Tony Stark: Jerk, part 3

OK, these pics aren't as damning as the stuff I posted in Part 2 of my Tony Stark series, but still, it does a good job of painting him as an unlikable ass. This all took place prior to World War Hulk, which was a REALLY bad crossover. Tony explains that the Hulk was killed/M.I.A. during a mission for SHIELD, and he asks She-Hulk to step in and take down any of the Hulk's foes who might pop up. Jen agrees, not knowing the real story of what Stark and his Illuminati did to her cousin.Regardless of how you feel about the Hulk(personally, I've never liked the character), Jen has a great point about Tony and his posse just sending Hulk away in a spaceship with no trial or anything... Wasn't Stark's whole point during Civil War that you had to obey the law no matter how wrong the law may be?

Then, after Jen had worked for Tony and SHIELD taking in all of Hulk's major enemies, Tony de-powers her for disagreeing with him and dumps her in the middle of nowhere. Like I said in the opening paragraph, Tony's actions aren't as bad here as his actions in part 2, but still these scenes paint him as an elitist who uses people how he sees fit and when he's done with them, he discards them like trash.

She-Hulk # 38 (the last issue)

Overall- This comic book is what it is(that's my favorite piece of coach speak by the way), the final issue of a series that had started off sensationally(get it? "Sensational She-Hulk"!), but kind of choked towards the middle and never really regained it's initial charm.

This issue revolved around the government capturing She-Hulk's Skrull friend, Jazinda and experimenting on her, since we here on Earth really hate Skrulls. Really hate them! She-Hulk decides to spring Jaz, but realizes that in doing so she'd become a wanted criminal. The Lady Liberators help She-Hulk and the women wind up rescuing Jaz and defeating Behemoth, who is basically a big man-elephant. After the battle, She-Hulk prepares to turn herself in to the government authorities, but she is stopped by her lawyer, Mallory Book. Book tells She-Hulk to get lost and not to expect to get her law license back after this latest debacle.

She-Hulk doesn't want to leave Book to take the fall, but Book assures She-Hulk that she has contacts that can make this whole situation disappear. With that, She-Hulk, Jaz and the Lady Liberators leave. We end this comic and series with Book meeting with 5 mysterious figures who are members of "Forth Wall Enterprises". Book tells the mystery figures that she is cancelling the groups plans for She-Hulk, which leads to the Forth Waller's to make some jokes about She-Hulk getting cancelled.

I liked this issue as much as I could, but for the most part, as strange as it is to even type these words, Peter David's writing just never seemed to work on this series. When Dan Slott left She-Hulk and I heard Peter was taking over, I figured he'd be the perfect replacement for Dan, since both writers can masterfully take a comic book and wring some laughs out of it. To me though, and remember, I'm a huge fan of Peter's writing, Peter just never clicked with this series. Maybe it was taking She-Hulk away from the law firm and making her a bounty hunter, maybe it was the Lady Liberators(they really annoy me), maybe it was Jazinda, but this series just didn't have Peter's usual awesome writing in it. I guess the best thing I can say is I'm glad this series is cancelled, because now I won't have to buy it anymore. For a final score, I'll go with a 7 out of 10. This wasn't a horrible comic by any stretch of the imagination, but once again, it just sort of fell flat.

She-Hulk # 37

Why am I reading She-Hulk, when there are a bunch of comics I would much rather be reading, such as Nova or The Legion of Super-Heroes? To put it bluntly, it's because out of all the books I plan on reading this week, this was the one I care the least about. With an early day of classes ahead of me tomorrow, I figured I just get this comic out of the way tonight, and dig into the comics I'm really looking forward to tomorrow night when I have more time. Does that make any sense? Meh, what can I say, I'm tired. On that rather ominous note, here's my take of She-Hulk #37.

Overall- Well, storyline-wise, I this was an OK comic book. Not great, but not awful. However, Peter David was back in top form when it came to witty, funny dialogue. That's probably the thing that's bothered me the most in regard to Peter's run on She-Hulk. The comedy just hasn't been there... One thing Peter does better than just about any other comic book writer is mix a good story with hilarious dialogue. For some reason, he just never seemed able to find the right balance of good story and funny dialogue in this series. This comic was probably my favorite issue of She-Hulk written by Peter, which is funny in an ironic sort of way, since the next issue is the last issue of this series!

