Saturday Splash Page #181

"Out of Bounds," in Sensational She-Hulk (vol. 1) #5, by John Byrne (writer/penciler), Bob Wiacek (inker), Glynis Oliver (colorist), Jim Novak (letterer)

Having never read Savage She-Hulk, Jennifer Walters' first ongoing series, my impression is it was the classic Hulk formula, but Hulk was a girl. She-Hulk wears a ripped-up outfit, talks in simplified sentences, punches monsters, and gets chased by the authorities (in Jen's case, I think it was her dad, who was a sheriff.)

After that ended, she spent some time on the Avengers, then replaced the Thing on the FF post-Secret Wars, the latter when John Byrne was writing and drawing the book. Byrne turned down the savagery, with Jennifer Walters being in control as She-Hulk and generally loving being a big green lady. He also upped the sexy aspect of the character, which continued to an extent once Sensational She-Hulk started up (preceded a graphic novel of the same name.) Byrne gives She-Hulk a lot of different outfits to wear, for work and play and working out and whatever else, and spends more than few pages on her trying out different stuff or commenting on not wanting a good outfit to get wrecked in a fight. She-Hulk being fun-loving, confident clothes horse is probably what's stuck the most consistently in the 30+ years since this series.

The less consistently applied, but arguably more significant, change Byrne makes is Jennifer becomes aware she's in a comic book. She takes advantage of an issue actually starting to cycle through her wardrobe quickly by changing between panels, or yells at Byrne about using the Toad Men for alien invaders, or (in Byrne's second stint on the book), his propensity for having characters try to marry her. Byrne also adds Louise "Weezi" Mason, the Golden Age Blonde Phantom, to the cast. Weezi ends up being meta-aware as well, and admits she finagled Jennifer a job working in the District Attorney's office (Weezi's boss), because even being just a supporting cast member will get her enough page time to slow her aging any further.

Of course, Byrne later has her fall in a vat of stuff the Mole Man's got laying around, and Weezi gets de-aged (and slimmed down) back to her early 40s. Yes, not long after he de-aged Spitfire in the pages of Namor, and yes, Weezi comments on the fact Byrne's getting obsessed with aging and mortality since he hit 40. Then Weezi starts dating Jennifer's dad (no longer trying to arrest She-Hulk, but still not happy his daughter's 6'10" and bright green), gains a little weight, gets angry about how plump Byrne's drawing her, and goes on strike while Jennifer's in the middle of a fight with Xemnu the Titan in an outer space truck stop.

A fight which Byrne initially illustrates as a "fromage" (his word) of Siryn fighting Juggernaut in X-Force #3. I mean, he mimics the postures exactly (She-Hulk standing in for Siryn, Xemnu for Juggy) and shifts his art style to a more Liefeldian look for 4 pages, until his editor Renee Witterstaetter marches into the book (dressed like she stepped out of the night club from the opening scene of Temple of Doom) and tells him to knock it off and start over.

That's the kind of book it is under Byrne. Kind of goofy, full of jokes about issue 3 being the obligatory, sales-boosting Spider-Man guest appearance, or doing a cover referencing the magazine cover of pregnant Demi Moore (She-Hulk holding a beach ball in place of being pregnant.) Byrne was writer/artist for the first 8 issues, left for almost 2 years, then returned on issue 31, with a cover showing She-Hulk and Renee stopping him from renumbering the book back to #9. Even if he's stymied there, Byrne does treat everything in between his runs as a lengthy dream sequence for Jennifer.

Byrne sticks to stories that are 1-3 issues long, fitting with the book's policy of only using "lame" villains. Byrne includes Xemnu and the Headmen in that category, along with Gamecock, Stilt-Man, and Spragg, the Living Hill. I feel like not all those characters deserve being lumped under that umbrella, but so it goes. But all the weak villains and focus on jokes or on drawing She-Hulk in various sexy outfits, means it doesn't feel like Byrne's got an overarching story of theme he's working towards. Maybe "draw a giant sexy green lady" was the overarching theme.

I think Byrne's first 8 issue stretch is stronger, maybe because his second stint feels more gimmick based. The Liefeld homage, the "naked jump rope" bit (which I was afraid ran for the whole issue, but thankfully does not), everybody trying to marry She-Hulk. The artwork's very nice throughout; Byrne at least seems to be having fun drawing She-Hulk fighting goofy villains or spending a few pages letting her fall through a pitch-black tunnel. He's usually being inked by Bob Wiacek, though partway through the second stint She-Hulk gets Byrne to use the duotone paper he'd been using on Namor (until Wiacek starts inking him there) for her book instead. I'm not sure the rougher texture it gives his art works as well here, though Jennifer describes it as feeling like she's wearing corduroy.

Byrne's second run ends at #50, which is mostly an excuse to get other artists - Dave Gibbons, Frank Miller, and Walt Simonson among them - to do 2-page gags about their version of a She-Hulk book. But the book ran for 60 issues total, and Byrne was only responsible for 27 of those, so we'll look at the other half of the series next week.