The Scoundrel continues to be the absolute worst at taking “no” for an answer, and with Jen’s heart, she’s finding it harder and harder to say the word. Attempting to blow up New York, however, may just be what puts him in her bad books for good … or so we hope. She-Hulk #14 is written by Rainbow Rowell, drawn by Andrés Genolet, colored by Dee Cunniffe and lettered by Joe Caramagna.
Armaan Babu: Stephanie! It’s #14, which means we’ve more or less been covering this book for two years now! Charmed by its romances and minor moments of personal pain and comforting camaraderie, learning to get along with its weird pacing problems that sometimes lead us to … well, issues like this one, that feel like a soft serve between the more important issues around it. I come away from this issue pleased but far from satisfied — but still more than happy to keep talking about it with you.
Stephanie Burt: I have taken forever to get to this week, much as the arc has taken forever to get to the Scoundrel’s scoundrelly, dastardly plan. But I’m excited to find out what it might be!
The Fantastic Four-um
Armaan: We begin with a meeting between Jennifer and the Fantastic Four.
Y’know, the thing (heh. no, no, sorry, ignore me, we must focus) about the Fantastic Four is that as fun as they can be in their own book, I think they do even better as guest stars in someone else’s. Just this charming, delightful dose of their personalities redelivering exposition and helping us as an audience both recap and chew over what’s been going on; mainly, the whole situation with Scoundrel. With one successful heist after another, he’s become quite a problem, and Jennifer seems to be the only key to figuring him out.
Stephanie: Agreed. My favorite thing about Reed Richards might just be his willingness to play the (literally) straight man, authority figure and exposition deliveryman, over and over again, for 20 years (comics time) or 60 years (in our world). And then Jen has a crisis of confidence in front of her former teammates, who “think I’m the weakest link.” Which, compared to Ben Grimm and Sue Storm, you maybe sometimes kinda are.
Armaan: The scene captures the FF’s dynamic quite entertainingly — Reed’s callous practicality vs. Sue’s more compassionate brand of the same, Johnny’s petulance and the Thing’s earnest need to want to help out but lacking the knowledge of what to punch or what to uplift. They’re a family … but despite their close friendship over the years, they’re not Jen’s family, and you can feel the difference here.
Stephanie: Except that Ben genuinely wants to be! He wants Jen to trust him. He goes after her when she walks away! I love this scene.
Armaan: Once again, I’m really enjoying how much the art is telling us about where Jen’s at. It’s all in what’s not there. No jokes, no swagger, not even any frustration. There’s almost a coldness to Jennifer, self-concern, insecurity and pain. She’s tired of the situation, and if I had to guess, tired of the way it’s making her feel, as well. She’s been tired, for a long time, as anyone who’s been reading along for the past several issues can see … and things don’t look like they’re about to get better anytime soon.
It doesn’t help that she’s carrying a lot of this by herself. Her relationship with Jack continues to have some major complications, and if I’m remembering right, the only person she’s talked to about it is Hellcat, Patsy Walker — and Patsy’s been out of town for a while having her own hellish misadventures over on the West Coast (your life is never smooth when you’ve got your own solo title, but Hellcat has been particularly rough on poor Patsy).
Stephanie: I gotta catch up with the current Hellcat. Jen seems like the world champion of having good friends who don’t show up for her. Not just Patsy but Spider-Woman and Janet van Dyne. Where’d she go? And yes, some great art: efficient, elegant, expressive and sad. Jen isn’t where she wants to be, and it shows.
Armaan: We also get what feels like an obligatory office scene — done so quickly it feels like it’s just there to check off a box. Seriously, Jennifer is walking in in the first panel and walking right out by the last one for a quick scene about her grievances that could barely have lasted about two minutes.
Aside from a few bright spots here and there, it feels like the office scenes are only there out of some sense of obligation — they could be skipped entirely and make little difference. Who knows, though, perhaps that is intentional — work has a way of both tiring a person out while also making people question why they’re even there in the first place past the need to make a living.
Almost enough to make someone resort to a more exciting, lucrative career …
To Dance While New York Crashes Down
Armaan: Death has no stakes in comics. But a romance you’re rooting for? That’s a tenuous, fragile thing in a world so obsessed with returning to a familiar status quo. More often than not, you can metagame the comics a little to figure out where a story’s going, but the romance between Jen and Jack? I don’t know — but I am rooting for them. Which makes Jack’s call here more than a little worrying.
We don’t get a lot of information — Jack is spending some time away, figuring out his powers, working on … something. The faces say more than the dialogue does; Jack is not happy about what’s happening here. He’s making a difficult decision, one he clearly knows Jen is not going to be happy about. And Jen is right there in the next panel, looking right at him between panel borders, clueless as we are as to what’s going on, talking to the only person in this comic who’s able to make her smile unreservedly. There’s so much story in these two panels alone, and my heart aches for them.
Stephanie: 100%. Last month I picked up a complete physical run of the 1984 Jack of Hearts miniseries by Bill Mantlo and Herb Trimpe, which I loved when I was 13 and did not remember very well, and holy #@$%, Jack’s had a hard time. He’s been associated with self-hatred and suicidal ideation for almost as long as he’s been in comic books. Here he’s out of the comic almost as soon as he’s in it — he’s got fewer panels than Mallory Book’s office scene — but he stands for something super-important: If you feel worthless and hate yourself for whatever makes you special and powerful, one solution (not the best solution) involves exhausting yourself, wearing yourself down to nothing, running your body into the ground, in the pursuit of some task that everyone else will see as a noble sacrifice. So of course Jack’s off to the Marshall Islands, draining them of radiation from American nuclear tests, which were real, and really harmful. Good for him. But also: bad for him.
