How She-Hulk Went from a Knockoff to a Superstar

hi there this is chris i was curious if the comics arrived this week on time for wednesday i'm sorry what delay today due to the weather oh hi you got me talking directly to you speaking of breaking the fourth wall let's talk about she-hulk [Music] i've got to be there by five hey mister you're going to be 10 minutes late so just keep your shoulder [Music] from november of 1978 through june of 1982 us broadcaster cbs aired hour-long episodes of the incredible hulk this live-action adaptation was consistently in the top 50 most watched television shows across all five seasons and was marvel's first consistently successful adaptation of one of their comics tv guide wrote about the hulk being a ratings hit marvel's covers for hulk touted him as their quote tv sensation but all of this success got marvel's editor-in-chief stan lee thinking we better get a spin-off out there hello welcome to comic tropes i'm your host chris she-hulk may have started as a derivative character but she eventually became a well-rounded and much beloved female superhero for marvel comics today i want to talk about the reasons why this character was created and then the unique road she traveled to eventually become something more original well-rounded career-focused humor-based and among the first female superheroes marvel had to successfully hold down a solo title she may not be as popular as characters like spider-man or the x-men but she also has more success with the solo title than some of their other well-known properties like hawkman or ant-man so let's start with the reasons why she-hulk was created in the first place she-hulk was not the first female character to derive from a male one spider-woman for instance had debuted in marvel spotlight issue 32 from february of 1977 designed to capitalize on spider-man success writer and editor stan lee spoke to a college crowd in 1978 and is quoted in the comics journal number 42 as telling them why marvel created spider-woman saying quote i suddenly realized that some other company may quickly put out a book like that and claim they have the right to use the name and i thought we'd better do it real fast to copyright the name so we just batted one quickly and that's exactly what happened i wanted to protect the name because it's the type of thing where someone else might say hey why don't we put out a spider woman they can't stop us similarly marvel had to think about that for the hulk the tv version was developed and produced by kenneth johnson who in 1976 spun off the bionic woman from the six million dollar man marvel realized that if johnson did something like that on the hulk tv show they would not own the idea so marvel scrambled to put together she-hulk issue one of the savage she-hulk was released in february of 1980. the issue featured the artwork of superstar artist john buscema and was written by stan lee himself that would end up being the last original character lee co-created at marvel until he returned to write for marvel in 1992 but of course everyone out there knows all about ravage 2099 long red hair laser guns laser hands a secretary that knows karate paul philippe ravage was the ceo of alcomax until his company betrayed him armed with some street garbage including a chevy hubcap and a sweet new earring ravage drives his dump truck of justice through the mean streets of the year 2099. but we're not here to talk about ravage and how cool he is we're here to talk about she-hulk and how she went from being an idea just designed to secure a copyright into a fully realized character of her own and that path took several years stan lee and john buscemo only worked on the first issue of savage she-hulk setting up her origin before handing the book over to the team of david anthony kraft and mike vosberg the premier issue establishes that dr bruce banner on the run meets his cousin jennifer walters bruce recaps his origin of getting zapped with gamma radiation which turned him into the hulk and left him on the run meanwhile jen a professional lawyer is trying a case against a gangster and his men ambush and shoot her bruce unable to get help fast enough performs an emergency blood transfusion which helps keep gems alive long enough to get her to the hospital but she's attacked again and like her cousin in times of stress can transform into a green goliath she's dubbed the she-hulk and somehow that sticks however unlike the hulk who would speak in broken english and had a different personality jen is still herself as the she-hulk and speaks normally she-hulk mostly gets into fights with second-string villains in this run she's able to keep her identity a secret however and still works as a lawyer issue 12 has her suffering from a blood disease and dr michael morbius creates a cure that allows jen to transform into she-hulk at will by issue 19 she opts to stay as the she-hulk all the time but wait did i just mention that she-hulk teamed up with the one and only fan favorite morbius yes does this mean that we fans could hope for a live-action adaptation of she-hulk and morbius sharing the silver screen together morbid out to fight for justice no of course not that's absolutely ridiculous that will never happen most of this run was pretty generic super heroing stuff it lasted 25 issues and that was that while she-hulk could have fallen into obscurity after her solo title ended writer and editor jim shooter saw something useful in the character and added her to the avengers which he was co-plotting she-hulk debuted in issue 221 which hit the newsstands in april of 1982. shooter was also the editor-in-chief of marvel at the time so he was in a position of authority and if he liked a character that meant they got used this gave the character added visibility but as part of a large cast she didn't have much going on for subplots as jen walters also she didn't have an iconic look in her solo series she mostly ran around in torn white shirts and on the avengers she wore a simple black one-piece bathing suit one important thing that happened behind the scenes at this point in time however was that artist john burns stepped in as a guest artist for issue 233 that became his first time illustrating she-hulk and he would soon become associated with the character burn began writing and illustrating the fantastic four title with issue 232 in july of 1981. after marvel's event series secret wars in 1984 team member the thing stepped down and the team added she-hulk in his place as of issue 265 in april of 1984. as one of a cast of four she got more time to shine in fantastic four compared to the avengers she was used prominently and byrne explored she-hulk through a relationship with new boyfriend wyatt byrne clearly liked writing and drawing she-hulk so in 1989 editor mark gruenwald approached byrne to launch a new solo she-hulk book and burn was interested according to burn grunwald's only directive was to quote do something different and burn did do something different he explicitly made this title a humor book and i think that is the single biggest change to she-hulk that led to her enduring success he wrote and illustrated the first eight issues of her series before stepping away due to editorial disagreements but the title lasted for 60 issues which is not nothing it was certainly the longest running female solo title marvel had until that point john byrne had she-hulk adventure as a superhero but she was constantly pitted against marvel's goofier villains the circus of crime the toad men and dr bong are all examples your mileage may vary on how funny you find all of that but it sold well and byrne