Marvel Comics: She-Hulk Explained | Comics Explained

what's going on guys this is rob and while i don't know how well this video will do with the series coming out i figured it was prudent to make a video explaining the character of she-hulk so she-hulk also known as jennifer walters first appeared in savage she-hulk number one in 1979 and was created by stan lee and john bessema now here's the thing about this one of the things that we discussed in past videos we were doing character explanations is that more often than not when marvel was going to introduce a new character to the comics they usually did it in an existing comic book series or in some kind of an anthology series a really good example is that moon knight was introduced in the old werewolf by night comics because they didn't know if moon knight was going to be a sellable character so they actually initially introduced him as a one-off but he proved to be popular so they gave him his own solo series at least what passes for a solo series until he actually got a self-titled series you usually saw that when it came to things like marvel presents marvel premiere marvel two and one so on and so forth ensemble and or team up books that serve the purpose of allowing marvel to get the most bang for their buck as well as the reader so marvel could make a story that would have five stories in it and so even if one of those stories sucked they still had four other characters they could likely make that were marketable and that people could basically buy with them giving she-hulk her own solo series right off the bat this was kind of an act of desperation by marvel as a result of the circumstances and what i mean by that is whether you've looked it up on your own or something that you've heard you're most likely correct if you draw the conclusion that the creation of she-hulk was based on the success of the incredible hulk tv series with lou ferrigno and bill bixby the reason why this matters is because at that point in time the incredible hulk tv show as it was launched was basically licensed and really the the film and tv rights were owned by mca universal nowadays it's owned by nbc university the important thing here is that because of the way the licensing rights were worked out if mca universal had created a she-hulk before marvel comics did they would have wholly owned the rights to it whereas if marvel comics had created she-hulk before mca universal did marvel comics would have owned the rights to it and then mca universal would have had to license the character from marvel comics if they wanted to put she-hulk in the in the tv show and so as a result of that marvel really believed that it was inevitable that universal was going to do that they thought it was only a matter of time which is something that happens when it comes to licensing rights right it's kind of almost sort of racing yourself to the punch to a degree but the result of this is that marvel just launched she-hulk in savage she-hulk issue number one this allowed them to lock down the character in its entirety where there would be no legal loopholes in the sense that well you know she-hulk technically appeared in this other comic over there but it's not really a she-hulk comment because it wasn't really her own comic this definitively locked it down so that's why or at least seems to be the reason marvel gave her her own solo series right off the bat now the funny thing about this is stan lee wrote the first issue and then essentially walked away now a lot of this was because stan lee was working on the back end with like the film and tv side and so on and so forth but this is the reason why the first issue of savage she-hulk feels very much like a classic marvel comic story in the sense that what you had was a guy named nicholas trask who was a crime boss living in california that jennifer walters had crossed paths with in a couple different ways the first was because nicholas craft had actually had her mom killed or killed her mom at a previous point in time and two jennifer walters working as a lawyer was actually building a case against trask using the help of another gangster that tras could double crossed and as a result of this this led to trask sending his guys after jennifer walters in order to basically kill her now because bruce banner was the only person there and as a cousin he had a matching blood type and could give her a blood transfusion that's exactly what happened what ended up resulting from this is that jennifer walters ended up absorbing part of the gamma radiation within bruce banner himself or at least that was transferred to her through the transfusion and so jennifer walters ended up becoming she-hulk now one of the things to know is that where stan lee did only write the first issue and the remaining 24 since it ran up to issue number 25 the remaining 24 were written by david kraft the determination of whether or not this run was a good run as always is usually left to the reader there are some people who believe that david craft's run felt more like just a series of incredible hulk stories that just happened to have she hulk in there instead of bruce banner there are other people who saw it as the opposite that it's the most significant run of she-hulk because it laid the foundation and groundwork for so many of the things that we know now but regardless of what stance you take there are things that were done in the david craft run that were stupendously important the first of these is that the way that david craft had well crafted