Issue(s): She-Hulk #12
Cover Date: Feb 90
Title: "She-Hulk the movie"
Credits:
Peter David - Writer
Stephen Leialoha - Penciler
Trina Robbins - Inker
James DiGiovanna - Assistant Editor
Bobbie Chase - Editor

Review/plot:
Ok, Peter David writing a She-Hulk story. This should be good, right? No. Unfortunately, David is trying too hard to match the "funny" style of Byrne and Gerber (it comes off more Gerber than Byrne).

David is naturally very funny, with the humor sometimes happening even when i think things need to be more serious. So i feel like he should have just tried to write a straight She-Hulk series, and which would have made it just funny enough. He definitely didn't need to get into the fourth wall breaking stuff.

I do like the art in this issue, by Stephen Leialoha with a rare Marvel appearance of Trina Robbins on inks.

And ok, a ninja waiting for Carl Potts on the chauffeur line is a good gag.

The story is that someone is making a She-Hulk movie. She-Hulk initially tries to stop it, but she's offered a paid consultant role on the picture and decides to accept it. Even after her fan base warns her that it's not going to be a good movie.

The fans are kept at bay by putting them in a room with unbagged comics.

She-Hulk is going to be played by Pia Zadora.

Throughout the issue we see the casting director hiring obviously unqualified actors to play various roles.

The one guy that doesn't get hired is the real Wonder Man.

For the movie, She-Hulk is made a member of the X-Men, which is also the jokey selling point on the cover.

Inside that giant robot is actually Orka, the Atlantean villain. He winds up in a fight with the real She-Hulk that lands them in the Atlantis Attacks tank, allowing for a little dig at that event and a pun on Orka's name that is probably a typo that i've made once or twice.

After defeating Orka, She-Hulk finds out that the whole movie was orchestrated by Krang.

His scheme is overtly based on Mel Brooks' The Producers, where he'd separately convince several backers to invest in the film, each thinking they owned 100%, and then make the movie a flop, with him pocketing the cash.

Of course, no one should expect a super-hero film to make money.

She-Hulk continues to support the film, to the disappointment of her fans.

There's definitely some cute bits in here, but with this creative team i feel like this was an opportunity to rescue the title from zany irrelevance. The convention-bending fourth-wall breaking of John Byrne's run has been replaced with general goofiness (and had probably run its course anyway), and She-Hulk has been too good a character to abandon to this kind of nonsense.

Quality Rating: C

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: Not sure it matters, but the MCP have Orka's appearance here between his appearances in FF #336 and Deathtrap: The Vault.

References:

• She-Hulk says that Orka is probably mad that she beat him so easily the last time they fought, an footnoted reference to Avengers annual #18.
  
• Krang's Hollywood scheme was inspired by the Sub-Mariner's from Fantastic Four #9.

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

Luckily there is a real PAD run with Shulkie...but it won't be until after Slott's classic run. Too bad it didn't last that long though.

Tracking 'Batman' references in 89-90!

Peter Parker has been wearing an anti-Batman t-shirt. Definitely in Amazing Spider-Man #330, and i remember seeing it prior to that too.

Peter David reused the "make a wish" scene in "The Last Avengers Story".

I remember being SO disappointed the first time I read this. Peter David on SHE-HULK should have been one of the best and funniest issues of the whole run...and instead trying to blend his naturally funny writing with the already-wacky tone of series just fell flat. A real shame.

As Ataru points out, PAD's actual run on an ongoing SHE-HULK series is much better, although disappointingly brief. I think if it hadn't followed on the heels of Dan Slott's run it would have done better--it was just such a drastic shift in tone from what came before that I think it scared some readers away.