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Yes, if you are guessing that the Hulk will be joining the X-Men in an upcoming storyline, thus cementing his place in Marvel's pantheon of mutant heroes, than you guessed absolutely...
Wrong.
This month is going to be another departure for the column as I return to something I was hoping to make more of a regular feature when I didn't have a lot to write about, before the X-Men took a turn for the suck, and it got put on hold. Devoting a whole column however, was never in the plan. But I needed a break from the X-Books.
If a link to the X-Men must be provided for those fans out there who need it, there is actually one forthcoming, though.
There's a book out there which I bet you're not reading. Ok, there's many, I'm sure, but I'm just going to focus on one, for now, because it is very much deserving of the attention, and a wider audience. So again, that applies to a number of titles. But for now, let me just talk about She-Hulk.
So, what could this possibly have to do with the X-Franchise? In my opinion, She-Hulk is very much the modern-day, spiritual successor to most of the run of the original Excalibur.
And just what does that mean? Excalibur was mostly a straight superhero comic, in very classic fashion, but it never shied away from the ridiculous. It would drop their heroes into funny to insane situations, and the heroes were well aware that these things were just bizarre. There was jokes, tongue in cheek humour, and it was all fairly in the Marvel canon, even participating in crossovers in their own strange manner. Excalibur existed on the fringe, in it's own wacky corner of the MU, filling a niche of the heroes poking a bit of overt fun at the mainstream.
She-Hulk falls squarely under this type of book. The writing is spot on, with great comic timing. The artists have worked well with it so far as well, a must in a comedic book. The writer and artists truly need to mesh well in order for the comedy to come across in the most effective manner.
It's not quite as out-there as the previous series was with its humour, frequently breaking the fourth wall and having Jennifer Walters speaking directly to the writer, if not the readers themselves, which made the book a little more far-fetched. This is squarely placed in the mainstream Marvel universe, it's just a little off kilter, with strange, humourous things happening more often than they would in other titles.
The premise of the book has Jennifer Walters - who via a blood transfusion from her superpowered cousin Bruce Banner, was granted similar powers of transformation and strength - has been hired by a New York City lawfirm, under the condition that she can't perform any work for them in the guise of She-Hulk. Plenty of instances come forward though for her to go green and muscley, though, with action sequences tinged with the ever-present humour.
This book is brought to you monthly by Dan Slott writing, and Juan Bobillo on art, with a recent fill-in on issues five and six by Paul Pelletier. Every issue so far has been mostly self-contained, with only one two-part story. It's a very easy title to pick up and see if you like it, and get a complete, and hopefully satisfying story.
Sadly, I myself came to this book late, and only recently. When it was first solicited, I wasn't a big fan of the character, and I still remain that way. I'm reading the book for the humour, the fun, and just because it's a great read, even without any great love for Jennifer. It wasn't solicited terribly well either, and my interest wasn't quite piqued from what Marvel was saying about it, which was (As usual for anything without an X or Spider in the title) very little.
By the time my friends had finally sold me on the book, the first few issues had sold out via my usual sources, so I jumped in as soon as possible. Not a terribly difficult task with this book.
She-Hulk, however, has been suffering from low sales that are slowly spiraling downwards into cancellation territory. This is a book that definitely deserves a chance, and I'm positive there are a lot of people like me out there who would love this book if they gave it a chance, so I put out a plea.
This book needs sales. I urge anyone who wants a top-notch, well-written, fun, if occasionally funny, superhero comic to go down to their comic store, grab any issue, or better yet, ask your comic store to reserve the title for you, so they have to order it. If you don't see any copies, this is especially good. A trade paperback of the first six issues has been solicited for this November, so that's another option. Now is the perfect time to mention it to your comic guy, so he can get an idea for how many copies, and for Marvel to see how fans are reacting to it.
This is one of the easiest books to get into right now, with the TPB just coming up for ordering, and the series itself being only one or two issue storylines, so there's very little commitment or risk.
But like the chipmaker says, I bet nobody can read just one.
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