his run no pun intended but the way that he had built his run was really first and foremost focusing on the dichotomy between jennifer walters and she hook and a lot of this was designed to reel in female readers at the time and actually build on the notion and the nature of really just second wave feminism as it existed for a lot of women out there who were working in these roles like she did as a lawyer which was largely a boys club but also having this sort of untapped inner strength for jennifer walters that untapped inner strength manifested in the form of the she-hulk persona the reason why i use the the term persona here is that in the initial stories by david kraft there wasn't really an ability by jennifer walters to control herself when she was the she-hulk she was by all standards of measurement exactly like bruce banner the she-hulk persona would manifest usually in response to some kind of heightened emotional duress anger more often than not and then she would sort of lose herself but over the course of the comics that began to shift and in fact the ability of jennifer walters to maintain her persona even when she was in the she-hulk form is one of those elements that actually carried on into the future of her stories the second part of this is jennifer walters trying to find some measure of balance between her life and becoming a superhero as well as having just some measure of normalcy right just the normal jennifer walters being a lawyer this was very similar to the way that peter parker was handled in the spider-man comics albeit with a little more leeway the idea of she-hulk leaning into her sexuality didn't really become a major focal point for her character until you got to john burns run but up until that point it was her just like trying to find romantic relationships trying to date that sort of thing trying to find a life for herself but in a lot of ways david craft's run still fell into the traditional superhero story type so he hadn't quite hit that chris claremont level of writing where it was more on the uh kind of interpersonal relationships soap opera type dynamic as opposed to like the stan lee's standard but the thing about this is following this run because it only ran for about two years this went into 1982 and there were there was only really one time when she-hulk crossed over in another story and it was a marvel team-up comic beyond that it was issues just like two through 25 written by david craft the stories involving nicholas trask and all that those were all sorted out those were all rounded up pretty well it was pretty basic but the reason why this matters is because during this point in time when david craft was writing she-hulk following her introduction jim shooter was editor-in-chief now those of you guys who are familiar with my channel or you're familiar with the history of marvel comics you know that like the big thing that jim shooter had during his time as editor-in-chief and marvel were the secret war stories and so the whole idea behind this was that one at least as far as most of our discussions have been had when it came to secret wars is that it was a story that marvel wrote in order to secure a brand deal with mattel so they could sell toys and that's true but the other side of the equation was that because of the high profile nature of the story and the fact that you had such hugely popular characters in that you had like galactus and you had ultron you had doctor doom you had all these different characters that were out there that what marvel what it also gave them the ability to do was bring in characters who otherwise would just never be noticed by readers in order to try to raise their profile a little bit but secret wars at least for she-hulk was also one of those giant transitionary stories and so that's the reason why in the two years that followed between 1982 when when savage she-hulk was ended in 1984 when secret wars was launched you actually saw marvel shopping her around and so by the time you got to savage she-hulk issue number 25 she woke herself and just kind of become comfortable in the idea of being in that form and so that was marvel's way of essentially locking her down and saying okay this is kind of her permanent form and it's more the inverse of what you're used to in the sense that it's jennifer walters occasionally becoming she-hulk and now it's she-hulk occasionally becoming jennifer walters it was a cool concept that actually happened for a little while but in avengers issue number 221 she officially joined the team she stayed there for a little while for a couple of years and she bounced around between a few stories a few fantastic four comics here and there albeit not officially joining the team instead that came at the end of secret wars that at the end of that story the desire of marvel was to sort of reshuffle the team a little bit if only as an experiment and so at the end of secret wars ben graham who had basically been de-powered remained on battle world for the purpose of just kind of trying to figure himself out this opened a spot for someone to replace him on the fantastic four and that person was chosen to be she-hulk now the funny thing about this is that at that point in time the fantastic four was being handled by john byrne and what this meant was that john byrne could quite literally just craft her character seemingly any way he wanted to which would actually prove to be instrumental because the work that he did on she-hulk during her time in the fantastic four would actually become