“Yesterday’s” Comic> Savage She-Hulk #1

This isn’t one of the Free Comic Book Day comics. It’s one I bought ON Free Comic Book Day. I’ll go back and forth until I’m caught up and the return to the usual “Yesterday’s” Comic fare. I know that means nothing archived but I needed to note it for current readers.

Someone just found out what Disney+ did to her.

Savage She-Hulk #1

Marvel Comics Group (February, 1980|facsimile edition February, 2023)

“She-Hulk Lives”

WRITER: Stan Lee

ARTISTS: John Buscema & Chick Stone

The Marvel Database also credits Joe Rosen as letterer and Tom DeFalco as editor, but neither they or the colorist, who has no credit at all in either book, are listed in the reprint. I can’t even confirm the old ads are in the right spot or if they were in the original comic at all, but I do like when reprints go the extra mile and they are ads you’d see in that time period, including Mister Fantastic in a Twinkies ad.

Desperate for a confidant, Bruce Banner turns to his cousin, Jennifer Walters, a California lawyer defending a criminal framed for murder by another criminal and now want her gone after hearing that she has evidence to clear him. (She actually doesn’t but she doesn’t think the bad guy who isn’t her client will attack her.) The bad who isn’t her client attacks her, or rather sends his men to kill her. Bruce manages to save her but she was shot and is losing blood. Sharing a blood type, Bruce manages to keep her alive until rescue comes, forced to escape as the Hulk. What he doesn’t know is that the gamma radiation now part of his blood is now in Jennifer, and when the villains come to the hospital to finish her off, a change is triggered, turning her into She-Hulk. So Jen decides this is a good thing. What Jennifer Walters the lawyer can’t stop, She-Hulk the superhero will.

What they got right: I’m pretty sure She-Hulk exists for the same reason Spider-Woman does, to ensure the success of the original male hero doesn’t lead to a female pastiche, which was a common event in the Golden Age to cash in on a successful IP. You know, most of The Asylum’s filmography. We get a one-page into to his story for people who didn’t read it, and that’s all he needs since the comic’s second half is focused on Jen’s change to She-Hulk. And she’s not the same as her cousin. Later in the comics we learn she can control the change while here it triggers automatically to stop her assassins. Where Bruce sees the Hulk as a curse, Jen sees it as a blessing, given her own insecurities (expanded upon in later stories) versus her cousin’s trauma. These changes allow her to stand out from her cousin and not just be “girl Hulk”.

What they got wrong: Bruce never tries to check in on her. I know he has to go on the run as the police investigating the attempted drive-by shooting on Walters somehow believe he’s a suspect, but he just drops the blood and disappears from the story. It’s a bit obvious he’s only here to make the new hero and leave with a lousy job of hiding it.

What I think overall: Hindsight admittedly causes a bias. I first saw this story in the 1980s The Incredible Hulk cartoon on NBC, teamed with Spider-Man & His Amazing Friends after an appearance on that show. Plus we know what She-Hulk becomes in the Marvel universe and…that streaming series we don’t want to talk about. As an origin it works well enough and makes more sense than a few drops accidentally mixing in. Strange to see her defend a crook for a crime he didn’t commit, but I like heroes who are that honest. I wish the show were more like the comic, but I say that for most of current MCU shows and movies.