she sees it is against Tony Stark and she thinks with a single conversation she can resolve the matter. Unfortunately for her, she is mired in a conflict with Stark's "Legal" (the representative of Stark's empire who is essentially a slimy lawyer who acts as a gatekeeper for Stark). When Jennifer gets evidence that Stark's people did steal her client's repulsor technology, she cuts a deal with Tony Stark and the resulting payment from her client allows her to open up shop in an undesireable part of Brooklyn that she can afford.

After hiring Angie, a strange woman with a monkey who seems to have the abilities of a Pusher, Jennifer goes out for a drink and runs into Patsy Walker (Hellcat), who is having a pretty bad go of things. Patsy gets drunk and she and Walters go out an knock over a little A.I.M. lab before Walters hires Patsy to be her private investigator for the firm. Soon, they have a case when Kristoff Vernard arrives and wants to defect from Latveria, where his father (Victor Von Doom) is forcing him to become the country's absolute ruler. Walters protects her client long enough to get him to a hearing, but then discovers that protecting him from Doctor Doom is a bigger task than just a legal matter. After that, Walters begins looking into the sole file she took with her from Paine & Luckberg; the blue file, which is a lawsuit in which she is named. When Walters, Angie, and Walker start looking into the content of the case, they uncover a bizarre mind-control trigger that leaves Walters questioning what has happened to her in the past and what has been removed from her memory!

Jennifer Walters remains a consistent character, regardless of the apparent reboot of other big events in the Marvel Comic Book Universe. She is a smart lawyer and her creativity with the law is shown a little bit in Law And Disorder. Beyond that, she is wry and delightfully sarcastic. Writer Charles Soule plays that well with Walters and makes her well-rounded between her professional and super-hero lives.

Soule also deserves a lot of credit for writing Angie so effectively. Without explicitly stating it in Law And Disorder, there is something seriously off about Angie. People do what she tells them to and the "pusher" aspect to her sets up an interesting potential for subsequent volumes. And the relationship between Angie and Hei Hei - her monkey - is just weird . . . in a good way.

The art in Law And Disorder is fine for a few of the chapters, but then degenerates quickly. The last two issues that are part of the anthology are absolute shit for lines and perspective. They look like one of my drawings and I once had a traveling art exhibition called "An Argument For A Novelist To Stick To Writing!" Even the quality of the coloring takes a dive in the latter part of the book, which is a severe disappointment, given how bold the colors are at the book's outset.

Ultimately, Law And Disorder is entertaining, but does not have an enduring quality to it. While Kristoff's section clearly makes a statement that even being forced to rule a country is inhibiting freedom, it is not the most powerful example of a human rights violation. The result is a volume that is entertaining at best.

For other She-Hulk books, please visit my reviews of:
The Sensational She-Hulk
Single Green Female
The Avengers: The Search For She-Hulk
Superhuman Law
Time Trials
Laws Of Attraction
She-Hulk: Planet Without A Hulk
Fall Of The Hulks: The Savage She-Hulks
Red She-Hulk, Volume 2: Route 616
Marvel Her-oes

6/10

For other book reviews, please check out my Book Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2015 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Enter At The (Apparent) End: Red She-Hulk: Route 616

The Good: Artwork is all right, Plot progresses
The Bad: Dialogue lacks flow, No real character development
The Basics: Red She-Hulk: Route 616 is the conclusion to the Marvel Now! Red She-Hulk story . . . and it feels like they gave up on her before the book ended!


In my study of various super heroes, there were none that I was surprised to find I enjoyed reading as much as She-Hulk. Far from living down to my fear that the book would just be a "Hulk, smash!" series with a female protagonist, I quickly found I enjoyed how some writers played with Jennifer Walters as a protagonist and gave her a quirky, interesting voice and story. So, I felt pretty safe in picking up a Red She-Hulk book, Red She-Hulk: Route 616. That, as it turned out, was a wrong move.

Red She-Hulk: Route 616 might well be my first Marvel Now! trade paperback anthology and it seems that I came in at the end of the story of Betty Ross. Betty Ross is the Marvel Now! (and maybe before, I'm not fluent in Red She-Hulk) Red She-Hulk and given where the story ends and the notes at the end of the volume, it seems like it was the end of the title. In fact, it reads like it is. I cannot recall ever having to read a graphic novel twice just because I was so confused that I was missing something. Obviously, I am missing something; the content of the sixty-two issues of Red She-Hulk that precede the story in Red She-Hulk: Route 616 (which anthologizes issues 63 - 67). But my issue was not with content, it was with flow. Jeff Parker's writing seems very fractured and the book reads like it was assembled from an awkward series of cuts (for example, in the second chapter, Red She-Hulk is looking at a pyramid from a bit of a distance in one panel and the next, she is tearing into it . . . with no sense of how she got from one location to the other, with no sense of discovery or reason in trying to find a way into the pyramid). In short, Red She-Hulk: Route 616 feels like a cancelled show where the writers were given an episode to wrap everything up and the staff didn't actually care to produce the last episode well.