had she-hulk break the fourth wall speaking directly to either the reader or sometimes burn himself this was many years before deadpool was doing the same stuff although some marvel characters had done this before like howard the duck and the watcher burn left over editorial disagreements after issue eight according to byrne they were revising his stories to fit with a graphic novel series called ceremony coming out at the same time he opted to move on but the humor and fourth wall breaking remained and ultimately john byrne did return to the title for a longer run from issue 31 through 50 with one issue 47 off for a fill-in artist after that she-hulk was mostly used as a guest star appearing in books like heroes for hire and the avengers she got her next solo title in 2004 this was going to be written by dan slott who went on to write more issues of she-hulk than anybody else so let's talk about this third and final run that i'm going to be talking about which i think helped define who she hulk is dan slott wrote 33 issues of she-hulk across two volumes this run would not reinvent the character or the tone so much as refine it slot teamed with artist juan bobio gave us jen walters as a full-time lawyer but one who takes cases involving superhumans specifically a senior partner wants jen walters not she-hulk but of course she-hulk is often needed as cases with superhumans are investigated but jen's job drives the stories and she's surrounded with a vibrant and dynamic supporting cast there's mallory book a top-notch superstar lawyer who also pardoned the pun goes strictly by the book compared to jen's more laid-back nature we meet the law firm's office assistant andy a refirmed awesome android who was formerly a robotic henchman to supervillain the mad thinker the office also has a paralegal named stu who is an expert on comics while that's a bit of a stand-in character for the audience itself this run also has the meta take that things that happen in marvel comics canonically exist within the marvel universe and their true accounts of superhero adventures stu explains that the comics code authority is a federal agency which makes comic books legally admissible evidence for gen inner court cases and finally there's augustus pogliesi who goes by pug he's an amiable lawyer and all-around nice guy that pines for jen flipping the normal romantic comedy story of a girl pining for a leading man on its head the cases jen tries involve all sorts of unique corners of the marvel universe her first case for instance involves a man who accidentally got super powers when he fell into radioactive waste at the villainous roxanne corporation it's ruined his life with his normal friends and family jen is able to win the case by asserting he has a secret identity and his testimony in court appears without the jury able to see his condition awarding her the victory purely on the merits of the case the title lasted 12 issues before being cancelled due to lower than expected sales but it got a lot of critical acclaim and marvel gave it an eight month rest before bringing it back in 2005 as a new ongoing which they called its second season slot continued to write this title through issue 21 before peter david took over slot's stories focused on looking at continuity or character discrepancies but instead of just pointing at them and laughing it turns them into legal plots for the story there's something very satisfying about this meta approach in marvel comics to she-hulk she-hulk was created to secure a trademark not because a writer had a story that just had to be told that was a very meta reason for she-hulk to exist in the first place and some of her most satisfying stories involve a meta look at previous marvel continuity and stories the dance lot written stories about jen working for a law firm specializing in superhuman cases is clearly the direct inspiration for the disney plus live action show i'd argue that while john byrne changed the character of she-hulk by adding the humor the dance slot stories where she hulk works for a law firm specializing in superhuman cases is what took things to the next level there's a reason tv constantly has cop shows doctor shows and lawyer shows all of those professions deal with high stakes someone's life or future it's a good setting to instantly be thrown into some good drama but be able to switch up the story from episode to episode or in this case issue to issue this also lends itself to humor with a meta textual angle of comic book history being used as legal precedent and a wide variety of guest star cameos which are fundamental to the plots instead of being forced not to say the run is perfect your mileage will vary depending on how much you like juan pobio's stylized art it's cartoony but i like his slightly chubby cheek take on she-hulk and at the same time i understand this take may not be for everyone a lot of the stories are about she-hulk's romantic partners and that's healthy but can also dominate the storylines a little too much she-hulk has been used as both a lawyer and a street superhero by a lot of different writers and artists similar to a character like moon knight she has a fan base but has never been an a-lister which actually works to her advantage as editors are likely to let comics creators take chances and try new things with the character she-hulk may be green and strong like the hulk but where his stories focus on body horror and stories of being on the run she-hulk works well as more of an office comedy it carves out a unique corner of the marvel universe for itself if you haven't read she-hulk before and you're curious about it my recommendation for a good starting point would be the 2004 series by dan slott and juan bobio it's been collected into trade paperback it's pretty easy to pick up and read it's easy to find it's fun it's got everything important about the character um after that another good run would probably be the john burn fantastic four run where he uses she-hulk i think that was strong there was also a really good run now that i'm thinking of it where she hulk was on the avengers and roger stern was writing it but that isn't necessarily focusing on she-hulk it was just a good run for the avengers there's a lot of good stuff out there in fact these days there's a newer series written by rainbow rowell and i would call this one a little bit more of a romantic comedy i find it charming i really like it might not be for everybody but i think overall what's interesting is when we look at she-hulk we realized that it took a while for the character to evolve and become something likeable and unique in that way i guess it's a little bit like cookie dough sometimes things take a while to develop and become the perfect version of themselves thanks so much for watching this episode i really appreciate it please if you can hit things like like or subscribe or share this leave a comment that stuff all really helps the channel i appreciate it i appreciate you just watching it that means a lot to me i'm going to be back next week with another new episode and until then i want you to just keep reading comics thanks for watching this video if you liked it please consider hitting like and subscribe if you'd like to support the show there are merchandise links beneath the youtube video and you can always hit join on youtube or visit comic tropes on patreon to get access to special perks [Music] [Applause] [Music] so [Music] foreign

Channel: ComicTropes

Views: 58,368

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Id: akCWqQEpEK0

Length: 19min 37sec (1177 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 15 2022