John Byrne was writer/artist for 27 issues of Sensational She-Hulk, but what about the other 33? The answer is, it's a real mess. The book had 10 different writer (or writer teams) over those issues, and 10 different pencilers. I don't know if nobody particularly wanted the job, Marvel couldn't find someone they liked or what. There's a lot of one-offs, although the writers seem to pay attention to what each other were doing. Scott Benson does a fill-in for #51, where She-Hulk is desperate for a story for the issue, and jumps into an inventory issue from her Savage She-Hulk days, and only makes it through with some help from Tommy, the lone Marvel intern at the office. Sholly Fisch brings back Tommy in issue 58, now trying to be Jen's costumed sidekick as she fights an Electro so drunk on power he thinks he's an "electrical elemental."
Most attempts at stability didn't last. After Byrne left the book the second time, Marvel went with Michael Eury and Zach Britton as writer/artist team. Eury wrote a 6-issue story about an enemy trying to drain the gamma radiation from Jennifer's blood and nearly getting her killed, but Britton only drew the first issue (where she fights Titania in a lingerie store), then vanished, with most of the remaining issues being drawn by Pat Olliffe.
The only two who stick around for any length of time are Steve Gerber, who wrote a total of 16 issues (3 of those with Bruce Dixon), and Bryan Hitch, who drew 13 issues. The two mostly overlap, which is nice. Gerber maintains some of Byrne's status quo, Weezie Mason and the flying car Jennifer got after a trip to outer space. (Also the bit about Jen having sexy dreams about Hercules, though it's Simon Furman who writes an issue where Herc finally shows up.)
However, Gerber kicks her out of the District Attorney's office (though she's back at that job in the last few issues of the book) after a defendant argues her actions saving people from a falling communications tower unfairly prejudiced the jury. Dan Slott would also use this in She-Hulk volume 1, and Mark Waid did something similar in Daredevil. Gerber focuses more on his typical social commentary/satire stuff. His first arc involves Jennifer being enlisted by a shadowy figure Byrne hadn't fleshed out, who turns out to be "Lexington Looper." Lex is in danger from a former employee who stole a device that can project whatever images you wish to a person or persons and make them feel or believe whatever you want. Perception as reality, facts are irrelevant. So "Pseudoman" projects the image of a train bearing down, and Jennifer is terrified. Jennifer tries a flying tackle, but he projects himself as powerful and immovable, and she gets tossed blocks away.
After that, Dr. Angst (see Sunday Splash Page #343) reverses a black hole via giant, magical plunger, so that it starts spewing matter into the universe, essentially filling it with other universes until only the most dull, mundane places are left for he and his old associates to rule, everything else smushed together and out of existence. The only one aware of it is an offshoot of the Watchers, called the Critics. He ropes Howard the Duck in, because he can't get too involved and Howard's got experience with this sort of crap, then sits back and critiques how things are going.
With that approach, it's no wonder Gerber declines to have She-Hulk break the 4th wall. Any more broken walls, the entire book would collapse like an imploded sports arena.
Hitch is still in his Alan Davis-lite era, which, to be clear, I prefer to his style from Ultimates to the present. And it better suits stories like these, with their absurd or comic tones. He's got to draw a talking duck in a universe of nothing but cold cuts and tomatoes, that does not call for a photorealistic look.
I wouldn't say the non-Byrne creative teams do away with the fan service. Like I said, the lone Eury/Britton issue involves a fight in a lingerie store (complete with the Thing helping out while being embarrassed about being there and wondering how women fight in so little, which ignores that he fights in his underwear.)But they aren't devoting pages specifically to She-Hulk doing sexy poses or jumping rope, I guess.
Both Gerber and Eury do stories where she switches between different looks. Big and grey and monosyllabic, ala early Hulk, or her Savage persona, or back to mousy Jennifer Walters. I don't know what either writer was trying to say with that. Maybe they just wanted to shake things up. Byrne basically left her as is, minus the Christmas issue where she briefly transforms back into Jennifer as a gift to her dad (courtesy of her team-up with a lecherous Santa Claus in issue 8.) Man knew what he wanted to draw.
2 comments:
I do have one of the issues from this period, the one with the vase and Death's Head. Because Death's Head is in it.
I must have had that one, because I pulled together the entire series eventually, but I can't remember anything about it.
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