On the story front, Route 616 picks up very much in the middle of a story, though the opening summary and the "panel discussion" from a television show are enough to instantly bring new readers (like me!) up to speed. Betty Ross is the Red She-Hulk, who seems to have three states - Betty Ross, Red She-Hulk (minor) and full hulked-out Red She-Hulk (who barely ever makes an appearance). Betty Ross spends most of her time as a fairly controlled Red She-Hulk and she is accompanied by an X-51 android named Aaron Stack. The story begins with the pair hunting Nikola Tesla (who is an Artificial Intelligence in this iteration), because he has abducted a girl who serves as the processor for a machine that is going to bring about the apocalypse. So, Red She-Hulk and Aaron Stack are on the run from S.H.I.E.L.D.

Exposed to the general populace while at a diner, Betty Ross transforms into the Red She-Hulk, which alerts S.H.I.E.L.D. to her general presence. Aaron Stack steals a car for the pair and they once again flee. The S.H.I.E.L.D. team of Echelon-based supersoldiers does not take very long to track the pair down and while Red She-Hulk defeats the S.H.I.E.L.D. team, she and Stack are literally forced underground. There, they encounter the mole people and their search for Tesla takes them to an underground pyramid that is filled with futuristic technology. But Tesla outwits the pair and when they return to the surface, they discover reality is falling apart around them.

Trapped at Mt. Rushmore in an alternate or near-future, where Dr. Doom, Red Skull, Ultron, and Loki are carved into the side of the mountain, Red She-Hulk and Stack struggle to defeat the reconstructions of the Four Horsemen. They are only successful after all images merge into a superbeing and Stack unwittingly sets the new villain on the world at large! Still, the encounter leaves them with a clear destination: the Florida Everglades. There, they find Man-Thing, who takes them on a trippy journey through hundreds of realities for no clear reason until they manage to get back to their proper universe where everything wraps up surprisingly fast.

Red She-Hulk: Route 616 is not at all high literature and it is a remarkably unsatisfying read. Pursued by S.H.I.E.L.D., Jennifer Walters unwittingly aids the adversaries of Red She-Hulk by helping the supernatural law enforcement agency figure out her frequency. While Red She-Hulk is characterized by others as a master of hiding because she knows the military's playbook for pursuit, that is never actually shown in the book. Red She-Hulk does not evade S.H.I.E.L.D.; she is just hell-bent on her own mission and occasionally, S.H.I.E.L.D. agents burst in on her and Stack!

In a similar fashion, Red She-Hulk: Route 616 includes an entire subplot wherein S.H.I.E.L.D. employs the Thinker to try to track down Red She-Hulk, but he instead figures out how to make the Echelon soldiers work. The Thinker disappears fairly abruptly and the new, improved soldiers, seem only to serve the narrative for one of several jaunts into an alternate universe. The book spends more time developing the characteristics and backstory of the Mole People than it does satisfyingly developing the threat of the Echelon soldiers.

Red She-Hulk: Route 616 is very plot-focused, as opposed to character-centered. Betty Ross is given about equal page time as Aaron Stack and Stack figures out more ways to save the day than Ross does! That is hugely unsatisfying for a book titled Red She-Hulk. That Betty Ross takes up the position of wisecracking sidekick - Stack figures out how to out-logic Ultron, while Ross complains about what various battles are doing to her hair! - in her own book is tremendously disappointing and a horrible example to set for readers (of any gender).

The artwork in Red She-Hulk: Route 616 is fine, but very much like snapshots. There is exceptionally poor transition between panels, so this is a book that does not flow from panel to panel, page to page well. Instead, it's like flipping through photographs with captions; readers are left to infer much of the movement between panels. The coloring is homogeneously good throughout the book.

Ultimately, Red She-Hulk: Route 616 is an end for the Red She-Hulk as a solo work and while I might have come in at the end, I have no problem with declaring it a disappointment. The narration is fractured, the characters mediocre and the resolution forced. It's a poor story that is not enough to make a reader want to pick up any of the prior Red She-Hulk volumes.

