What classic comics have you read lately?
Aug 1, 2023 14:46:00 GMT -5
dbutler69, Confessor, and 1 more like this
Post by Roquefort Raider on Aug 1, 2023 14:46:00 GMT -5
She-Hulk #1
I can hardly believe this book was published in 1979. In my old and hoary head, it’s still a new-ish title. I believe it was created to secure the rights to the She-Hulk name before someone else did, as even in those pre-Netflix days someone might just decide to produce a TV show using a female version of the Lou Ferrigno emerald giant.
Written by Stan Lee and drawn by John Buscema and Chic Stone, it is not what I would call a great comic. But hey, it’s also pretty typical of a late 1970s comic-book, and I loved (and still love) those pop-culture gems!
No super-villain in this first issue; my guess is that the idea was to look as much like the Hulk TV show as possible. Case in point: when Bruce Banner is introduced, Stan says “Call him David, or Bruce, or Bob…” Why in tarnation would we call him David, if not because we came to this book after watching the TV show? What’s more, we learn that Banner was in med school before switching to physics to build bombs… an uncommon academic journey, but one that reconciles Banner being a physicist in the comic and an M.D. on TV. It’s the first (and I think only) time I heard of Banner having had medical training, but then I didn’t read the incredible Hulk for very long.
The plot is just an excuse to give an origin story to the She-Hulk. Bruce Banner visits his cousin Jennifer, a lawyer, for undisclosed reasons. Probably to help him with his legal troubles as a rampaging monster? We never find out, because after Bruce retells his own origin Jennifer gets shot by mobsters and the adventure begins.
I really enjoy Stan’s dialogues when he goes all grandiloquent, but boy! Does he have a hard time making ordinary people sound natural. If my cousin told me “”I’m a wanted man! The police are after me! The army! Sometimes I think… The whole human race!” my answer would probably be “What the $#@ are you talking about, man?” and not “I can’t believe it! Not you! Not YOU! What… What have you done? Answer me, Doc! I have to know!” But then… it’s Stan. Melodrama Maximus!
We are treated to a lot of clichés I wouldn’t have noted as a kid in the ‘70s. When the gamma bomb is about to detonate for the first time, assistant Igor (you know, the Russian spy!) says “You’re a fool, Banner! It’s too dangerous! You’re unleashing forces no man can control!”
I just can’t picture any scientist involved in such a project having cold feet at the very last second like that. Also, Jennifer acts like a TV lawyer, trying to do the police’s job, and planting false rumours to get the bad guys to make a mistake (which turns out to be attempting to murder her!)
Hilarious physics dept: as Jen lies on the ground and the thugs get near her to finish the job, Bruce saves her by acting like a riot-control agent, using… A GARDEN HOSE!!! Oh, yes, I can certainly imagine hired thugs being thrown back by the intense pressure of a garden hose.
What to do with a cousin who’s just been shot? If you answered “apply pressure to the wound and call 9-1-1”, you’re still young. No cell phones in those days! If you answered “apply pressure to the wound and shout for help”, you still don’t get a no-prize. If you answered “get back in the house with the victim, and THEN apply pressure to the wound and call an ambulance”, you’re still wrong.
The correct answer is “pick up the victim and get back in the house, ponder your options aloud, and run around the neighbourhood (still carrying her) trying to find a doctor’s office! And when you miraculously DO find one (albeit an empty one), break a window to get in and instead of FINALLY calling an ambulance, set up a blood transfusion. Never mind plugging the hole… If you keep pumping blood in at the other end, it should work, right?
THEN you can call the police.
Naturally, this being a comic-book, the boys in blue decide that Bruce must be the bad guy, and he exits the comic off-panel. (A good choice, I think, as this is not an issue of the Hulk himself).
Jen wakes up feeling tingly, when the thugs show up in her hospital room disguised as really mean orderlies. Quite resourceful fellows they are, and the police doesn’t seem to be overly eager to protect a woman whom the mob has just tried to kill!
Jen then turns into her new alter-ego, and this is the only panel in the entire issue that I found noteworthy. Big John seems to have rushed through his breakdowns for most of the issue.
Note that Banner’s blood has two important virtues: it can turn people into other Hulks (at least when said people are his cousin) and it causes clothes to change their structure to preserve everyone’s modesty. In Bruce’s case it means his purple pants can stretch indefinitely; in Jen’s case it means that a button-down shirt can turn into a torn shift that will reveal generous cleavage but hide her mid-section. (She-Hulk would eventually adopt actual super-hero costumes, when she became an Avengers, but I must say that this very simple design, and the green-and-white colour combination, works really well,
Furniture, elevators, walls and cars are broken, bad guys get clobbered, cops arrest the would-be killers… and in a very refreshing change from the usual “O woe is me” speech, Jen seems actually grateful for her new abilities.
