Issue(s): She-Hulk #51
Cover Date: May 93
Title: "Chasing her tale"
Credits:
Scott Benson - Writer
Tom Morgan - Penciler
Tom Morgan - Inker
Renee Witterstaetter - Editor

Review/plot:
After the big production last issue to pick a new creative team, this issue is a fill-in. To be fair, we were told last issue that this would be the case, and i wouldn't be surprised if this were a "just-in-case" inventory story or something otherwise left over from the period between Byrne runs. And speaking of unpublished stories, that's the plot of this issue, so to speak. She-Hulk goes to the Marvel offices and finds that everyone is out at a Comics Convention in San Diego. But instead of an Assistant Editor's Month, there's only an intern named Tommy minding the shop, and together they find an unpublished story from She-Hulk's first series featuring the Man-Elephant.

She-Hulk isn't too pleased with her depiction in the comic. So she jumps into the book to confront her old self.

If this is meant to be a satire of She-Hulk's original series, it misses the mark because she never talked like that.

And here's no denying that the Man-Elephant was a character in her old series, but he was a guy in a suit, not a real elephant man.

This story is almost more of a parody of a Lizard story where he tries to increase the intelligence of his reptile brethren. In this case, it's elephants, and the procedure has the side effect of turning them pink.

One way to go with this would be having the elephants too intelligent to be interested in going along with the Man-Elephant's scheme, but in this case they do.

The She-Hulks are helped out by Tommy, who becomes The Gopher.

Since the Gopher looks kind of like a mouse, the elephants all run away.

Another gag in the issue has Tommy looking for the final pages of the Savage She-Hulk story, and finding the artist (inker?) under a stack of pages.

This is cute in the zany way that a lot of the non-Byrne She-Hulk issues were. I'd say it's actually funnier than average, and my opinion of Tom Morgan's continues to improve.

Quality Rating: C

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: As with last issue, there's a "story within a story" here that i'm not too sure about whether or not to count as canon. I don't need to worry about it since even if it were canon it would basically be a time travel story and i wouldn't list the Man-Elephant as a character appearing (and that's even assuming he's the same Man-Elephant as the one that appeared previously).

References:

• When the elephants shout "Eeeek! A mouse!!!", a footnote tells us that it's "not a reference to the ever popular reggae singer".

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

Now I actually want to find a copy of this issue :)

This is not the first time the "Savage" She-Hulk has been portrayed as basically "the Hulk but female" in this series, and I can't help but wonder if those depictions have resulted in a denigration and misconception of She-Hulk's original series, and a discounting of how much work David Anthony Kraft put into crafting the She-Hulk of today, which sometimes seems to be attributed entirely to Roger Stern and John Byrne.

That pink elephant is trying to quote John Merrick from the 1908 docudrama, The Elephant Man: "I am not an animal! I am a human being. I am a man."

Gopher appears again in issue 58, so he should be listed as a Character Appearing.
Fnord, why do you have this placed after FF 371-375. She-Hulk 52 features a Thing with an unscarred face, as you noted in your review of issue 50.

As i also note in that review, the bigger contention is the state of Four Freedoms Plaza. It's shown undamaged in that issue, but the roof is missing in She-Hulk #52. So She-Hulk #52 has to take place after Infinity War, and the Thing's face must be another case of him using an image inducer.

@Andrew: you mean 1980, right? :) Very touching movie.

The Man-Elephant introduced in this story is obviously a previously-unrevealed foe of the Power Pachyderms :)

Man-Elephant facially resembles the underground comix character Wonder Wart-Hog.

First of all, let me give an unofficial "upvote" to Morgan Wick's post, because from this point on, anytime there is a reference to Jen's "older days", The "Savage" She-Hulk is presented as just another (dumber and meaner) "personality" of Jen that never existed prior to these depictions (and not just mentality. Notice that even here, the "Savage" version is presented as more muscular, despite being explicitly stated that she is a lot stronger now than she was then.)

Minor annoyance: this issue kept making references to the late 70s, but I could have sworn that the first book came about in 1980 (and i think some book written about Marvel specifically attributed her as an 80s creation.)

Minor-er annoyance: Maybe I need to read your reviews again, fnord, because I thought the impression was that the first She-Hulk series was ok-ish (if not extremely popular given that it folded in two years). This issue made it seem like it was regarded as total garbage, the comuc equivalent of "Hello Larry" or something.

I really need to get around to reading my "Essential Savage Shulkie" trade; but I think people don't tend to look at it that fondly because it was pre-Stern and Byrne, let alone it was just two years. However, Kraft did have his way with her and, from how some of it looked, sort of felt like was an extension of the weird elements he worked in with his Defenders run; plus more importantly did at least set up the "normalcy" of Jen compared to Bruce that Stern and Byrne would further develop. And considering she was more or less created so that Universal wouldn't own her rights through a TV show, at least she was in stable footing enough to get to a point of greater prominence as the 80s went on.

@Jon- yes and no- the first issue was cover dated February 1980 but came out in October 1979.