For other She-Hulk books, please visit my reviews of:
The Sensational She-Hulk
Single Green Female
The Avengers: The Search For She-Hulk
Superhuman Law
Time Trials
Laws Of Attraction
She-Hulk: Planet Without A Hulk
Fall Of The Hulks: The Savage She-Hulks
Marvel Her-oes

3/10

For other book reviews, please check out my Book Review Index Page for an organized listing.

© 2015 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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From A Particularly Fallow Period . . . Avengers: Assault On Olympus Disappoints!

The Good: Decent character work
The Bad: Very plot heavy story, Boring, Unrealistic dialogue for the time period, Bland coloring, Simplistic artwork
The Basics: Avengers: Assault On Olympus is a fractured “graphic novel” that compiles eight issues of Avengers from 1987 and makes one wonder how the book survived such a problematic storyline.


As many of my loyal readers know, last year in my study of graphic novels was my She-Hulk Year and while it is over, I continue to find graphic novels that include the heroine and read them when I have the chance. I was, in fact, a bit disappointed at my local library system’s inability to get in a significant number of the She-Hulk books I was eager to read and have, instead, slummed it with whatever I can find that includes Jennifer Walter, the She-Hulk. Unfortunately for me, that includes such wastes of time as Avengers: Assault On Olympus.

Avengers: Assault On Olympus embodies many of my fundamental problems with “graphic novels,” which are (in a vast majority) usually trade anthologies; collections of comic books as opposed to a coherent single narrative. In the case of Avengers: Assault On Olympus, this is painfully obvious as one “chapter” ends with a significant event (in this case, the abduction of Hercules’s body) and then digresses to a completely different story for a “chapter” (a one-shot issue) to focus on Jarvis (the butler at the Avengers Mansion) before bothering to pick up the story that was already in progress. As a result, Avengers: Assault On Olympus comes across as sloppy storytelling and it is more of a chore to read than a pleasure.

Avengers: Assault On Olympus opens in the wake of a brutal attack on Avengers Mansion that has left The Avengers brutalized and battered. Janet Van Dyne, the Wasp, is in charge of the Avengers and while she and Captain America easily thwart would-be burglars to the mansion, she finds herself plagued by self-doubt and stress. Recruiting the Druid, the Wasp puts herself on reserve duty and leaves the team of the Doctor Druid, She-Hulk, Thor, Captain America, the Black Knight, and Captain Marvel to figure out who is in charge of the Avengers and lead them. While the Avengers figure out the new leadership issue, Jarvis recovers from his wounds from the attack and resolves to remain the butler at the Avengers Mansion when it is reopened and Thor is implicated in the theft of Hercules’s unconscious body.

While investigating the disappearance of Hercules, with Captain Marvel leading the team, a mysterious man uses mind control to set She-Hulk on a rampage. With Thor gone, the team is stretched thin to take her down, but in the process, they realize that the stranger is none other than Dionysus. That leads the Avengers to the ethereal plane of the Greek Gods to try to find Hercules and Thor and return them to our realm. But a trip to “Hades” and the ethereal Olympus leaves the Avengers even more battered, despite getting aid from a reluctant Namor and Wasp!

One of my pet peeves, in any medium, is sloppy research. In the case of Avengers: Assault On Olympus that takes the form of a troubling lack of differentiation between Greek and Roman gods and disappointingly common mistakes in places. In this case, writers Roger Stern and Bob Harras make the common mistake of using Hades as a place name; in Greek Mythology, Hades is the God Of The Underworld, but the Underworld is actually Tartarus. While that is a common error in popular culture, the fact that the writers identify the god in charge of Hades as Pluto is just sloppy . . . like grade school caliber sloppiness!

Sadly, Avengers: Assault On Olympus is not only plagued by issues with what some might call minutia. Instead, the book suffers from a fractured series of storytelling that makes the volume appear to be exactly what it is instead of what it strives to be; it is a collection of comic books and each of the eight stories within Avengers: Assault On Olympus has a sense of trying to sell itself as opposed to working to a single coherent narrative. The result is a book that reads as being all over the place, especially the chapter that diverges to tell the whole history of Jarvis the butler in relation to the Avengers. And, given how little the Wasp appears in the book, starting with her time of doubt over her ability to lead is a weak opening for the book (her departure might have been a far more powerful end note for whatever volume preceded this one).

