“Yesterday’s” Comic> She-Hulk #1 (2005)

If justice is supposed to be blind, does this mean she isn’t justice?

She-Hulk #1

Marvel Comics (December, 2005)

“Many Happy Returns”

WRITER: Dan Slott

PENCILER: Juan Bobillo

INKER: Marcelo Sosa

COLORIST: Dave Kemp

LETTERER: Dave Sharpe

ASSISTANT EDITORS: Aubrey Sitterson, Molly Lazer, and Andy Schmidt

EDITOR: Tom Brevoort

It’s Jen’s first day back at superhuman law, but at this point in her history she needs a “gamma changer” to make the transformation to She-Hulk. That’s a problem when she comes upon a mugging but luckily she learned a few fighting moves from  Gammora…although Spider-Woman and Captain America were there if she needed help. They offer to let her back in the Avengers but she does the “don’t call me, I’ll call you” thing and heads to work. The firm has a new boss while Holloway goes looking for her daughter and Mr. Zix has some…interesting methods. Now he’s taking on supervillains as clients as well but he does work with the TVA to get a time-traveller a fair trial by bringing people from the past. If Jen can come to terms with all the bad stuff that’s resulted from her time as She-Hulk and various manipulations and anger issues she may pull off this case. However, one of the jurors is Clint Barton and she sees an opportunity to save Hawkeye from dying.

Everything I want to praise here comes with negatives so forgive another off-format review. The art is fairly decent, but Vision looks like a Transformer without an alt mode rather than the usual humanoid. Clint Barton looks nothing like any depiction of Clint I’ve ever seen. As for the writing, I never know if they’re breaking the fourth wall or not when they talk about using superhero comics as reference material in legal proceedings. Marvel Comics exists in the Marvel universe, chronicling hero adventures but it feels like an excuse for Slott to complain about multi-issue arcs and writing for the trades, and replacing the floppies with trades. Limiting Jen’s She-Hulk powers in light of where her character is (as shown by her therapy session with Doc Samson) makes sense but she’s a good enough fighter without her Shulkie powers. Mr. Zix taking on supervillains is a bad idea but he does allow Jen to finally transform to stop a superfight in the building. Jen wants to undo her damage but she’s going to @$%#$ over the space/time continuum and unless this is about Jen accepting his death and her part in it, this is going to end badly. For every positive there’s a negative, and that goes for the attempts at humor. Some work and some fall flat.

So in the end it’s not offensive, it’s not inoffensive, it’s all kind of…mediocre. I can’t call it bad and I can’t call it good. It…exists. The plot is fine but the execution is just not that interesting. This is not an issue that gets me excited to read future installments.