What I Bought 3/14/2014 - Part 5

I need a day or two to process Cape-Con 2014, so let's keep rolling with reviews for the time being.

Really I'm just being lazy about transferring the pictures I took off my camera.

She-Hulk #1 & 2, by Charles Soule (writer), Javier Pulido (artist), Muntsa Vicente (colorist), Clayton Cowles (letterer) - Jennifer Walters: running behind for her own first cover. I like the touch of her trying to pull her shoe back on.

Jen was working at high-class law firm, but then she finds out they hired her not for her lawyering skills, but on the assumption she would send all her superhero friends that own companies or lots of patents their way. So Jen quits, and wrecks their stupid table made from what were probably protected endangered rainforest trees. The guys were assholes with more money than anything else, is what I'm driving at.

Drinking her irritation away, she's approached by the wife of Jonas Harrow, a name that sounded familiar, but I had to look up to confirm. Harrow felt he devised some repulsortech that was stolen by one of Stark's companies. Jen figures this could be handled by her simply talking to Tony, but his automated receptionist redirects her to his Legal. Not legal department, just legal. That guy and Agent Shadrach from the Ostrander/Mandrake Spectre run would have a ball, though I'm assuming "ball" would mean, "someone gets shot in the face". Jen does eventually run the gauntlet of automated robots to get some facetime with Tony, and he writes the widow Harrow a check, and she gives 150 grand to Jen, who opens her own law firm. In a nice building full of people with superpowers. Unfortunately, her old bosses talked a lot of shit about her, so she's not getting much work, though she does have an ominous but diligent receptionist. To while away some time - and avoid dealing with the Blue File - she goes drinking with Patsy, who is depressed and adrift, and so they go busting into a warehouse that's an AIM lab, and Jen scares the bejeezus out of the two guys working there. Then she hires Patsy as an investigator, just in time because the next morning brings her first case.

I'm not sure I like Patsy being a heavy drinker and seemingly really bummed out. I prefer Patsy as the person who refuses to let the difficulties off life affect her approach, at least in part because she's already survived so much crap. Keep in mind that some of that crap involves being in actual Hell.

That is the beginning and end of my problems with this book. Soule's presented a Jennifer Walters that seems to enjoy being a lawyer, is good at it, but doesn't allow it to consume her life. She has too many other things she enjoys doing: sleeping, partying, saving the world. Also, I like that she's completely willing to point out she's saved the world to ungrateful jackasses. Marvel heroes are occasionally too willing to let the ungrateful folks heap scorn and abuse on them, and it's nice to see one not play nice. Her receptionist, Angie, clearly has something going on (Ancient One reincarnated?), now Patsy's going to be around, and there's a whole building full of people with powers and problems for Jennifer to interact with.

I wasn't sure how I'd feel about Pulido's art on the book, but I wound up really liking it. At first I thought Jen's eyes were unusually large, but I got used to that quickly. I saw someone describe his art as "flat", not in an insulting way, and it sort of fits. His characters seem to like to move straight across the page from one side to the other, or failing that directly towards or away from us. The side-to-side panels tend to be shorter and stretched in that direction, and the ones towards or away from us are usually taller and thinner. It's sort of a tunnel effect, where you can't see the character going in any other direction. I think it works for Jen, too. While she is a lawyer, and a lot of that is fencing and research and loopholes, she's also a Hulk. And a lot of being a Hulk (or She-Hulk) is taking the direct path to a solution to one's problems. That's sort of how Jen deals with (some) of her problems. When Legal gives her the runaround, she goes right to Stark, through all his stupid robots. When the AIM guy threatens to kill Patsy, she threatens to do the same to him, and demonstrates the power to back it up. She knows what she can do, and she's willing to use it.

I gotta say, these new series from Marvel are doing well at getting my attention right off the bat. I still have two more first issues left, or I will once Daredevil #1 shows up, so we'll get to those sometime in the next week or so. Don't worry, I still have plenty of other books to review.