What Avengers: Assault On Olympus does have is decent moments of character, even if I am not personally invested in most of the characters in the book. Janet Van Dyne, Captain Marvel, and Jarvis are each given strong internal narratives within the story that allow them to become more well-rounded and realized as heroic characters. At the points where Avengers: Assault On Olympus gives the characters room to breathe, moralize and emote, the writers flesh them out well.

Unfortunately, the character moments are not the bulk of Avengers: Assault On Olympus. Instead, the bulk of the book is a plot-based search/chase/combat story that reads like a typical comic book without any real depth or sophistication. Somehow, the writers and artists also manage to make the characters look and sound like they are from a drastically earlier era, instead of 1987 when the books were written. For example, on page 14, She-Hulk is seen carrying a massive computer that would be more at home in 1950 than 1987. Similarly, the villains on page 6 use phrases like “It’s black as pitch in here!” and “We been had!” which are more like 1930s jargon than how we spoke in the late 80s.

The artwork in Avengers: Assault On Olympus is dreadfully simplistic with the colors being monotones as opposed to anything approaching interesting or realistic depth or shading to them. On the whole, Avengers: Assault On Olympus is a very juvenile work of comic book storytelling and one that may easily be passed by; there’s a reason none of the new media enterprises surrounding the Marvel Cinematic Universe is pulling from this era in the history of The Avengers!

For other Marvel graphic novels, please check out my reviews of:
Avengers: The Search For She-Hulk
Civil War: Marvel Universe
Daredevil Reborn

3/10

For other graphic novel reviews, please check out my Graphic Novel Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2014 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Peter David Delivers A Small Corner Of The Marvel Secret Invasion With She Hulk: Secret Invasion!

The Good: Good second half, Decent plot progression.
The Bad: Missing elements, Erratic artwork, Light on character development.
The Basics: Peter David’s She-Hulk: Secret Invasion puts She-Hulk and X-Factor in an important position to thwart the Skrull invasion that was a major Marvel storyline . . . though it does remarkably little other than that.


A few days ago, I was filling out a new online account profile for something or other and as a matter of course, the website had me create security question answers for when I (inevitably) lose or forget my password. One of the security questions was “Who is your favorite author?” From fourteen to about twenty, the answer to that question would have been very clear for me: Peter David. I fell in love with the works of Peter David and his narrative voice and his intellectual cleverness grabbed me at a time in my life when I was impressionable and eager, but still very creative and brimming with talent. I would even admit now that the thrill I got in studying the way Peter David pieced together the disparate elements of the Star Trek universe led me to become a writer myself. So, it was somewhat exciting for me to realize that as part of my She-Hulk Year, I would be reading brand new (to me) material from Peter David as he had a fairly recent run of the She-Hulk comic line.

My first volume written by Peter David is She-Hulk: Secret Invasion. She-Hulk: Secret Invasion has the unfortunate status of being a piece of a much, much larger story. To date, all I knew about the Secret Invasion storyline from Marvel came from a single scene in a Daredevil book where Elektra, after being killed, is revealed to be a Skrull. So, as much as it is a natural component of my She-Hulk Year, She-Hulk: Secret Invasion is also my first taste into the Secret Invasion storyline . . . and now I think I’m hooked. I have already started hunting down books in the main storyline because the ideas presented in She-Hulk: Secret Invasion were so intriguing.

. . . And annoying. Like so very many graphic novels that are only a part of a major crossover event, She-Hulk: Secret Invasion has rather obvious pieces missing, most notably how halfway through the book, the setting suddenly shifts to Minneapolis and alludes to a broadcast that was not seen in the book (nor, rather inconveniently, summarized on a page that simply notes “here’s what’s missing”). While the book begins with a quick recap of what has previously occurred in She-Hulk (which is handy because I have not yet gotten my hands on Volume 5 and this is Volume 6 or 8) andX-Factor (which I, honestly, had no interest in whatsoever, but David was writing concurrently and this volume is a crossover with), there is no middle recap, but there is something important missing, which is alluded to but not adequately enough to explain Jennifer Walters’ sudden emotional distress.

She-Hulk: Secret Invasion opens in Detroit. There, the mutant detective group X-Factor is hired to find a mutant, whom they quickly realize is Darwin, a mutant with the ability to evolve almost instantaneously in order to survive. As the detective agency closes in on him, so too does Longshot (who has never appeared in any of the other Marvel books I’ve read). Longshot, however, is revealed to be a Skrull replacement when She-Hulk and her Skrull outcast sidekick Jazinda appear on the scene. After an admittedly pointless fight, She-Hulk and X-Factor join up to capture the Skrull, who is the Talisman, the religious leader of the Skrull who might have the potential to end the Skrull invasion before it destroys humanity.

