She-Hulk

It's great about how to use existing superstuff in new ways as well, like those comic books, or the supervillains prison.

I like the way that it takes a character whose power is hitting things, and makes it not just implicitly but explictly about not hitting things. Also there is hitting things.

Also it means that I can point young whippersnappers at it and say "This! This is what Peter David was like when he was great!"

-- Andrew Farrell (afarrel...), November 2nd, 2004.

Yo ho!

She-Hulk and Pug (normal human guy) have just been attacked by the security system at Avengers Mansion:

SHE-HULK: Ohmigosh! Are you okay?

PUG: Yeah. Feel like an idiot, though. Here I go saying how I'm gonna watch YOUR back ... and then YOU gotta save me from overgrown coat hangers.

SHE-HULK: Made out of a super-strong carbonadium alloy!

PUG: You people just MAKE UP words, don't you?

I'm partial to the issue that focuses on Awesome Andy, and any scene w/ Awesome Andy gets my undying approval. & the Spidey issue is the most fun the "real" Spidey's been since the days of DeFalco & Frenz.

Dan Slott wrote a recent Batman mini (something about Arkham Asylum) that got some modestly good press when it hit the stands. Other than that, I think he wrote some of the licensed cartoon books for DC - I might've mentioned it on one of the many threads where I was pimping She-Hulk.

Jordan, I think there's a trade planned in the very near future, but not sure when or if.

Awesome Andy rules!

I imagine the lack of Bendisian kudos for Slott's work have a lot to do re: where Bendis came from (indie dahling w/ buttloads of buzz doing funnybooks) & where Slott's coming from (????). Andrew's spot on re: the difference between Slott & Bendis' dialogue.

He should do a mutant book. Seriously, this kind of not-taking-it-seriously-but-not-gags stuff, with the interest in and ability to write about the obvious extrapolations of Marveliana (exponential strength in gamma form -> increase strength in normal form and reap huge benefits when Shulked out, the elegance of that still kills me) would be perfect, given all the loose ends dangling from the X-library. Not X-Men itself, but you know, a solo book or X-Force or something.

I had a sort of dull affection for the Byrne She-Hulk and even the issues Bryan Hitch drew (back when he was still an utter Davis clone) but hadn't even considered picking up the new series. Which is one of the good things about ILC. Thank you.

i also loved that "you pppl just make words up don't you?" (as i remember vibranium, adamantium etc.)

She-Hulk will end with issue #12, and relaunch with a Runaways-style marketing push.

What does that last part mean? I'm unhappy about this.

I don't know, does it mean that they're "cancelling" it, letting digest-sized trades marinate in store for a year, and then restarting it if the sales were good enough?

I'm not sure how Marvel will solve the cancellation issue when they glut themselves out of any new break-out successes by flooding the direct market with 284,382 new titles every month.

"As to why the series – though very well reviewed, had a tough time finding an audience, Brevoort pointed to a couple of factors. 'She-Hulk was launched during a period in which we started up dozens of titles, so it's no surprise that it got lost in the mix. Atop that, the standard answers apply--fans and retailers were skeptical, didn't know what to make of it, and never quite got around to revising their buying patterns. Plus that old favorite song of ‘waiting for the TPB’ - which should be on sale in a week or so, and was more heavily ordered than the average Marvel trade played a role.'"

Or both!

I miss Quesada's long-abandoned promise to minimize new books and especially new solo books, which he seems to have respun as "except for miniseries and really good stuff" (if your intent is just to limit output to "good comics," do you really need a promise more specific than that?) I think he gets way too much criticism, as Jemas did when he was around (and I think the criticism is mostly because he makes himself a more public figure than his predecessors did, and because no one had any real expectations of Marvel for a number of years before he stepped in), but that one's exasperating.

"I've seriously been toying with the idea of pitching a four issue 'Awesome Andy' mini to the guys at 'Marvel Age.' Four done-in-one stories for all ages about what Awesome Andy does on his weekends and days off. Kind of like Curious George stories. Like, 'Awesome Andy Goes to the Zoo' or 'Awesome Andy and the Treasure Map.' What do you guys think?"

It really is very very very good indeed - and his Spiderman/Human Torch is BRILL as well.

I really like the Spidey/Torch thing, but I think it would have been better if they had run it on newsprint. I think the effects they're going for with the colouring and inking don't translate to this newfangled glossy paper.

JUAN BOBILLO! W00T!

hopefully this will soothe all my Crisis Anxieties.

I've been excited about Two-Gun Kid showing up, because although not many people know Matt's not just a gunslinging honorary Avenger, he's also a Harvard-educated lawyer, I'm betting Slott does.

I totally thought Starfox was the Avenger-in-stasis, tho, & have had to delay my Starfox-joy for 2 months, which is surprisingly hard!

GIVE SLOTT A SPIDER-MAN TITLE PLEASE! PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE!

DAMN IT PLEASE!

I think I'm just saying Slott should write all the Marvel books from the Shooter era of my childhood. Slott's Beyonder Follies! Slott's Iron Man in Red And Silver Armor! Slott's Cloud And Andromeda -- Remember Them? Guest-Starring Firebird.

