Issue(s): She-Hulk #34, She-Hulk #35
Cover Date: Dec 91 - Jan 92
Title: "Who was that zombie I saw you with...?" / "Hail, hail the gang's all dead"
Credits:
John Byrne - Writer
John Byrne - Penciler
Keith Willaims - Inker
Renee Witterstaetter - Editor

Review/plot:
This arc continues the zombie plot that began in the previous arc. Issue #34 has a cover parodying Demi Moore's pose in Vanity Fair, and that pushed the original cover intended for issue #34 to the cover of #35. Ironically, after doing the Demi Moore covers here and on the cover of Quasar #29, Marvel will later list parodies of that cover pretty low on their Coolometer that appeared on their Bullpen Bulletins pages.

Anyway, unlike the Quasar story, these issues have nothing to do with pregnancy. She-Hulk and Weezie are called back from their vacation by DA Blake Tower and asked to investigate the zombie situation. Blake arranges for them to speak with a voodoo expert, and while She-Hulk guesses that it will be Brother Voodoo, it turns out to be Samuel David Barone, aka Black Talon, who is actually the culprit behind the zombie situation.

It's worth noting that unlike a lot of the silly villains used in this comic, Black Talon had been used relatively recently and completely earnestly by Steve Englehart.

Black Talon puts She-Hulk in a trance and makes her help him with his plot, which involves resurrecting four old X-Villains.

From left to right, that is Jack Winter (aka the Living Diamond, aka Jack O'Diamonds, the Changeling, Harry Leland (aka the Black Bishop), and Scaleface. I am surprised the John Byrne even knew who Scaleface was.

None of these characters belong in X-Men costumes (although next year the X-Men animated series will begin, and that will feature Morph, the equivalent of Changeling, and he does wear a costume just like these).

Anyway, this zombie scenario lets She-Hulk go up against some X-Men villains that she otherwise would never have been able to fight...

...but of course they are zombies, and are therefore kind of gross.

So She-Hulk goes to complain to the Comics Code Authority. But she gets no help from him, since at this point the Comics Code is ok with zombies and there is nothing specific about goop.

She-Hulk gets some help from Changeling, who turned into a good guy before he died so he's not fully under the Black Talon's control (and therefore it's a good thing that Excalibur: The Possession gets retconned or we'd have to do some mental gymnastics to understand his flip-flops).

As far as the other zombies that we saw in the previous arc, it's said that Black Talon resurrected all of them while trying to find which grave Jack O'Diamonds was buried in. But we don't see them rounded up or anything. But She-Hulk does wind up earning the loyalty of Garth (not Simon Garth!), the zombie that Black Talon was using for muscle.

Subplots set up upcoming stories for Mahkizmo...

...and the Living Eraser.

And there continue to be a lot of meta jokes.

This arc is fun, but maybe a little less fun than the previous issues. It seems to be relying too much on the joke of bringing back some dead X-characters for marketing purposes, and even that isn't played up very much. So despite the obvious absurdity of the Black Talon raising a group of X-characters from the dead for no particular reason, there's less humor than you'd think. She-Hulk escaping Leland's gravity powers by letting them pull her down more quickly so she can cause a shockwave that knocks him over is a perfectly reasonable thing that you wouldn't be surprised to see in a starightforward super-hero comic, for example.

Quality Rating: B

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: She-Hulk and Weezie have been on vacation since the end of last issue, and so they shouldn't appear elsewhere in between.

References:

• A footnote says that we can give ourselves a sterling silver No-Prize if we recognized Mahkizmo ("this bozo") before he revealed his identity. Mahkizmo previously appeared in Fantastic Four #151-153.
  
• She-Hulk recognizes Black Talon as the guy who brought Wonder Man back to live, as was learned in Avengers #152.
  
• Since at time of writing i haven't yet split the 1960s X-Men origin back-ups into real entries, this is the first listing of Jack O'Diamonds in my project, so i'll link to the start of his previous appearances in the back-ups, which begin with Uncanny X-Men #40. For the other characters you can of course click on their names in the Characters Appearing section. No footnotes for any of them except for Changeling, who we learned in Uncanny X-Men #65 had redeemed himself by standing in for Professor X.
  
• The Keeper of the Comics Code previously appeared in Not Brand Echh #5 (which probably isn't in continuity).

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

Ironic that Squirrel Girl is listed as uncool.

I miss the Cool-o-meter. But maybe it's for the best it's gone...a modern one by today's Marvel staff would descend quickly into trite hipster snark.

Taking a closer look at the meter, I have to wonder what was so cool about non-sexual harassment.

I'm not only amazed Byrne knows who Scaleface is, but also that he didn't use Blow-Hard. (My guess is he was checking out Walt's art?) Squirrel Girl being so uncool is amusing, I didn't realise she'd appeared yet. Though Rintrah is much higher on my Coolometer. I dunno why, he just is.