Taking custody of the Talisman and leaving Detroit, She-Hulk and Jazinda are knocked off course when they witness a Skrull herding ship abducting humans for use or disposal. Jennifer rashly leaps to action to kill the Skrull aboard and that draws the attention of a Super-Skrull who has absorbed the powers of the members of the Fantastic Four. When the Talisman regains consciousness and turns the tables on Jazinda, the Super-Skrull is revealed to be her father and Jennifer Walters finds herself in the middle of an old family conflict that she may be uniquely suited to help resolve!

She-Hulk: Secret Invasion is a strong enough book – though it opens in such a way that I found myself not caring one way or another what might happen – that I was intrigued by how it might fit into the larger crossover story and while it seemed like She-Hulk might play a pivotal role (based on her having a storyline with the one person who could simply call off the invasion and another guy who was powerful enough to start a military coup, not to mention her sudden sidekick who is both Skrull and has the ability to resurrect), by the end of the book, it is clear that her story is only a tangent in the larger story. It’s a shame; Marvel could do worse than having a crossover story that ultimately hinged on how Jennifer Walters reacted.

Despite the abruptness of Jennifer Walters being a fugitive and having a sidekick, She-Hulk: Secret Invasion works (when it does) because her character remains interesting. She is unable to stand by and let innocent humans be taken by the villainous Skrull and as soon as she realizes that the conflict between the story’s three primary Skrull is one that she can try to talk her way out of, she does just that. Sure, there is plenty of ass kicking in She-Hulk: Secret Invasion, but most of the conflict is resolved by Jennifer Walters, not She-Hulk and that keeps the otherwise formulaic plot feeling fresh enough to read and enjoy.

What is unfortunate in She-Hulk: Secret Invasion is the artwork. The artwork is incredibly erratic and it bounces between well-drawn and colored panels that look nothing like what they are supposed to and almost cartoonish pages that look stupidly simple. The latter chapters that are just from She-Hulk become more consistent, but in the beginning, the artwork is distractingly bad. In fact, after six months of study of She-Hulk, I sat looking at the final panel of the first chapter in She-Hulk: Secret Invasion and wondered who the hell the character was supposed to be. The jaw was too angular, the green too dark, and the ears slightly pointed, so I thought she was a Skrull. Interestingly, the very next page (from the subsequent chapter) has different artwork (though she is in the exact same pose from the exact same moment) and it is clearly She-Hulk.

What is missing from She-Hulk: Secret Invasion is Peter David’s sense of humor. While there is a nice gag in the first chapter about the X-Factor offices not being bugged (when there are government employees performing surveillance upon them) and a later line that breaks the fourth wall, most of the book is devoid of quips and commentary that fans of Peter David’s works will recognize as his distinctive narrative voice.

It is not enough to sink She-Hulk: Secret Invasion, but it is enough – in combination with the artwork and lack of strong character development – to keep the book in solidly average territory as it is a very standard trade paperback anthology.

For other works by Peter David, please check out my reviews of:
Triangle: Imzadi II
I, Q
Imzadi
Vendetta
Star Trek Archives 1: The Best Of Peter David

5/10

For other book reviews, please check out my Book Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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It’s Like Muppet Babies For Marvel: Marvel Her-oes!

The Good: Consistent artwork, Decent general concept and progression
The Bad: Woefully revisionist, Silly concept, Sets up an uninspiring and uninspired franchise
The Basics: Marvel Her-oes seems more like a cashgrab than a legitimate or compelling concept.


The way to be a reviewer on the cheap is to either get corporate endorsements or to find ways to review products for free. For me, with my annual study of a different super hero each year, that means using the local (and statewide) library system quite extensively. However, one of the consequences of using the local library system thus is that one sometimes ends up with books that are only tangentially related to the subject one wishes to study. With Marvel Her-oes, that is exactly what happened. I came into possession of Marvel Her-oes as part of my She-Hulk Year and it is not exactly canon, so it is virtually impossible for me to care about it and actually impossible for me to endorse it.