This story unfolded on two fronts, with the primary story revolving around Shulkie getting released from UN custody after the public found out about her humanitarian efforts in that earthquake stricken country(I can't remember the name for the life of me...)last issue. With her approval rating sky-high, Mallory Book(from Shulkie's old law firm)shows up and tells Shulkie that she wants her to come back to the firm again. After visiting her old law office again, Shulkie gets a moment alone, and calls her Skrull buddy, Jazinda and tells her the news. Jazinda pretends that she is happy about Shulkie possibly getting her law licence back, but she realizes that if Shulkie becomes a lawyer again that means their bounty hunting days are over.

After getting off the phone with Shulkie, somebody knocks on the trailer She-Hulk and Jazinda are sharing, asking to speak to She-Hulk. Jazinda shape-shifts into She-Hulk and is surprised to see a giant elephant-themed villain standing at the door. The bad guy apparently used to be called the Man-Elephant, but smartly changed his name to the Behemoth... The Man-Elephant... Are you kidding me? Jeez, whatever writer came up with that name must not have been feeling very creative that day. "Well, he's a man dressed like an elephant. I know, I'll call him Man-Elephant!".

ANYWAY, Behemoth beats the hell out of Jazinda with ease, since Jazinda doesn't have She-Hulk's strength, only her looks. Behemoth ultimately beats Jazinda unconscious, which forces her to revert back to her Skrull form. Upon seeing this, the crowd of people watching the fight figure that since Jazinda is a Skrull, she must be a part of the Secret Invasion, so they call the police while Behemoth stands there confused.

Like I said before, this was a funny comic book. THIS is how Peter should have been writing this comic book. She-Hulk was hilarious, the villain was ridiculous(the Man-Elephant/Behemoth! Please!), and the situations were absurd, just the way I like my She-Hulk comic books. Anyway, from the looks of this issue, and next issue being the final one for this series, I'd wager that She-Hulk will get her law licence back and Jazinda will disappear, putting She-Hulk right back to the status quo. I doubt Peter will kill Jazinda off or anything like that, I figure she'll just return to bounty hunting in space. For a score, I'll give this comic a 7 out of 10. Hopefully, Peter will pull out all the stops next issue, and give us something laugh out loud funny. Too bad Peter hit his stride in this comic as it was getting cancelled... Oh well, that's life I guess.

She-Hulk # 36

Overall- Once more tonight(cause I'm feeling lazy)I'll do this review in brief(yeah right!)bullet points.

-She-Hulk meets with the president of Marinmer, and winds up getting drugged while debating him. Oh and the Invisible Woman was also drugged since she followed Shulkie into the meeting.

-She-Hulk awakens tied to a bed while Darqon Par(the president of Marinmer)leers pervertedly at her. Apparently, the drugs Shulkie inhaled also served to turn her back to plain old powerless Jennifer Walters.

-Before Par manages to do anything to Jen, one of Par's generals rushes in and attacks him. It turns out the general was actually Shulkie's best friend, Jazinda(who as a Skrull could easily impersonate the general).

-Jazinda wants to kill Par for the things he has done, as well as what he was preparing to do to Shulkie, but Jen, who is back to her She-Hulk form since the drugs have worn off, tells Jazinda that killing Par would make her as evil as he is.

-Jazinda tosses Par aside, and he continues to taunt Shulkie. Shulkie finally has enough and swings a fist at Par, but is prevented from hitting him thanks to the timely arrival of the Invisible Woman and one of her force fields.

-Shulkie then cooks up a plan in which Jazinda imitates Par on TV and "kills" herself in Par's guise, which removes him from office(Jazinda has the ability to come back from the dead, so she can easily shoot herself in the head and survive). Shulkie takes Par and drops him in the Australian outback, where his only neighbors will be Aborigines who have no contact with the modern world.

-The issue ends with Marinmer in worse turmoil then before and Shulkie getting arrested by the Justice Department for willful violation of international borders.

