She-Hulk #24 Review

I'm not lovin' it. I'll say that up front. In this issue PAD introduces several new characters having no apparent continuity with any past She-Hulk story from the creation of the character through Dan Slott's run. The new characters have problems and Peter David dedicates a significant portion of the issue to dealing with those problems. He doesn't make me care about them. Worse, one problem is "solved" in such a juvenile and vicious fashion that it left me stunned.

She-Hulk #24Let's break down the art:

• Shawn Moll's art and layouts are very good.
• Victor Olazaba's inks are not of consistent quality - they range from very good to merely OK.
• Rob Ro's colors are not impressive. She-Hulk is colored a shade of green that is difficult to look at, in part because she's frequently darker than the background coloring. Her hair is lighter than I've ever seen it.

As I noted above, the story is not grabbing me. I was eager to see what Peter David would do, but three issues in he's got Jen living with a Skrull in a trailer park and I have no idea why.

Given that the storyline thus far is about two green women wandering around America, I'm tempted to conclude the whole thing is a clumsy parody of the early 1970s Green Lantern produced by Dennis O'Neil and Neal Adams. In that storyline, Green Lantern and Green Arrow set off to fight social wrongs in the American heartland: two green guys back then, and perhaps two green girls now? However, it's difficult to believe PAD would go so far out on a limb for such a weak gag.

I want to believe that Peter David is going to deliver a gripping She-Hulk book, but so far I've been disappointed. The problems - from my perspective - are these:

1. Seemingly senseless and unexplained break from continuity and past representations of the character
2. Immaturity and lack of depth shown by the characters (including She-Hulk)
3. General implausibility of the storyline, even by the standards of superhero comics
4. Inferior repetition of the supervillain bounty hunter concept Marvel did so well in 2006 with Daughters of the Dragon

I'm not going to stop buying the book - I run a She-Hulk fan-site, after all - but I'd find it difficult to recommend this title to anyone. Fortunately for Peter David, the new Ultimates series sucks so spectacularly that it may distract people from noticing his poor performance on She-Hulk.