Apparently capitalizing on the current popularity of Manga, Marvel decided to make a limited series of kid-themed comics, one of which was Her-oes. Assembled as a single, very short volume, Marvel Her-oes is the four-issue Heroes series “The Truth Stings.” In graphic novel form, Marvel Her-oes includes The Savage She-Hulk Issue #1, which serves almost to say, “Screw you for buying this book; see how it was all just crap? This is the real origin story of She-Hulk, which undermines everything you just read! Thanks for your dollars!” Marvel Her-oes is non-canonical, acting much like Muppet Babies did in relation to The Muppets.

Set in Cresskill, New Jersey, young Janet Van Dyne finds herself struggling with her sense of identity. She wants to be a normal girl who can just ask out a cute guy and put some distance between herself and her parents (one of whom is a famous scientist), but she knows she is not normal. Gifted, following an accident at her father’s laboratory, with the ability to change sizes, Janet works to keep her secret, even from her bookworm friend, Jenny Walters. After taking a risk and asking out Wade Cooper, Janet is cornered by the most popular girl in school, Namora. In defending herself against Namora, Janet instinctively shrinks and Namora reveals that she has a super power as well.

Shortly after the two realize they have more in common than they thought, Namora and Janet Van Dyne are approached by Miss America, an agent of the government who monitors meta-humans and keeps them in check. Her assignment includes monitoring Jenny Walters, who is the She-Hulk. When the trio of girls is attacked by Moonstone, who wants to sell the girls to the highest bidder for use in an evil team of mutants and villains, Namora, Janet Van Dyne, and Jenny Walters team up to protect one another and survive the day!

The story is a very simple one and it focuses very tightly on Janet Van Dyne. In Marvel Her-oes, she is a heroine in the process of becoming. Jenny chides her for never actually finishing a project or taking the initiative, so much of the point of the book is to illustrate to young people just how much one can accomplish when they stop dreaming and start doing. Infused with obvious lessons on teamwork, Marvel Her-oes is a basic assembly story as Janet learns there are others like her and they begin to work together for their common survival.

Moonstone is presented as a pretty generic villain and her team is less remarkable than most meta-human villain teams. In fact, she is so blandly presented that there is no real depth or struggle to her. She is simply a meta-mercenary and that makes her an entirely uninspired villain.

The initial story in Marvel Her-oes is completely undone by the inclusion of the story of Jennifer Walters and how she became She-Hulk, which is included in this anthology. Having never been a teenager and mutated, she seems an odd choice to be a part of what appears to be a girl power mutant group for Her-oes. Moreover, Marvel Her-oes takes a very retro view of She-Hulk as a woman struggling not to get angry (her more recent incarnations have her transformations triggered by other emotions than simple anger).

The artwork in Marvel Her-oes is fine. It trades on being simple in almost every way, so most of the panels look like a comic book or comic strip with more even tones (lacking real depth and shading) than most of today’s graphic novels. The artwork style is also a little simpler with characters like Jenny Walters and the hair on almost all of the characters looking a bit more blockish than their regular appearances. Angular reworks aside, Marvel Her-oes is not significantly brought down by the artwork.

The result is that Marvel Her-oes might be intended for young adults, but it seems obvious and unchallenging even to that demographic. There is certainly nothing here for adults or fans of any of the adult versions of the characters who appear in this book!

For other She-Hulk books, please visit my reviews of:
The Sensational She-Hulk
Single Green Female
The Avengers: The Search For She-Hulk
Superhuman Law
Time Trials
Laws Of Attraction
She-Hulk: Planet Without A Hulk
Fall Of The Hulks: The Savage She-Hulks

3.5/10

For other book reviews, please visit my Book Review Index Page for an organized listing of all of the books I have reviewed!

© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Ugh! Talk About Your Incomplete Story . . . Fall Of The Hulks: The Savage She-Hulks Flops!

The Good: Moments of character, Moments of plot development and artwork
The Bad: Radically incomplete story, No character resonation or development, Huge plot gaps, Terrifically inconsistent artwork.
The Basics: Unfortunately lacking in a number of key moments to tell a solid story or make the characters interesting, Fall Of The Hulks: The Savage She-Hulks is just a mess!


When I review a book, I take it as it is. I read the book for what is on the page in front of me and I evaluate it on those terms. It is important for me to mention that up front in my review of Fall Of The Hulks: The Savage She-Hulks because there might be fans of The Hulk and the entire Fall Of The Hulks storyline that are offended by my assertions in this review. The truth, however, is that no matter how good or how interesting Fall Of The Hulks is as a saga, the volume Fall Of The Hulks: The Savage She-Hulks is just an irredeemable mess.

