Jennifer Walters is back to her old self again … again. She’s lost count of the number of reinventions she’s been through. She thought she’d have done more with her life, so what’s different this time around? Find out in She-Hulk #1, written by Rainbow Rowell, drawn by Rogê Antônio, colored by Rico Renzi and lettered by Joe Caramagna.
Armaan Babu: Jennifer Walters may not be thrilled to be starting over, but I’m certainly thrilled to be starting a new #1 with you, Stephanie! Before we begin, I have one question: How often do you feel you should have been further along by now?
Stephanie Burt: All the time. As for Jennifer, same answer: all the time. The structural problem with Jen — and it confronts everybody who writes about her — is this: She’s been so many things in the Marvel Universe that she can’t be all of them at the same time. So many things, in fact, that you can’t even tell a good story (AFAIK) about how she has to choose which thing to be, because they don’t make sense together and can’t fit, tonally, into the same book.
She’s been a flimsy anti-feminist punchline; a kickass empowerment heroine; a wisecracking fourth-wall breaker kinda like Gwenpool, or even like Deadpool; a vehicle for lighthearted romance comics; a lawyer in a legal sitcom written, delightfully, by a lawyer, Charles Soule; a supporting character in large-cast books with solar-system-sized plotlines; and, in her last solo book, a monstrous figure consumed by angst and grief, written by Mariko Tamaki, who kinda specializes in angst and grief. Writers keep resetting her because they never agreed on what or who she should represent. I wish there were three of her so that each one could grow and change.
Instead we get… what? We know why there’s a She-Hulk solo title again — it’s a roundabout promo for this year’s TV show starring Tatiana Maslany (Yay!) — but we don’t know what’s coming with this character, in the way that we would with, say, Clint Barton or Storm. We do know it’s written by Rainbow Rowell, so there will be jokes and character growth. And romance.
Armaan: There’s not a lot of romance yet in this first issue, but there’s definitely a lot of laughs. Let’s dive right in!
All’s (Mac)Pherran Love and War
Stephanie: As we go in, I’m seeing a romance comic. Mousy white lady, we’re rooting for her, she’s lost in the big city without prospects, and the title card with its pink and white simply shrieks Hollywood Classic. I don’t know if anyone other than me and Jay Edidin read Marta Acosta’s The She-Hulk Diaries, but it’s good, and that Shulkie looks much like this one.
Armaan: You know what? That sounds great. I’m going to try joining this extremely exclusive club and try to have that book read while we’re waiting for #2!
Stephanie: I do wonder why such a prominent superhero lawyer has to start again near the bottom of a career ladder. What did I miss?
Armaan: As best as I can find out, Jennifer’s been trying to make a go of a solo practice for a while now. The people she’s worked with before seem to have either too many expectations of her as a lawyer for superhero stars or are uncomfortable with her superheroic side completely. As the giant, green, grammatically reduced She-Hulk we’ve seen on Jason Aaron’s run of Avengers, however, I don’t think she’s been doing any lawyering at all. I can see why her being out of the game for so long may have hit her pretty hard, career-wise. She’s been missing out on a lot of cases.
I can understand why the book might not want to recap everything that’s brought her here, but it could have benefited from a little nod or mention here. You’re not the only reader who’s going to feel like they’ve missed something.
Stephanie: I know what Titania missed: She likes to punch things. And it’s hard to punch things in your strength class if you’re neither a superhero nor a supervillain. Superhero fights, for some folks, are like pickup sports! There should be rec leagues. Carol Danvers understands this mentality. That’s why she and Jen have to be friends.
It’s also why Jen lets Titania bait, or encourage, or something, her into a good old-fashioned Silver Age-style street fight. With quips, and decidedly un-Silver Age risque jokes. Jen implies she and Titania have, at some point, wrestled or fist-fought naked? Where and what and did this happen on John Byrne’s watch and do I have to go read lots of John Byrne-written comics to find out? Was it a mistake to take this gig?
Armaan: You might not have to go back too far! She-Hulk’s previous, Wakandan-designed vibranium “armor” was a lot skimpier than what we see here, and Titania’s seen her in that as recently as Immortal Hulk #47. It seems like she’s left that costume behind with her days as the Avengers’ Hulk, though, and I, for one, could not be happier.
Stephanie: Why thank you. If all I have to do is read some Al Ewing-written comics, that sounds like fun.
This comic, meanwhile, looks like fun. I love the fight choreography here. These artists make even better matches for Rowell’s scripts than the Runaways team. They’ve got the versatility to switch from bodies flying and punches thrown to two-camera sitcom dialogue. Two green thumbs up.
Also thumbs up to the way Jen takes care of New York. When you rip a STOP sign out of its sidewalk foundation so you can use it in a hero tussle, you should use your super-strength to put it back. Other strength-based heroes should take note.
Also, when Jennifer tells Mary “I’ve got your number,” I know she means “Let’s fight again,” or “That was fun,” or “Let’s hang out,” but can we please acknowledge exactly how many queer ships involve our enormous emerald Esq.? There’s a certain amount of fanservice in this exchange, and that’s absolutely not a bad thing.