Armaan: Rowell gives the space for an art team to sing. Jen and Jack are two gorgeous looking people, one draped in style and the other draped in regret — and it’s a sad but true fact that a quick cheat for heartstring-tugging romances is for the protagonists to be incredibly good looking people. I also really enjoy the colors — Cunniffe is not afraid to be exhaustingly drab in the backgrounds that make Jack’s sunset colors stand out even more. He looks angelic, even.
The overall structure of the series at large has been … unsatisfying, but individual moments like this? They shine, and they’re what I love about this series the most.
Stephanie: Yes! Rainbow Rowell can write for arcs to trade paperbacks, but she’s really thinking about the slowest of slow burns, the way we’d expect from someone trained as a novelist. Great opportunity for an artist. Also, have you noticed how this ongoing hasn’t been damaged or even affected by various editorially mandated crossover events? The absence of such events definitely helps.
Armaan: Of course, we have another romance to deal with — the Scoundrel. If Jack’s background paints him angelic, the Scoundrel’s take on a decidedly darker tone … but none less romantic. He’s inviting Jen to his flying ship for another dance.
The romance the Scoundrel is looking for here with Jen is one that does not work, but I think the story about it absolutely does. Whether it’s supervillains dropping a building on them or matters of the heart, you want to see a superhero’s limits being tested, and there’s certainly a lot of strain being put on Jen’s heart right now.
Stephanie: He’s awful, and Jen shouldn’t give him the time of day. But he’s hot. I defer to Rainbow Rowell in terms of what women who mostly date men, or only date men, want in men. But I’ll never quite get it.
Armaan: I’ll give the Scoundrel this — he’s as quick with his wit as he is on his feet. He’s disarmingly open about his feelings, his intentions, and as much as he dances around the words, his intentions are clear. He makes her smile. It’s not the smile she gives Jack — it’s strained, it’s reluctant, it’s weak — but given how little Jen has had to smile about in recent times, it’s a smile nonetheless.
There’s something of Jack in Nicolás — both charming boys with a passion for life, but where Jack seeks the wonder in the mundane, the Scoundrel is aiming for the finer things in life. Spaceships and magic strength-granting witches, superheroes and gamma-powered attorneys, the Scoundrel is an impossible fantasy determined to live in the world of the same … and the thing that amuses me most about him is how baffled he is that Jen doesn’t want that, too.
Stephanie: Because he’s obviously and completely without a moral compass. Which Jack clearly has (however much his guilt over being himself makes his readings unreliable). I can’t entirely tell whether Jen is taking advantage of her former crush to investigate him, or whether she’s taking advantage of an excuse (he needs investigating) to pursue a still-current crush … maybe Jen herself can’t tell!
Armaan: At any other time, this might have been a romance that worked. The Scoundrel is a step back into an easier, fun-filled life, but there’s no future with him. Sooner or later, he’s a dream that must end. I’m glad it’s sooner, but the pages we get of his charms are still a truly lovely read. Jack, you really, really need to step up your game and take Jen out somewhere fancy!
Stephanie: Like therapy? I don’t think Jack can get much else done right now before he does some serious work on himself. I do think Jen could benefit from dating someone else. Not instead of Jack. In addition to Jack. Let’s see them both undertake a good conversation about secure attachment. But first there’s this handsome scoundrel …
Armaan: As I said earlier, I’m glad the bubble pops sooner than later. The Scoundrel, as it turns out, was stealing parts for a bomb meant to blow up all of Manhattan. That’s a lot of lives this man is casually throwing away — it’s almost silly. Would I have liked a more grounded reason for Jen to throw him through the nearest wall? Probably. Did I enjoy Jen throwing him through the nearest wall any less? Not in the slightest. Jen’s great at throwing people through walls, it’s been too long! It’s about time we shifted away from flirtatious dancing to out-and-out brawlings!
Stephanie: Since I’ve disliked him all along, and since this comic book has comic-book consequences for planned mass murder, but realistic consequences for romance, I found the wall-crushing full-page throw exceptionally satisfying. Now if only someone would throw Fantomex through a couple of walls! I know, he’s been thrown out of mutant comics in general at this point, and nobody misses him much. But still, some strong Fantomex vibes from Mr. Scoundrel. Strong metacomics, villain-who-can’t-be-real, fourth-wall-breaking vibes. And the last thing Jen needs in her life is another fourth-wall-breaker. (Unless she’s Gwenpool. Everyone needs more Gwenpool.) I hope she gets to smash this guy into the ground next time. With Ben Grimm’s incidental assistance. And more help from her other friends.
Last Minute Legal Notes
- Johnny’s petulance at there being a dashing superhuman out there with a more dashing name than “the Human Torch” is adorable.
- Also where is the terrible mustache that Johnny’s sporting over in his main series? You don’t just take away a man’s terrible mustache!
- She-Hulk tells Andrew he can do better — and he can!
- Marvel’s Fight Club spinoff series — we want it now, please.
- The sheer callousness of Reed Richards telling Jen he wanted to use her as bait is breathtaking.
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.