I picked up Fall Of The Hulks: The Savage She-Hulks as part of my She-Hulk Year. This seemed to me to be a major crossover that Jennifer Walters was a part of and one of the next sensible volumes in my reading order. Unfortunately, the book was anything but engaging and the story might be an important tangent in the Fall Of The Hulks Saga, but on its own, Fall Of The Hulks: The Savage She-Hulks is a sliver of a tangent and a fraction of a story. It is, unfortunately, dramatically incomplete in the character and plot events it presents and inconsistently rendered in its artwork. The end result is a book that is entirely unsatisfying and more annoying to try to stick with than it is rewarding.

Fall Of The Hulks: The Savage She-Hulks opens with the story of Lyra. Lyra is a green She-Hulk with flaming red hair who is from the future (of, possibly, an alternate dimension, that’s not entirely clear) of a world where mechanical life evolved before organic life did and it enslaved humanity. The genetically-engineered daughter of Bruce Banner, Lyra is a She-Hulk freedom fighter before (inexplicably in this volume) she ends up in our time, on our Earth, where she works for the Alternate Reality Monitoring And Operational Response Agency (A.R.M.O.R.). Despite the book presenting her origin story, it leaps immediately to her as a part of A.R.M.O.R. and a time after she has met Jennifer Walters (She-Hulk), befriended her, and is now searching for the missing She-Hulk.

Lyra then runs afoul of Norman Osborn’s genetically-created gamma-ray irradiated villains, Axon (who absorbs Gamma radiation), Aberration (who was genetically-altered using Abomination’s DNA and is basically just a She-Hulk), and Morass (a mud-based gamma ray creature). After working to defeat the trio, and save a small town in the process, Lyra gets into a confusing battle with her own mother, Thundra, who appears to be hiding out in the past just to avoid her own daughter.

The story finally gets going when the Intelligencia – a group of super-smart super-villains – is introduced and they, M.O.D.O.K., Leader, and Wizard, make Lyra and offer to join their evil group. After an encounter with the Red She-Hulk and being forced to destroy her A.I. watch, Lyra is inducted into the Frightful Four and assists in capturing Reed Richards for them. She is then taken to the Intelligencia lair – a former S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier – where she almost immediately finds Jennifer Walters, is attacked by Red She-Hulk and ends up in the middle of a battle where an army of Red Hulks and hulked-out versions of recognizable superheroes (The Thing, Silver Surfer, and several others) are in the process of destroying Washington, D.C.

If that last part makes no real sense, welcome to the crux of my problem with Fall Of The Hulks: The Savage She-Hulks. The story does not so much take an abrupt left turn as it falls from one storyline to another in what appears to be a larger saga without any information for the reader to indicate what that story is, who is involved or why the stories overlap. The result is that the book unravels in a truly unfortunate way.

After a point, Fall Of The Hulks: The Savage She-Hulks is just confusing and nonsensical. On one page, Lyra is getting inducted into the Frightful Four, the next she is wearing a red Frightful Four uniform that we’ve never seen on the other three members of the villain group and the other three members are pretty much gone from the narrative. Red She-Hulk comes in and out of the story at random (it was only looking up this storyline and the story that followed it that I learned that the reader is not supposed to know who she is yet, so that bit of withholding – which was just annoying for me – makes some sense, I suppose) and the complicated relationship between Lyra and Thundra seems put in as more of an afterthought than a sense of genuine character development.

Moreover, Lyra’s nature is not made clear. Her opening backstory implies that she is from an alternate reality, not just a time-traveler. Yet, the rest of Fall Of The Hulks: The Savage She-Hulks - especially in her subplot with her mother – seems to assert the exact opposite.

As for the artwork, it is inconsistent at best. While the book opens looking like a nice sword and sorcery level of artwork, it degenerates into pretty standard comic book art and by the time Lyra meet Bentley (the Wizard) some of the panels look like comic strips or Cartoon Network level of animation, which is disappointing.

Ultimately, the artwork is not a serious detraction: the way Fall Of The Hulks: The Savage She-Hulks fails to tell a story is the serious drawback of this book and it is enough to make one not want to invest in Lyra or her story.

For other She-Hulk books, please visit my reviews of:
The Sensational She-Hulk
Single Green Female
The Avengers: The Search For She-Hulk
Superhuman Law
Time Trials
Laws Of Attraction
She-Hulk: Planet Without A Hulk

2/10

For other graphic novel reviews, please visit my Graphic Novel Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Adventures In Hulkbusting: She-Hulk: Planet Without A Hulk Meanders Around She-Hulk’s Post-Civil War Adventures!

