Issue(s): She-Hulk #2, She-Hulk #3, She-Hulk #4, She-Hulk #5
Cover Date: Mar-Jun 80
Title: " Deathrace!!" / "She-Hulk murders lady lawyer!" / "The She-Hulk strikes back!" / "Breaking point!"
Credits:
David Anthony Kraft - Writer
Mike Vosburg - Penciler
Chic Stone - Inker

Review/plot:
Issue #1 of this series had creators about as high profile as you could get, but with these issues the regular creative team takes over. David Anthony Kraft had the rough task of following Steve Gerber on the Defenders and did a good job with it, but he won't work the same magic on this series, or, at least, that magic is less obvious. It could be argued that he inherited a stinker here. It's hard for me to fully grasp this, because, under Roger Stern and then John Byrne (or so i thought), She-Hulk eventually becomes a credible and even enjoyable character. And that's how i first experienced her. But at the time, a lot of fans rejected the idea of a She-Hulk character outright, largely due to the fact that female characters derivative of existing ones aren't popular with fans of Marvel's relative realism (because it leads down a slippery slope to Krypto the Wonder Dog and Comet the Super-Horse), feminists (because the female character is always in the shadow of her male counterpart), or anyone else.

So when i read these issues, i'm coming at it with two conflicting biases. The first is that i'm not able to appreciate how well Kraft was able to work with a laughing stock of a character that he inherited from a simple origin story by Stan Lee. And the second is that i'm constantly fighting the impulse to say that Kraft is writing the character "wrong" because of things i've read that hadn't been established yet.

With those biases on the table, i'll still say that i don't think these issues are very good. Not awful. One thing for sure: Mike Vosburg lays out a clear story and Kraft can write scripts that are readable. The stories, however, feel goofy and targeted for a younger audience. The challenges unworthy of someone with Hulk strength. The supporting cast bordering between uninteresting and grating. As the series goes on, however, Kraft will continue to tweak the character and eventually get to something approximating the She-Hulk i know from later stories. So he's actually at least somewhat responsible for what i thought of as the Stern/Byrne version of She-Hulk, although it takes him some time to get there.

We start with a recap of She-Hulk's origin, and Kraft re-scripts some scenes to make She-Hulk... punnier? Quippier? This "physical" joke is pretty forced. In the original she says "Now let's see how tough you are -- against me!" which is much more straightforward but i like it a lot better.

We then get to see Jennifer Walters at trial. She's the defense attorney for a mobster named Lou Monkton, and she wants to use the testimony of the three goons that attacked her last issue to prove that a different mobster, Nick Trask, is really responsible for the murder charges against him. The ADA, Buck Bukowski, objects on the grounds that the goons' confession was made under the duress of She-Hulk, and the judge agrees. Here's Bukowski after the court session pushing his "foil for women's libber" role as far as it'll go.

Jen then heads to the prison to talk to the goons. She tells them she'll stop pressing charges against them if they'll confirm their testimony. They agree but they are worried about repercussions from Trask.

I was kind of shocked to realize that these guys weren't aware that Jen Walters was She-Hulk. Last issue, they were attacking her and then she turned into She-Hulk and kicked their butts. But i re-read the issue and i realize it's scripted in such a way that they don't realize what's happening. Just that She-Hulk appears out of nowhere. I still say these guys are really dumb.

Walters then goes to taunt Trask, who has a goofy snake fetish.

She and her friend Jill then go to a barbeque at the house of Daniel "Zapper" Ridge's parents house.

Zapper is a medical school student, younger than Jen, and he'll have an unrequited love thing going for Jen for most of the series and also serve as a sort-of Rick Jones.

Taunting Trask was as ill-advised as it sounded. When Jen gets a suspicious call about picking up papers from the DA's office related to the Monkton case, it takes Zapper to make her realize that it doesn't make sense for them to be calling her there. But by then her friend Jill has already volunteered to pick up the package and left. So Walters goes chasing after her, transforming into She-Hulk and knocking out Zapper (who also doesn't figure out her secret identity from this; i wonder what he thinks happened here) on the way.

The rest of the issue is She-Hulk chasing Jill, in Jen's car, which had its brakes tampered with by Trask's goons, around town. She eventually is set up to catch Jill, but Bukowski thinks that She-Hulk is chasing Jen around and he "saves" her by ramming his car into She-Hulk.

Jill dies in the explosion.

She-Hulk is blamed for the death of Jill (i love how comics used to have real copy in their newspaper panels; i've been noticing in more recent comments they just fill up the text with lorem ipsum stuff)...