Armaan: As much as I loved the fight scene, with all of its gags, this one quiet page of her cleaning up after the fight really got to me. It’s just after that moment of awkwardness when Titania realizes Jen’s genuinely in a low place at the moment, after Jen has to insist she’s OK to avoid feeling pitied. The post-fight adrenaline is gone, and even the warmth of hero-anti-hero bonding has faded.
In this awkward anticlimax, Jennifer cleans up her mess and goes to work. We get back to the Jen we saw in the opening page, someone who’s forced by her situation to feel smaller than she is. Having to put the best of yourself aside and do things that feel responsible because your life is much farther behind than you thought it would be is a very specific feeling, and one that I relate to very strongly.
I’m very interested in seeing how this comic is planning to explore that.
New Career Woes
Stephanie: So am I. That said, it’s a bit of a continuity stretch for me to imagine Jen, who has been such a prominent legal practitioner in the American legal system on Earth-616, so near the bottom of a career ladder. “It’s a job. You need a job,” she tells herself. Jen is a member of the Supreme Court Bar. Come *on.* (Admittedly her first time before the Supremes didn’t work out very well, although at least Alan Davis got to draw her.
Jen’s new career woes also feel like a bit of a cop-out if we’re headed for a romance plot. I for one am more interested in how an empowered woman will find the right man (one who’s not scared of power) than in how a mousy disempowered woman will find a guy who can bring her out of her shell (Guys line up for that). I do trust Rowell to handle romance plots, though. And I’m curious what we’ll get from her new boss Mallory, “the best lawyer in New York” who somehow can’t afford or doesn’t want a personal assistant of her own (let alone one for Jen). I feel like the infamous cobbler who judged stories based on descriptions of characters’ shoes, but I do wonder how close to the legal profession Rowell and her team get. (Yes, I grew up around East Coast lawyers and law firms. Sue me.)
Armaan: Stephanie, that is a legal battle I would clearly need a She-Hulk to win, and she seems a little busy at the moment.
I’m not sure how I feel yet about Jennifer’s new boss, Mallory Book, but one thing I do admire. After dealing with bosses who either wanted Jen to make use of her alter-ego, or ones who wanted to tamp it down, I like that Mallory’s hired Jen for no other reason than that Jen’s the best, and Mallory doesn’t want the competition.
Between Titania, Mallory and the ever-delightful Wasp (not to mention the sudden appearance of someone it’d be a bit of a spoiler to name), I quite like the supporting cast we’ve got introduced in this first issue!
Stephanie: Me too, for sure. “Crash with your friend who’s so rich she’s got space to spare” is also part of living in, or moving back to, New York, and that’s something this comic gets very right. As is Jen’s quip to Janet: “No one carries my size.” She-Hulk is one of too few folks on Earth-616 who make it easy for Marvel writers to build in themes about body positivity, body acceptance and the ways in which society isn’t built for big or tall people, especially not if those people are women. I hope we keep getting asides on the topic from Rowell, who has spoken about it elsewhere. “I want to take up more space in my own life” is such a good line, and for so many reasons. I’m so glad Marvel put this writer on this book.
As for the last reveal … wait, are we supposed to avoid spoilers? Let’s just say it’s like getting a deal from a whole new deck of cards. And it introduces a whodunit.
Looking Ahead
Armaan: So from the first issue, we’ve got a little action, a little humor, a lot of Jen humbly trying to make the best of a bad situation and a little intrigue. There’s also — and I admit I missed this completely until you pointed it out — a fair bit of setup for some romance down the line.
I enjoyed this issue, but like Runaways, I feel like it may not be until several issues into this run that I get a proper sense of what this book’s identity truly is. This is a very quiet first-issue debut for a character not most known for her quiet life, but I enjoyed what I read here and am certainly along for the ride.
What do you think we can expect to see from this series going forward?
Stephanie: Romance, I hope. Disempowered professional woman making her way in the big city among the sharks and terrapins of the legal profession, for sure: subplots we might get from a TV sitcom. Spy stuff and supervillain fights and probably a big bad evil or morally ambiguous (like SHIELD or AIM) organization, given the reveal on the last page. And extraordinarily appropriate and versatile artists who can switch from bubble bath to life-threatening punch-ups in the space of a page turn. I for one am psyched.
Last Minute Legal Notes
- The simple gag of Jennifer’s face disappearing halfway down a panel after she kicks her heels off still leaves me (Armaan) giggling.
- I started counting the shoes in the closet in Janet Van Dyne’s (spare and rarely used) apartment — at least some of which are Jennifer’s shoes — and I’m still not done. Can I borrow some? I’m size 11, sometimes 11½.
- Will we see the Fantastic Four, given the references to FF history? Will Jen steal a Fantasticar next time? “I still have the keys” is priceless.
- Please involve lawyers if you’re going to make legal jokes. Also please make legal jokes.
Stephanie Burt is Professor of English at Harvard. Her podcast about superhero role playing games is Team-Up Moves, with Fiona Hopkins; her latest book of poems is We Are Mermaids. Her nose still hurts from that thing with the gate.