The Good: Moments of character, Most of the artwork
The Bad: Not one single, concise story, Focus on exceptionally minor characters peripheral to the main story
The Basics: When She-Hulk: Planet Without A Hulk is focused on Jennifer Walters’s She-Hulk, the book works, but unfortunately it meanders surprisingly far from her story.


As my She-Hulk Year continues at a surprisingly fast pace, I find myself happy with the focus of my yearlong study. I have also discovered, however, that the writers of She-Hulk are saddled with fleshing out the stories of a number of very minor characters that are not nearly as interesting or cool as the female protagonist who readers are drawn to when they pick up a She-Hulk book. Moreover, many of the She-Hulk books have stories that are incomplete, with elements that are included in other books or storylines. The problem of the peripheral characters and other stories reaches its head in She-Hulk: Planet Without A Hulk.

She-Hulk: Planet Without A Hulk resolves the story of Jennifer Walters as She-Hulk after the Civil War during her brief tenure working for S.H.I.E.L.D. It also includes a number of larger Marvel Universe concepts, most notably the Earth A and standard Earth universes for the Marvel Multiverse. The bigger issue than the missing story elements is the way She-Hulk: Planet Without A Hulk includes an extensive focus on secondary characters who are flat-out boring.

Opening where Laws Of Attraction left off, She-Hulk: Planet Without A Hulk finds Jennifer Walters on Titan where she and John Jameson are in the process of breaking up. The story of Awesome Andy, the android, is told. Andy returns to the side of the Mad Thinker, who reboots the android and he goes off on his own. With her friends having abandoned her, Jennifer – as She-Hulk joins S.H.I.E.L.D.’s hulkbuster unit and she hooks up with both Clay Quartermain and Tony Stark.

For the hulkbuster unit, Jennifer Walters takes down the Abomination and works with Wolverine to capture Wen-Di-Go. When the electric-based Zzzax Walters helped capture takes over the S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier, Project Achilles gets all of the material they need to stop Gamma-based threats to humanity. When Jennifer discovers that her cousin, Bruce Banner, has been sent to outer space, She-Hulk confronts Iron Man about his anti-Hulk action. After taking out the Leader, Iron Man executes the Project: Achilles endgame and Jennifer Walters is infected with nanotechnology that prevents her from turning into She-Hulk ever again! After Pug shows up, altered, Stu Cicero makes it back to Earth and Jennifer Walters must confront her own desire to return to being She-Hulk while the trial for the Leader begins!

She-Hulk: Planet Without A Hulk includes a number of missing moments, like Jen Walters apparently getting associated with the Thing again in order to borrow Ben Grimm’s apartment. Similarly, She-Hulk: Planet Without A Hulk alludes to events of the World Without A Hulk event that are not fleshed out or really fully explained. So, for example, exactly what happened to Bruce Banner and why and how it is resolved is only very casually mentioned without truly exploring it.

The last portion of the book – after Jennifer Walters is forced into permanent human form – finally resolves the whole Artie Zix plotline. Unfortunately, it is bogged down with the side stories of Stu Cicero who is briefly incarcerated on Duckworld and an allusion to a trial She-Hulk attended as part of the Magistrati. The tale of the Recluses seems to be included for an impending storyline with the Reckoning War.

Unfortunately, very little of the book actually focuses tightly on Jennifer Walters. Her usual moralizing about the internal conflict between herself and She-Hulk is largely absent from the book. Unfortunately, following Iron Man violating her and destroying her ability to make the transformation, she does not raise the larger moral issues of the nanotechnology being used on her. That is a huge problem with the book. Apparently, there are huge incursions in the Marvel Universe from Earth A that are in other titles, but are very casually mentioned in the last chapters of She-Hulk: Planet Without A Hulk, which becomes a very convenient, but annoying, for readers.

The artwork in She-Hulk: Planet Without A Hulk is erratic. Some of it is very detailed and others look much more like comic strips. The coloring is homogeneously good throughout the book.

Ultimately, She-Hulk: Planet Without A Hulk asks readers to fill in way too many blanks, which is unfortunate for those who are looking for a solid, concise She-Hulk story.

For other She-Hulk books, please visit my reviews of:
The Sensational She-Hulk
Single Green Female
The Avengers: The Search For She-Hulk
Superhuman Law
Time Trials
Laws Of Attraction

4/10

For other book reviews, please check out my Book Review Index Page for an organized listing.

© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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