incredibly important regarding the work that was done with her character in the sensational she-hulk run which we'll talk about here in a few minutes but the thing about this is that as opposed to the david craft run and even during her time in secret wars her time on the fantastic four was monumental because what it did is it expanded on her character in ways that we just hadn't necessarily considered before but it also was essentially a paradigm shift one of the ways in which this was done was the way that she was depicted instead of the david craft days where she was being drawn as really more of kind of like a hulk type figure where she looked more muscular and so on during the avengers run for example she was drawn to look more slender she looked more physically attractive the way that you would expect a beautiful woman to look another example of this was that during the avengers run for example she became a great friend to hawkeye in the sense that the two of them had a phenomenal friendship and arguably a little bit more depending on how it is that you choose to look at it but it was one of these things where her personality as a person was really starting to shine through because in the comics it was being depicted that she was simply just becoming more comfortable in her own skin another aspect of this is that it's one thing to present a character that is attractive and puts off all the the heirs right and has all the the trappings of a person who is strong and confident and so on it's another one to be able to tell compelling stories or for them to be able to live up to the part and so during the time when she hulk was on the fantastic four from issues 265 to 300 that john byrne actually crafted a series of stories that put her in a position to where she had to essentially stand on her own two feet without the other members of the fantastic four and demonstrate exactly what she was capable of a great example of this is in fantastic four issues 283 through 284 when she hulk ended up in the microverse and ended up basically fighting alongside queen perla who was the i guess the queen of mirwood which is one of the areas within the microverse itself and fighting alongside her were able to basically free the microverse from the control of psychoman now the reality is that the plot itself and the story itself was not overly phenomenal but there were a lot of stories like that with uh with she-hulk in the fantastic four comics and that's why depending on who you talk to some people will say that she-hulk's time on the fantastic four was less about her contributions to the team and was actually more about building up what she hulk was actually capable of doing using the fantastic four because it was the best place to do it but regardless of one argument or the other the fact is that she-hulk's role in marvel became solidified during the sensational she-hulk run by john byrne now when i say john burns run one of the things to know is that his run was actually fairly limited in the sense that he wrote issues one through eight he came back for issues 31 through 46 skipped 47 then wrote 48 through 50 and that was basically it uh one of the things to understand this is really why his run is so significant is because it deviated away from the the nature of she-hulk as she was originally presented it felt more rank and file with the version of she-hulk he had written in fantastic four and then honestly just became fun and that was the thing about it because up to that point in time and this is the reason why he ended up basically why he departed the series is because you had two she-hulk novels or graphic novels that came out the first one was marvel graphic novel the sensational she-hulk number one and that basically set up the john burns solo series but you also had one called sensational she-hulk ceremony issues one and two and that's the one that basically led to everything popping off that the first graphic novel sensational she-hulk number one that was john burns setting everything up so for example she hulk was just stuck in her form she wasn't really able to go back to jennifer walters there were some changes that were made later on to where it was more of a choice than the fact that she was forced she started introducing herself as jennifer walters instead of introducing herself as she hulk but basically leading in to the nature of herself as she-hulk as a whole right just fully becoming that character the ceremony storyline was a storyline that actually dealt with her and wyatt wingfoot their relationship that had kind of been on-again off-again the two of them were supposed to get married but this idea that ultimately it didn't work out and that she hulk instead of being this woman that kind of leaned into her own independence and saying look like i don't need a guy to fuel hole in this world the ceremony storyline actually dealt with this idea that she felt incomplete because like she couldn't have a family different things like that it wasn't so on the nose as saying like here's a story where she hulk is an incomplete woman because she's not living a stepford life but it is one of those stories where it seemed to just totally be removed and have a complete and total misunderstanding of what she-hulk was supposed to be about in the eyes of john byrne and so where that ceremony story was sent to bern to basically edit it or at least to get some feel for it to send back some notes to ensure the graphic novel would fall in line with his sensational she-hulk run the opposite happened