Lately, it seems like every week I get to Thursday and feel the week should be over. But there's always Friday to get through. That's probably not good. Today we have two fourth issues. One is the conclusion to a mini-series, the other is an ongoing series that is way behind schedule.
We get a little glimpse of Jen's fight club thing with Titania until the Thing shows up, still seeking legal advice on the ticket for not having Lockjaw on a leash. We'll see if we get any more scenes with the fight club before the book ends.
Ben's also sent a few friends Jen's way as clients, which is a problem since her boss wants no superhuman clients. So she'll see them on the sly. She talks with Reed Richards long enough to confirm being around Jack of Hearts hasn't messed with her gamma levels (without mentioning Jack's alive again.) After that, she and Jack get back to trying to piece together what happened to him. Jack at least remembers one thing from his escape that leads them a different part of New York. Then they drink bubble tea and discuss power, lack thereof, having two faces, until someone with heavy footsteps shows up looking for Jack.
So, a lot of talking, but not much plot advancement. That seems like a familiar comment. Rowell seems to be trying to help the audience care about Jack by emphasizing the contrast between he and Jen. Becoming She-Hulk ultimately hasn't disrupted Jen's life too terribly, at least from her perspective. She likes the power, the confidence. Maresca doesn't draw Jen in her un-Hulked form as a diminutive, shy person, but she does draw her clothes as loose enough that you can see Jen dresses to be ready to shift if needed. It's something Jen's used to and has learned to plan for.
Jack had a relatively normal life, apparently studying poetry in college, and his powers wrecked all that. He spent, as he puts it, his 20s flying through space because he was afraid of vaporizing his friends. For him, the novelty of his powers wore off long ago. They've left him isolated, with almost no one he feels can trust or call friend. The opportunity to leave that behind is tempting, even if he's smart enough to know someone siphoning off his power is dangerous. The t-shirt with the big heart looks silly on him, but Jack isn't uncomfortable wearing it.
Maresca's artwork is similar enough to Antonio's there's no real whiplash. Maresca's line is maybe a bit rougher, there's more of sketch quality to it, but I'm also wondering if Maresca was a replacement artist and this was on a rush schedule. Renzi's color work helps maintain a consistent feel, too. I especially like the bleakly grey color scheme for the law office. It's almost like one of those cartoons where the technicolor character finds themselves in an older, black-and-white cartoon world. All these super-characters in what's supposed to be a serious legal profession.
The giant is destroyed save for one gauntlet. The girl, however, can't get to him. That would be a step backward, and the world won't allow it. The father they befriended in issue 1 brings that gauntlet to her, and she continues on the path, finally reaching a tree growing from what's left of some column. Just like where the story started. There's a circular disc with instructions, but the lock is broken. She has to go back, but she can't, or can she?
Well, not alone, but the gauntlet can cleave through the force in her way, and also sends her back in time? Was not expecting that. So she walks until she's back to the fortress, to before the battle, when she was about to accept the champagne, and recombines with her earlier self. Instead of having a fun time at the party, she drags the prince off to the garden and uses a bit of her blood to get the plant growing and pulls a Poison Ivy on him. Then she saves the kid used as a decoy to lure out the giant, and then the giant saves them both and lets the goblins or whatever breach the walls of the fortress, take everything, and send the people within out naked into the wilderness.
After that, and a farewell to the family, all that's left is to finish the journey. Back to the tree, this time with the giant intact. Turn the lock, and the roles are reversed. The giant becomes the infant, the girl becomes the giant. Which someone causes the tree to bloom for a brief moment before the petals disperse. And the giant walks away, carrying the baby.
So there are things I don't entirely understand. Why they do this, what the purpose of the tree is. But I wonder if either the giant or the child know either, only that they have to do it. Presumably this has been going on for a while, not the girl's first time as the one being guided, but she didn't show any signs of remembering or understanding. So it stands to reason all the giant knew was that the girl had been the giant once, been protector on this journey, and then the roles reversed. So it isn't likely they could really explain it to us, either, even if Spurrier was doing expository dialogue here.
I like the layout where the girl springs her trap on the prince. Four tall, narrow panels descending across the page, focused on her, but panning slowly so that while the prince is focused on her in panel 3, he's missing that she's let her blood contact the plants in panel 4. Then the bottom of the page is a shot of a couple of rockets or flares signaling the battle's beginning, but we can just see leaves starting to break through the glass of the greenhouse. It's a nice bit for how things are happening relative to each other.
That and all the panels of her pushing her way back to the giant. All those short widescreen panels, done where it looks like the force is trying to tear her apart. Like she's walking into a firestorm.
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