Issue(s): She-Hulk #29, She-Hulk #30
Cover Date: Jul-Aug 91
Title: "The Fourth Wall -- and beyond!" / "A change of state"
Credits:
Louise Simonson - Writer
Tom Morgan - Penciler
Jim Sanders III / Jim Sanders III & Keith Williams - Inker
Renee Witterstaetter - Editor

Review/plot:
Louise Simonson writes the final two issues of She-Hulk before the return of John Byrne. I don't know if this was a stopgap gig for her on the way over to DC to write Superman: The Man of Steel (the first issue of which has the same cover date as issue #29 here) or if this was something she already wrote before getting forced off the X-titles and it was just getting published now.

The story is no gem, in any event. She-Hulk has been hired as a lawyer to force the United States to admit that it has evidence of an alien visitation from the supposed 1947 crash near Roswell.

One thing i will say is that Tom Morgan's art in this book, at least to start, is a lot less messy and cartoony looking than it has been on books he's done at Marvel so far. I don't know if we can thank inker Jim Sanders III for that, and the art does seem to degrade as the story goes on and especially in issue #30, when a second inker is added. But to start with, the characters are actually very normal looking, and the art is quite good.

Note that She-Hulk thinks someone is watching her, and we do have a mystery mad professor and his students observing She-Hulk, but there's also a lot of playing on the idea of a Fourth Wall in this story. The professor's name is Dr. Sanderson, and considering (as we'll see) how he plays with the Marvel universe, he's probably a nod to Marvel historian Peter Sanderson (and She-Hulk's client is a Mr. Inocenti, possibly nod to Ann Nocenti?). Dr. Sanderson is also an existing, albeit very minor, super-villain that we've seen in the past. I'll hold off on giving away his identity for now.

Trying to get the government to admit that aliens exist is a pretty weird premise in the Marvel universe. That is sort of implicitly noted when Dr. Sanderson decides to send an alien to attack She-Hulk, but it's not something the story makes a real point of.

Anyway, the alien that Sanderson chooses is Venom.

And during the fight, this happens.

So much for a female writer being less exploitative with She-Hulk. It's noted that interest from beyond the Fourth Wall increases considerably after this incident, whether it's due to the appearance of a popular villain or She-Hulk's loss of clothing, or both.

Anyway, Venom turns out to have been plucked from the past, and soon lots of characters from the past are sent after She-Hulk, including two Hulks (which, since this is She-Hulk, you'd think would allow for an interesting interaction, but not so much)...

...and then Wolverine (i'm not sure why She-Hulk is surprised that Wolverine knows who she is)...

...and then Spider-Man and then Ship, from Simonson's X-Factor run. She-Hulk doesn't recognize Ship, and assumes that whoever is on it is responsible for all the attacks. So she flies up in her flying car, which was brought by Weezie's daughter Wanda (aka the Phantom Blonde). When she gets there, she finds Apocalypse.

Apocalypse confirms that he's not responsible and indeed that he's also been plucked from another time period.

I did perk up a little bit when Ship and Apocalypse showed up, and the fact that he says that by this time period he should have "come and gone" at this point seemed to suggest that he was from the future, and that this meant that Simonson intended for Apocalypse to get Ship back at some point. But a footnote does confirm that Apocalypse really comes from the past like all the others.

When Apocalypse threatens to locate and bomb the people that brought him to the present, they quickly send Apocalypse back where he came from. But that leaves She-Hulk and her friends falling from the sky, and Sanderson's students don't actually want to kill anyone, so they pull in more characters to save them, including Iron Man. Iron Man is able to locate the power surge that is summoning everyone before he is sent away again.

More characters are then brought in to fight She-Hulk. At least one of the students is a critic of what Simonson did to Caliban.

Eventually it turns out that Dr. Sanderson is ISBISA. Yeah, yeah, i know: Who? Check the References.

So basically this story is a bunch of gratuitous guest appearances and a bad rehash of jokes from John Byrne's first run.

There's also the Fourth Wall angle, which is also from Byrne's run, of course. But the idea here is that this story is so interesting that the energy from beyond the fourth wall is beaming positive vibes to She-Hulk and making her feel good.

And that would be nice, but... no. It's not true. I am probably the only person that ever made it to the end of this story, and i promise you there is no positive energy coming from this direction.

Quality Rating: D

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: N/A

References:

• Dr. Sanderson has replaced Brent Wilcox's position at the university. Wilcox was pulled into another dimension by demons in She-Hulk #25.
  
• "This past Apocalypse is pretty cool. But check him out in the present in" X-Factor #68 (the footnote also incorrectly cites issue #69).
  
• ISBISA previously appeared in All Winners Comics #19 and Vision and the Scarlet Witch #2.

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A