and in fact the editor was ignoring the notes that he'd left and whenever he sent his scripts in for the sensational she-hulk run his scripts were actually changed to match the graphic novel and so he ultimately ended up leaving where there was some disagreement there and arguably at least in his own forum post he was forced off the title he was basically fired but that's why he ended up walking away again he ended up coming back the reality is that the stories that you saw with she-hulk that didn't really feature john burn just didn't quite have that john burn touch but the funny thing about this is that the sensational she-hulk run it's less about like these massive expansions on her character and it's less about her just being thrown into like these impossible situations instead it was just good old-fashioned fun it was john byrne having her break the fourth wall all the time but it was one of those things where the stories were just fun it was a blast it was one of those where you saw like these just z-less villains beyond zealous villains being pulled out of nowhere to just like face off against she-hulk you saw her face up against titania different things like that but it was a story that was not meant to be taken seriously it was designed to be more entertaining which is why you would see her say things like hey guys if you don't buy this comic they're gonna cancel us right it was just that kind of stuff and fans loved it i would go as far as to say that in terms of just pure enjoyment and kind of leaving out the overarching character development based on things that will be a permanent part of her character in the future going forward that john burns run on she-hulk is probably the most celebrated run on her character but the fact is that she achieved a level of popularity during the sensational she-hulk run that just simply hasn't been matched and what's so crazy about that is once that run was ended and she was taken off of that she-hulk's popularity never recovered while i take that back i think that's a bit of an overstatement i wouldn't say her popularity never recovered i would say her ability to hold a solo series never quite recovered and so that's why following that story and for a number of years she hulk's appearances in marvel comics are just a veritable smorgasbord of well she was just all over the damn place i mean she was everywhere right just in all these different kinds of comics and in reality as chaotic as that sounds it's actually the one thing that saved her to be quite honest right so she had a bit of a time when she was in or at least when she was on the fantastic force team which was basically franklin richard's own superhero team she was on that that uh that team for issues 12 through 18 running up to 1996. she was in the doc sampson miniseries she was back in incredible hulk with issues number 441 going through 442 from 1997 to 1998 she was on heroes for hire uh she was part of the onslaught saga for a time the heroes for hire siege of wondergoer five-part mini-series she was a part of that i mean she was all over the place right she was just everywhere and a lot of this was synonymous with the fact that marvel just didn't know what to do with her and as we've always talked about before in previous videos it was the mid-1990s comic book bust so while she-hulk was a recognizable name she wasn't really a sellable name and this was partially due to one of these things where marvel couldn't tell the difference between the two was she-hulk a character that just wasn't marketable because john verne was just the one guy who could write compelling stories about her or was she hulk not marketable because the stories they were putting her in were just really crappy stories not only that even marvel themselves were just throwing everything at the wall they were literally doing everything they could to try to make at least try to tell try to sell something over fear of going bankrupt but this seemingly hugely disorganized mess that was just she-hulk in marvel comics basically came to a head in 2002 with avengers issue number 57. now this was avengers as it was written by jeff johns and a lot of you guys probably don't know that jeff johns wrote for marvel comics before he wrote for dc the funny thing about it is that world trust i mean it's okay world leaders disappear into a black hole it's not really all that interesting red zone was really really good that was one of the most one of the most interesting stories ever in an avengers comic that explicitly dealt with the red skull and then following that you dealt with a story called the search for she-hulk these were stupendously important stories for a variety of reasons one of the most notable is because it basically set the stage for jennifer walters to be able to revert back into her human form and in fact it was one of these scenarios where you had a guy by the name of jack of hearts whose powers directly conflicted with she-hulk and actually sent her into a rage once she eventually went back into her human form then it basically opened the door for marvel to allow her to start switching back if they chose to so this is one of those stories that jeff johns had written for the purpose of allowing she-hulk kind of return back to the status quo for marvel to kind of find a way to do a little more with her character now of course jeff johns left the avengers title not too long after and while she-hulk did get another solo series that only ran for about 12 issues or so towards the end of that run we ended up going