This issue was WAY better than the last few issues of this series have been, mainly thanks to the fact that She-Hulk wasn't nearly as preachy in this issue as she was in prior issues. All in all, I enjoyed this issue, and I thoroughly enjoyed the way Peter David wrote the character of Darqon Par. The guy was such a sleaze, in both appearance and actions. Par was one scuzzy character, who totally would have deserved a fist through the face. For a score, I'll give this issue a 7 out of 10, which is alot better than the score the last few issues of She-Hulk have received from me.

She-Hulk # 35

Overall- Ugh. That's about the best thing I can say about this comic book. Why is Peter David doing this to me? I normally enjoy cracking open a comic written by Peter, because you can usual count on a pretty good story, with some comedy thrown in. Lately though, both She-Hulk and X-Factor have sure become pretty bad...

This issue of She-Hulk annoyed me to no end. I just didn't like it. The Winter Guard, Russia's super soldiers(with emphasis on the word soldiers)confront She-Hulk and her fellow Lady Liberators in the earthquake ravaged nation of Marinmer. The Liberators want to hand out food and first aid supplies to the injured and dying people of Marinmer, but the leader of Marinmer wants to horde the supplies for his own personal gain. The leader of Marinmer called Russia for help, and Russia sent in the Winter Guard to protect the food and medical supplies from She-Hulk and company. So, for most of this issue, we have She-Hulk and the leader of the Guard, Red Guardian arguing politics while the rest of the characters mindlessly battled each other in the backround. The very last thing in the world I want to read about in a comic book is politics! When I want to read/hear about politics, I'll watch the news! There are VERY few exceptions to this rule. The only character I want talking politics is Oliver Queen, because he always has me cracking up as he rails against his hated foes, the Washington DC fatcats.

So, after the debate, the Winter Guard decides to help She-Hulk and the Liberators hand out the supplies to the suffering people of the country. Yay, now everybody makes nice and helps the people of Marinmer out, while completely disregarding the fact that the Winter Guard disobeyed direct orders from the Kremlin. The issue(mercifully)ends with some members of the leader of Marinmer's cabinet meeting She-Hulk and asking her to meet with the leader. She-Hulk decides to meet with the leader alone, because... I guess because she's an idiot.

I am overjoyed that I was able to get this comic out of the way. I really hated it! I'll always respect Peter David's work, many of his past series are amongst my all-time favorites, but I really think he's in a slump right now. With how bad She-Hulk has become, I'm actually looking forward to it's impending cancellation. She-Hulk was at one time among my favorite comic books, but right now, I really don't enjoy reading it at all... So, why do I continue to purchase it? Because I still have faith that Peter can turn this train wreck around. For a score, I'll give this comic book a 2 out of 10. Yes, I hated it that much!

She-Hulk # 34

Overall- I didn't really like this comic... Now, as I've said multiple times, Peter David is one of my favorite writers. That fact aside, this comic really rubbed me the wrong way. The story here is that there was an earthquake in some country led by a cruel dictator.

The dictator, Darqon, won't allow the foreign aid his country has received to help the people, instead, claiming the quake was God's will, while pocketing all the foreign aid. The U.N. can't do anything, because China and Russia are politically friendly with Darqon.

So, She-Hulk decides to gather the Lady Liberators and go into the country to forcefully hand out the aid packages to the people effected by the earthquake. Darqon, upon learning that his country was under attack by foreign super-heroes calls Russia for help, and Russia sends the Winter Guard, Russia's government sponsored super team, to defend Darqon against the Liberators.

Now, my main gripe with this story was that it, and She-Hulk were WAY to preachy for me. David was obviously trying to tie this story into some modern day political events... The name of the made up country in the comic was Marinmer... Sound remotely familiar to a certain Southeast Asian country that also has a "president for life"? It should.

Anyway, I like to use comic books as a form of escapism. That's just me. This comic at times felt like it trying to make a political statement, as opposed to telling a good story. That bothered me. I'd prefer any political messages to stay in the editorial pages of the newspapers... Unless it's Oliver Queen making the statement, he always cracks me up. As for a score, I guess I'd give this comic a 2 1/2 out of 10. The sooner this storyline is over, the better.