...but Jen Walters is able to keep the police from reporting the truth about the accident; they allow it to be reported that it's Jen who died. So Jen is able to get charges against Monkton dropped and stay under Trask's radar. She shows up in court looking way too smug for someone whose friend just died.

Jennifer stays at the Ridge's place while she's presumed dead. So Bukowski and the judge and Zapper's family all know that she's alive, but they don't tell Jennifer's father, Morris Walters. And he's the sheriff. So he blames the She-Hulk for his daughter's death, and becomes a sort-of General Ross of the series. I don't know why someone couldn't have told him his daughter was alive. He's a cop; you'd think he could be trusted with the info.

But i do like that as of issue #3, Zapper does learn Jen's secret ID. It's because he hears her talking in her sleep, not because she decides to trust him or something, but still. Issue #3 is set up so that we might think that Jen is becoming the She-Hulk and going on rampages in her sleep. But the real culprit relates to a robot that we saw getting shipped to Trask during She-Hulk's run through the city in issue #2.

The robot has been painted green and given a wig so that it'll look like She-Hulk.

Hoo hoo hoo, that's rich!

Meanwhile, the Stark employee that delivered the robot gets worried, but his contact is killed by Trask...

...and the Stark employee is killed by the robot.

The robot is then sent after Jennifer Walters, but she turns into the She-Hulk and smashes it.

Their fight takes them to the ocean where its green paint washes off.

By issue #3 they are still contriving to find reasons why She-Hulk would be running around in a tiny tattered white nightgown...

...but eventually it's just sort of taken for granted that that's what happens when she transforms.

We first start to get a real distinction in Jen and She-Hulk's personalities in issue #4.

She-Hulk heads out after Trask, who has already captured Monkton and Jen's father and brought them to what turns out to be his James Bond villain style headquarters.

Trask also has a whole bunch of pilfered Stark tech. He convinces Morris Walters to enter an alliance with him against She-Hulk (even though Trask was responsible for the death of Morris' wife, in an assassination attempt meant for Morris). Trask knows that She-Hulk is really his daughter Jen, and the gun that he's given Jen's father "works on emotional energy"; he expects that feedback from the gun will drive Morris mad. And that's what starts to happen.

After She-Hulk rescues her father and Trask goes into hiding, it's revealed that Jen Walters is really still alive, and her father happily reunites with her. That might have been a good time to tell him that she was really She-Hulk, but it doesn't happen.

Issue #5 opens with a really nice demonstration of the She-Hulk's strength, as she holds together a bridge after an earthquake.

And it initially doesn't seem to be part of the Trask storyline, which i was prematurely glad about. Three issues of dealing with a mob boss, high tech equipment or not, was a bit much for someone with She-Hulk's strength. Instead it's an unusual plot with She-Hulk defending Roxxon Oil from accusations that their recently disappearing oil is part of a price rigging scheme. But when she investigates, it turns out that Trask is involved after all. He's gone full-blown goofy at this point, having developed a Silver Serpent (after his love of snakes) device that sucks out all the oil from Roxxon's oil fields.

And when they go out of business he intends to sell all the oil himself. Poor Lou Monkton is still a prisoner of Trask, and Trask apparently likes dragging him around with him, but She-Hulk battles the Silver Serpent for a while...

... and rescues him. Then Trask's Serpent malfunctions and he goes plunging to the center of the earth.

So after five issues, the big boss is defeated with minimal help from the hero.

The issue ends with a defense of Big Oil (which, whatever you think of the oil industry in real life, doesn't really work for Roxxon, who has been shown to have evil designs in nearly every story they've appeared in).

In issue #5, Zapper takes a sample of Jennifer Walters' blood.

This action triggers events that have short-time and long-term ramifications. Looking at this scene in retrospect, it's specifically in the context of Jen being scared of not being able to control her transformations, and one of the results of this test is that she eventually will be able to do so. So it's possible there was some long term planning going on here.

Derivative in many ways and spending way too much on She-Hulk fighting a single crime boss, i still found a few things to like in these issues. I do like the focus on legal maneuverings. There isn't a ton of it and i'm sure it's not very accurate, but there's a decent amount of time showing Jen in court and it's more satisfying than a typical Daredevil court case. There's also a potentially interesting thing happening with the Jen/She-Hulk dichotomy that could be developed to separate her from the Hulk. But there's so much more not to like. Starting with She-Hulk's lack of a costume. Trask's transformation to low level crime boss to high tech mastermind with dreams of taking over the world's oil economy. Jen's dad's over the top hatred of She-Hulk. The "rivalry" with Bukowski. And Zapper.

