She-Hulk # 22-30

What I try to do with reviews at this Bookshelf blog is keep it simple and spoiler-free, and let you know whether I'd recommend you pick up a copy of what I just read. Seems to work okay. This time, a brief review of She-Hulk # 22-30 (Marvel, 2007).



Here's a run of a title that I never really treated fairly. Some time back, I subscribed to a few books at an area comic shop to get a discount on a miniatures game. I was enjoying Dan Slott's run as the writer of Marvel's She-Hulk, but lost interest towards the end. Before I knew it, issues were piling up unread, then Slott left the title and, several months after Peter David replaced him as writer, I realized I had a small stack of Marvel superhero books that I didn't want to read.

I came back to them after several years and was pleasantly surprised. While never compelling, David threw some very interesting and neat threats towards our hero. No longer working as an attorney, as she did with such amusing results under Slott, but as a bonding agent, She-Hulk racks up some serious property damage while tracking down fugitives. I was really amused when the villainous Absorbing Man's references to his girlfriend, "the little woman," turn out to be literal, and there's a pretty interesting look at what happens when the authorities don't believe the only survivor of an alien attack foiled by our hero.

I'm not really all that familiar with David's work other than a run on DC's Supergirl that I enjoyed. Equally well-known among comic fans for his provocative, controversial and popular blog as his fiction, David's been doing this long enough to buck the slow-burning trend of taking forever to get to a story's climax. There are one or two misuses of splash pages in this title - at one point, artist Val Semeiks devotes an entire page to Iron Man casually sauntering into a courtroom - but David handles everything with confidence and wit, and apart from some terribly telegraphed plot "twists," this was not a bad read at all. Most of these issues are available in a trade collection called Jaded to which I'd give a mild recommendation. Not essential, but not at all bad for what they are.

Time for another short break here, friends! I have been rereading Sayers, along with some lengthy titles that I have already reviewed in these pages, and so I don't have anything new to share right now. I'll be back in a couple of weeks, and in the meantime, remember that I'm always happy to review your own work. PDFs are fine. I tend to focus on adventure or humor comics, detective fiction and food writing. See you later in July!