The parade of multi-cancelled losers continues with a new She-Hulk series. 

For those of you keeping track at home, the She-Hulk debuted in 1980 as a straightforward female version of the Hulk.  This was a terribly boring idea and the book was frankly lucky to make it to 1982, especially considering that the poor woman was saddled with quality villains like the Man-Elephant.  Her second run, from 1989 to 1994, was considerably more successful, not least because the character had been changed beyond recognition.  Mind you, who didn't have a comic of their own in the early nineties?

That said, She-Hulk still has a more impressive pedigree than Iron Fist.  While she's never been much of a solo star, she's had lengthy and successful runs in team books - and so there's actually an audience out there who are interested in this character.  She's also benefitted from a heavy retooling back in the eighties, when the original "savage She-Hulk" idea was wisely taken out back and shot gently through the head.

The revised version played off the established idea that the Hulk represents a repressed side of Bruce Banner's personality.  The mistake with the original She-Hulk was to do exactly the same one, anger.  (Given that the Hulk is pretty much the embodiment of dumb maschismo, why anyone ever thought a female version was a good idea is a mystery to me.)  Instead the She-Hulk was turned into a less repressed version of the uptight Jennifer Walters, who simply had an awful lot more fun.  Thus equipped with a likeable personality and a much better premise, the character actually worked for the first time.

Writer Dan Slott plays off that central idea, playing up She-Hulk's party-girl persona to an extent that might perhaps irk the purists - her parties are now so over the top that "they actually affect the structural integrity" of Avengers Mansion.  Meanwhile, She-Hulk continues to hold down her day job as a lawyer, and bounces gamely around a particularly Technicolor version of the Marvel Universe leaving a trail of cavalier, post-party chaos in her wake.  Finally, all of this is catching up with her, as events conspire to make her calm the hell down.

To my enormous surprise, this book is really good.  It's genuinely funny, with some fantastic one-liners.  It's got a strong character idea at the centre, so there's actually a story.  It's got art from Juan Bobillo and Marcelo Sosa, in the comedy mode that worked so well for them from Evan Dorkin's Agent X issues.  (In fact, the book seems to be aiming at a similar niche to that title.)

Seriously, this is great fun.  I'm actually going to look forward to reading this one, which I really did not expect to be saying.

Rating: A

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