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SHE-HULK VOL. 2 #1
© Marvel

Mania Grade: A-
Issue: 1
Authors: Dan Slott, Juan Bobillo
Publisher: Marvel
Price: $2.99

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SHE-HULK VOL. 2 #1

Anyone else sometimes get confused between Greg Horn and Greg Land? They both draw hot chicks with huge boobs. And I like them both. And you should check out Greg Land's hilarious entry in Wikipedia. Not written, I'm guessing, by his biggest fan.

Anyway: hello hot, half-blindfolded She-Hulk! Too bad I don't have a bondage fetish.

What was I talking about? Oh yeah, She-Hulk #1. The art inside the book: also excellent. Juan Bobillo is the perfect guy for this series: he's got a clear, dynamic style that's just light and cartoony enough to match the tone of the series, without veering into overly silly. His Jennifer Walters is cute, and his She-Hulk is strong.

And Dan Slott: here's the thing with Dan Slott. She-Hulk got a lot of attention the first time around for being funny, and it was. That's great. Funny book. But Slott goes way beyond that, man. What Slott can do is make us feel danger.

Obvious, right? And yet it's amazing how many writers are totally incapable of it. And I don't just mean in comic books, either. I mean, like, how seriously scared are you for the lead characters in The Fog? Or, y'know, Bad Boys II? The only recent movie I can remember being nervous about was March of the Penguins. But Dan Slott can put together an arc where, halfway through - which is right about the appropriate time for these things - you start to really wonder how the hell Jennifer's gonna get out of this one. I love it. Add that to his obvious love for the Marvel Universe itself, and pile on the humor - 'cause yeah, that's good too - and what you've got here is one of the better writers working in comics today.

Not that you're gonna get much danger in this particular issue, because it's the first one. We're still establishing scene. But that's good too. Slott pretty much picks up right where we left off from the first She-Hulk: Jennifer Walters is still an attorney and the book still follows her as she gets involved in legal cases involving superhumans. This time around, it's a Minority Report type of plot where a man with a time machine shoots a defenseless man in the back, justifying himself by saying that he knew this man would kill him in the future. Good enough for me, although not screamingly original.

There are also guest stars galore, as Marvel tries to stack the deck by sucking in fans of, like, any other comic book they can think of. (What, no Vegas?) The Avengers show up, as do Vision and Cassie Lang of Young Avengers (that book is good! Read it!)...and, of course, Hawkeye.

I know for many of you, when you hear that a comic book features "The Return of Hawkeye!!!", want to immediately call shenanigans. Especially after you got burned on that whole House of M thing. (Or did you?) And I understand that. We all know Hawkeye will be back alive eventually, one way or another, and we'd just as soon not be ambushed by red herrings weekly until the real thing happens. So let me make a completely uneducated guess with no evidence to back it up: this is not the "real" return of Hawkeye. He will probably not be any more alive at the end of this She-Hulk arc than he was at the beginning of it. I'm basing this purely on the fact that She-Hulk is not a high-profile book, and this "return" has not been heavily publicized; if this was the real thing, I would think they woulda hyped the crap out of it.

No, don't buy She-Hulk #1 because Hawkeye's in it. Buy it because it's funny. Buy it because it's dangerous. Buy it because it regularly features the Awesome Android. Hell buy it because you have a bondage fetish.

But do buy it. Because it's awesome.