But yeah, Slott's Spidey/Torch is well worth getting, and I don't think Huk had read much Spidey (right?), so its appeal doesn't rely on memories of those eras nearly as much as I thought it did.

It's like if you subtract Geoff Johns from Kurt Busiek, you have Dan Slott. Or something.

Correct, however, I have seen every single episode of the 60s Spider-Man cartoon several times (because we didn't have cable TV until I was about 8). And, the Spider-Man therein correllates well enough to the Spidey/Torchy version (especially in the first two issues) that I was hooked. PARRRRR-KER!

There are TWO FULL ISSUES of She-Hulk available online. One's @ MileHighComics.com, and one's @ Marvel.com - I think Marvel.com is hosting #1 of the 2003/4 series.

Sensational was a disappointing reread, yeah. The comedy's about as subtle as Mad magazine, and I'm not saying subtlety is the essence or requisite of comedy, but ... ungh.

Yah, seeing that stuff in the back of the book was what tipped my hand toward not buying the thing after all.

Jumping next to Dan Slott's ("The happiest man in comics" according to Quesada) titles - She-Hulk and The Thing, the writer said that issue #8 will be the Civil War crossover in She-Hulk, with a status quo change, and will add Paul Smith as the series regular artist.

Also it means that I can point young whippersnappers at it and say "This! This is what Peter David was like when he was great!"

Yes!

Best spiderman--really captures the camp, jokey part (opposite of spiderman movies), especially in the court room scenes and him walking on the walls at home. Visually, it's a really accurate Spiderman, as you really get the sense of someone physically smaller than everyone else, the sort of opposite of Frank Miller's hulking mass of a Batman. Spiderman practically looks like a kid wearing a spiderman suit.

There's also a sort of genre humanism here. Slott does a great job resurrecting B-list marvel characters, like old Spidey villains and the New Warriors. (Night Thrasher in She-Hulk is like career-low John Travolta in Pulp Fiction.) GM in 7 soldiers talks about creating new characters for the franchise, but Slott seems like someone who'd be great to see the value in all these disposable characters and find ways to flesh them out and make them feel not just interesting, but chummy.

The phrase I used on another thread was that he seemed to treat continuity as a toolbox, and wanted to leave the tools in better shape than he found them. You'll see more at the end of the second volume of his thinking on this.

SHE-HULK: Made out of a super-strong carbonadium alloy!

PUG: You people just MAKE UP words, don't you?

seems kinda ehh to me? and i don't really know enough marvel trivia for the in-jokes to work?

Ha - I think Slott love is turning into one of those Like It Or Lump It ILC things.

or is that even MORE in-jokey?

But beyond the humor in Shulk, there are some great IDEAS he comes up with! The second trade has this great setup that I won't give away: even though it might have to do with Marvel minutiae that I'm not caught up on, Slott handles it in such a graceful way that I never feel like I'm missing out on the fun(ny) and by the end, I wanted to stand up and applaud.

i really really liked that many of the stories in the volume were one-issue wonders! i guess i've gotten used to extremely drawn-out plot arcs at this point (viz daredevil again... which is like the slowest arc ever... although i dig that too) so there's something really refreshing about it. i've always been on the fence in terms of narrative compression (largely because grant morrison is always getting props for it & i tend to think that despite his other skillz he's not very good at it) but it really works here. or maybe this isn't "compression" at all but just old-school comix storytelling.

also: funny!

also: i love the art! guess i better not get used to it huh

i think i wasn't as DELIGHTED with everything, which may have to do with

1) having read the first tp it's less novel
2) i kinda felt like shit last night
3) so i'm going to read it again

ROFLS!

they should!! or ultimate for that matter, why not?

???

meh.

There's a lot of talk about his Spiderman above, and I like the way that his JJJ is the opposite - a lot of dumb and crazy stuff has happened to Peter Parker over the last 40 years, so you basically have to pick and choose or end up burying him under the weight of it. Whereas with JJJ the more you pile on the funnier.

Slott's last issues were funny!

Should I continue this thread to talk about the Tas Mas vehicle. Or go to MCU.
Anyway, quite deeply fun. I do like a bit of Tas Mas. She's awfully good. & I'm sue she loves being called Tas Mas .
Well anyway, glad this is another good tv show from Marvel.
Was i seeing a LatinX element in the credits. Interesting if so.

THat is to say, looking at end credits I was thinking there was LatinX presence in the crew etc, & pretty female.
Which is good.
Hoping that inclusivity and actual diversity is rising. I was watching a lot of the Film Fatales webinars a couple of years ago which seemed to indicate it was. not sure how clear a lens that would be though. May be its own gaze or something.

Now seeing that Head Writer is Asian American. which is cool in itself.

Anyone been reading the current (Rainbow Rowell) series? I preordered the Vol. 1 trade on spec… been itching to read something new, and it sounded potentially good.

^Vol. 1 was good – cute and offbeat – and Vol. 2 (which just came out) is even better… kind of next-level, actually, in a few respects. Highly recommended!

I just took a look at the previews for Vol. 1 on Amazon, it does look promising.