Quality Rating: D+

Historical Significance Rating: 2 - introducing She-Hulk's supporting lame cast

Chronological Placement Considerations: Jennifer Walters has just gotten out of the hospital at the beginning of issue #2, but there's no telling how long she might have remained there since issue #1's end.

References: N/A

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: Essential She-Hulk vol. 1

In this story, Jen's mother is described as murdered by Trask. In Sensational She-Hulk 53, Jen's mother is described as killed by a drunk driver.

It's interesting to compare what didn't work in the solo series and what did work after Stern and Byrne took over. The rather uninteresting supporting cast was jettisoned. They got rid of all the lame villains. Most importantly, they distinguished She-Hulk from the Hulk by making her completely in control of her form (even making her permanently the She-Hulk) and making her want to be the stronger type than her previous self.

It just goes to show that in the hands of an excellent writer (and I share your high esteem of Roger Stern, my favorite comics super hero writer) even lame characters rejected by fans can be turned into winners.

Just out of curiosity, fnord12, why do you simply refer to this series as "She-Hulk" instead of "The Savage She-Hulk" to distinguish it from it's later series?

Also, why does Jen's scantily-clad costume bother you, when (as far as I know, at least), she's always fought skimpy outfits (and her cousin's outfit is usually a pair of torn jeans)? In addition even the "good" writers like Byrne and Slott play up her more fanservice-y attributes.

The question of whether or not to count the adjectives is an old one and price guides and similar have handled it inconsistently over the years and so do i. A long while ago, someone wrote a letter to David Letterman asking if they should file their Hulk comics under H for Hulk or I for Incredible. And of course my ears perked up! A burning relevant question for me! But of course Letterman just said he was going to file the letter under N for Nerd. My general practice is to ignore adjectives (also: Mighty Thor, Mighty Avengers, Invincible Iron Man) unless i know that there are going to be two books running concurrently at some point and i'll need a differentiator (Amazing vs. Spectacular Spider-Man, Uncanny vs. [Adjectiveless] X-Men). I figure since the lists and search results are also chronological it should be clear. But it does still bug me and in this case since it did say "Savage She-Hulk" in the indicia throughout the series, maybe i should have labeled it that way.

The problem i have with She-Hulk's lack of a costume in this series is that, unlike her cousin, She-Hulk is an intelligent character in both her forms. Early in the series it makes sense that she gets taken by surprise, but you'd think at some point she'd find a way to deal with the transformations so that, even if we want to say that as She-Hulk she doesn't care what she looks like, at least Jen Walters doesn't have to walk home in a torn smock. It gets more ridiculous when they stop contriving ways for her to be in a white frilly outfit before the transformation and she winds up in the white smock regardless. At least they usually remembered to give Bruce Banner purple pants. At a higher level, i also think her lack of a costume contributed to the fact that until Stern and Byrne got a hold of her, fandom considered her to be a joke; her visual design at this point was far from iconic.

I have a problem with "fan service" too and i'm sure i have and will continue to complain about that more than anyone wants to hear, but to the credit of the creative team for this series, i don't think that's what's going on here. The "costume" is certainly revealing but they generally depict the character as being more (to tie it back to your first question!) savage and Hulk-like than she usually is later on and they don't put her in a lot of sexy poses and stuff like that.

One problem I come across within certain She-Hulk circles I hang around is that they think the "torn nighty" is the definitive look and that anything else just makes her look too much like a super-hero. Except for the fact that once Jen finally gets her act together, she basically becomes the best example of what can happen with gamma-powers gone right and the torn nighty is just an example of a woman running around in a way to make her look like a monster or some sort of turn-on. Admittedly, while many people sort of say that "spin-off characters" of this sort aren't really needed, I think Shulkie is one of the few who did it right by showing that just because you become a gamma creature doesn't mean you have to become a monster, even if it happens over time. And the nighty...just sort of ends up feeling like it would have been her "purple pants" if she didn't change her look once she got it together.

That the torn smock look complements her "Savagery". It reminds me of a sort of attack of the 50ft woman. There's definitely a B film thing going on with the art. Link for attack of 50ft woman:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e5/Attackofthe50ftwoman.jpg/667px-Attackofthe50ftwoman.jpg

So fnord, without adjectives, do you file the books under "Fantasy", "Tales" and "Four"? :D

In Back Issue #96, Dwight Jon Zimmerman claims that he helped Kraft out with writing this book, though he doesn't really specify in what way or on what issues.