All in all, a quite decent introduction to a new character. It’s not the plot of the century, but it does the job, and had I read it when it came out (my copy is a dollar-bin refugee) I would have sought out #2.
I can hardly believe this book was published in 1979. In my old and hoary head, it’s still a new-ish title. I believe it was created to secure the rights to the She-Hulk name before someone else did, as even in those pre-Netflix days someone might just decide to produce a TV show using a female version of the Lou Ferrigno emerald giant.
Written by Stan Lee and drawn by John Buscema and Chic Stone, it is not what I would call a great comic. But hey, it’s also pretty typical of a late 1970s comic-book, and I loved (and still love) those pop-culture gems!
No super-villain in this first issue; my guess is that the idea was to look as much like the Hulk TV show as possible. Case in point: when Bruce Banner is introduced, Stan says “Call him David, or Bruce, or Bob…” Why in tarnation would we call him David, if not because we came to this book after watching the TV show? What’s more, we learn that Banner was in med school before switching to physics to build bombs… an uncommon academic journey, but one that reconciles Banner being a physicist in the comic and an M.D. on TV. It’s the first (and I think only) time I heard of Banner having had medical training, but then I didn’t read the incredible Hulk for very long.
The plot is just an excuse to give an origin story to the She-Hulk. Bruce Banner visits his cousin Jennifer, a lawyer, for undisclosed reasons. Probably to help him with his legal troubles as a rampaging monster? We never find out, because after Bruce retells his own origin Jennifer gets shot by mobsters and the adventure begins.
I really enjoy Stan’s dialogues when he goes all grandiloquent, but boy! Does he have a hard time making ordinary people sound natural. If my cousin told me “”I’m a wanted man! The police are after me! The army! Sometimes I think… The whole human race!” my answer would probably be “What the $#@ are you talking about, man?” and not “I can’t believe it! Not you! Not YOU! What… What have you done? Answer me, Doc! I have to know!” But then… it’s Stan. Melodrama Maximus!
We are treated to a lot of clichés I wouldn’t have noted as a kid in the ‘70s. When the gamma bomb is about to detonate for the first time, assistant Igor (you know, the Russian spy!) says “You’re a fool, Banner! It’s too dangerous! You’re unleashing forces no man can control!”
I just can’t picture any scientist involved in such a project having cold feet at the very last second like that. Also, Jennifer acts like a TV lawyer, trying to do the police’s job, and planting false rumours to get the bad guys to make a mistake (which turns out to be attempting to murder her!)
Hilarious physics dept: as Jen lies on the ground and the thugs get near her to finish the job, Bruce saves her by acting like a riot-control agent, using… A GARDEN HOSE!!! Oh, yes, I can certainly imagine hired thugs being thrown back by the intense pressure of a garden hose.
What to do with a cousin who’s just been shot? If you answered “apply pressure to the wound and call 9-1-1”, you’re still young. No cell phones in those days! If you answered “apply pressure to the wound and shout for help”, you still don’t get a no-prize. If you answered “get back in the house with the victim, and THEN apply pressure to the wound and call an ambulance”, you’re still wrong.
The correct answer is “pick up the victim and get back in the house, ponder your options aloud, and run around the neighbourhood (still carrying her) trying to find a doctor’s office! And when you miraculously DO find one (albeit an empty one), break a window to get in and instead of FINALLY calling an ambulance, set up a blood transfusion. Never mind plugging the hole… If you keep pumping blood in at the other end, it should work, right?
THEN you can call the police.
Naturally, this being a comic-book, the boys in blue decide that Bruce must be the bad guy, and he exits the comic off-panel. (A good choice, I think, as this is not an issue of the Hulk himself).
Jen wakes up feeling tingly, when the thugs show up in her hospital room disguised as really mean orderlies. Quite resourceful fellows they are, and the police doesn’t seem to be overly eager to protect a woman whom the mob has just tried to kill!
Jen then turns into her new alter-ego, and this is the only panel in the entire issue that I found noteworthy. Big John seems to have rushed through his breakdowns for most of the issue.
Note that Banner’s blood has two important virtues: it can turn people into other Hulks (at least when said people are his cousin) and it causes clothes to change their structure to preserve everyone’s modesty. In Bruce’s case it means his purple pants can stretch indefinitely; in Jen’s case it means that a button-down shirt can turn into a torn shift that will reveal generous cleavage but hide her mid-section. (She-Hulk would eventually adopt actual super-hero costumes, when she became an Avengers, but I must say that this very simple design, and the green-and-white colour combination, works really well,
Furniture, elevators, walls and cars are broken, bad guys get clobbered, cops arrest the would-be killers… and in a very refreshing change from the usual “O woe is me” speech, Jen seems actually grateful for her new abilities.
All in all, a quite decent introduction to a new character. It’s not the plot of the century, but it does the job, and had I read it when it came out (my copy is a dollar-bin refugee) I would have sought out #2.