She-Hulk 32-33

Story- Shulkie and Jazinda are now in possession of the Talisman, the Skrull high priest they believe may be the one thing that may cause the Skrull's to abandon their assault on the Earth. Shulkie and Jazinda decide to send a cloaked broadcast to the Skrull's showing them they possess their great Talisman, thus shaking the Skrull's and turning the tide of the invasion.
Unfortunately, the Super Skrull arrives to fulfil his oath from earlier She-Hulk comics, which is to kill his daughter, Jazinda. Shulkie takes on Super Skrull, but during the damage from their battle, the Talisman get free of his restraints and attacks Jazinda.
Super Skrull gains the upper hand on Shulkie, by blinding her and makes his way to Jazinda, to fulfill his vow. Shulkie, still blind, pleads for the life of her friend, but Super Skrull is unmoved(or so it seems) and blasts Jazinda, which allows the Talisman the opportunity to forcefully extract a gem Jazinda had ingested that was of great value to the Skrull's. Super Skrull, remembering happier times such as raising his little girl, prevents Talisman from carrying out this deadly act by tossing him far, far away. He then leaves Shulkie and his daughter, telling Shulkie to tell Jazinda when she regains conscious that it was the Talisman who spared her life and that he never wanted to see either of them again.

Overall- I was kind of looking forward to this comic and was a little let down... As an avid reader of the Annihilation comics and Nova, I had gained a bit of respect for the Super Skrull, due to the depth added to his character over the course of those other books. However, during these She-Hulk comics, he seemed to revert back to the basic villain he had been for the majority of his appearances. He seemed only interested in the death of his daughter and seemed to have embraced his Skrull heritage again, which as recently as the most recent Nova comic, he seemed not to care much about. Anyway, I was glad to see the more complex Super Skrull reappear at the end of these issues by refusing to blindly obey the Talisman and sparing Jazinda's life. Hopefully, now this will be the end of the Secret Invasion portion of She-Hulk. I understand why Marvel does it, they hope people will buy this comic based only on the fact that the "Secret Invasion" banner appears on it, but for the most part, these crossover stories are rarely satisfying, because they take the title character out of whatever they were doing and thrusts them into the larger overall crossover story, which hurts the story the comic book was previously exploring (if that makes any sense at all).

"He Loves You" X-Factor 33-34, She-Hulk 31

Story- She-Hulk and her travelling Skrull companion, Jazinda, have just realized that a Skrull invasion of the Earth is imminent. The Skrull's invading the Earth are religious zealots and often times send their high priest, Talisman, to a planet they intend to invade, as a way to garner the blessing from their God. The Talisman is in Detroit, with a mutant named Darwin(from one of my all time favorite mini-series, Deadly Genesis), who the Talisman believes could be useful to the impending Skrull Invasion. The Talisman has taken the shape of former X-Man Longshot to earn Darwin's trust, since Darwin was a one time X-Man.
To complicate matters, Darwin's long estranged father, has hired X-Factor investigations to find his son. So, naturally, Jazinda and She-Hulk, confront "Longshot" just as X-Factor finds Darwin. X-Factor sees Shulkie and Jazinda attacking "Longshot" and step in to help defend him, giving us our obligatory "super-heroes fight over a misunderstanding" moment. In time, the heroes realize that they should all be on the same side and that "Longshot" is actually the Talisman, which leads to them all attacking the Talisman. Bad move, as the Talisman is powered by his belief in his own righteousness, and he mops the floor with all of them, that is until Darwin is convinced by Monet, whom he has a huge crush on to defeat the Talisman. Darwin is now able to stand up to the Talisman thanks to Monet's words, which shakes the Tailsman conviction in himself long enough for him to be defeated by She-Hulk. She-Hulk and Jazinda take the Talisman with them, hoping his absence will be enough to shake the religious convictions of the Skrull's and ruin their invasion, while leaving X-Factor with Darwin.

Overall-It's written by Peter David, right? So that means an automatic two thumbs up from me! Seriously though, my fanboyish love for Peter David's work aside, these issues were OK, BUT, I'm just not really enjoying the whole Secret Invasion storyline period. Therefore, I didn't really enjoy these issues as much as I usually enjoy the constantly stellar work from Mr. David. The issues were worth a read, but were tainted for me at least by the unwarranted and unwanted inclusion of the Secret Invasion stuff.