into like avengers disassemble which of course is one of the more iconic moments in the she-hulk mythos when she's manipulated by the scarlet witch she's sent into like just this almost out of control world war hulk-esque persona where she just goes nuts trashes avengers mansion and then takes off and so during this time with dan slott basically writing her solo series in she-hulk uh this ran for issues one or at least he wrote issues 1 through 21 and then in turn you had peter david who took over with issues 22 through 38. now the funny thing about this is that these these stories could not have been more different despite the fact that it was two people writing the same comic really just the two different points in time they were starkly different so dan's slot focused more on what was in effect the aftermath of like civil war and all that kind of stuff this whole idea of there being like superhuman law her being a lawyer for superhumans and then in turn at the end of his run or at least during the peter david run she was effectively disbarred for attacking somebody in public even though they had basically you know was a lawyer client confidentiality or whatever it was but she basically violated her oath as a lawyer this led to her becoming a bounty hunter during the peter david run now again it wasn't really a bad thing and in fact both runs have their merit neither one of them are really really terrible um a lot of people say that the the run of she-hulk by dan's slot is usually more enjoyable just because it's a little more light-hearted but again this is one of those instances when marvel was just trying to find a way to make her work because following the end of peter david's run and what little crossover she had in this x-factor comic the reality is that you saw her disappearing in a series of whole comic books and like that was it right i mean you had some spin-offs that came out of that but there wasn't a whole lot doing now charles seoul came out in 2014 to basically write a 12 issue series for she hulk but honestly people it that one again is also very divisive i personally never really enjoyed it and then of course you got her in the post civil war 2 landscape focusing on her individual series and at the moment she's currently a member of the avengers but the reality here is that while a lot of the stories that focused on she-hulk in the 1990s and the early 2000s focused largely on her as like the hulk right just the female version of the hulk going forward and being a traditional superhero from really i would argue dan slot's run going forward more emphasis was put on her as a lawyer and in fact finding that middle ground between the two sort of borrowing from john burns time when she was on or at least when he was writing uh the sensational she-hulk story when you basically had her kind of taking breaks and being on again off again with like the avengers team that it was one of those things where like she had her own life her own stories basically dealing with law or legal profession or being a lawyer or what have you but while some of these were interesting and they were really intriguing the reality here is that since the days of john byrne's run on sensational she-hulk she just hasn't quite achieved that level of popularity and even now on jason aaron's avengers run the only real story she's had was world war she-hulk which focused on her and it was a terrible story so it seems like a lot of the writing that's being done with she-hulk at the moment seems less to do with writers genuinely understanding her character and crafting her character in a way that's highly relatable and really builds on the work that was done from days gone by and kind of feels more like a cash grab based on the fact that like this she-hulk show's coming into existence which kind of sucks because if you write a bunch of half-assed stories about a character because they're getting a show then people are going to go read those comics they're going to realize they're a half-assed character and they're never going to buy those comics again so i get is trying to find a balance between the greatest reward for the least amount of work possible but the reality here is that she-hulk is a character that does have a lot of potential she is really really interesting and can be done in a very interesting way the truth about it though is that marvel just hasn't really done that with her character for almost 20 years that following the events of sensational she-hulk by john byrne she's just kind of bounced around she's been on different teams she's had a few moments here and there like a really good instance is when she was arrested by the time variants authority and she had some cool little moments there but she never really had an overarching awesome lengthy significant run it was just this happened and that happened like these small little things here and there but nothing huge and of major significance that really just changed the dynamic of her character so with that being said guys we're gonna bring this to an end thank you all for watching and i will catch you all later peace

Channel: Comics Explained

Views: 127,089

Keywords: comics explained, comicsexplained, marvel explained, fluidic beats, comics, comic books, marvel, dc, infinity gauntlet, world breaker hulk, crisis on infinite earths, comic explained, infinity war, the batman who laughs, doomsday clock, she-hulk, she-hulk marvel, she-hulk marvel trailer, she-hulk trailer, The Savage She-Hulk, The Incredible Hulk, Marvel, Marvel Comics, Marvel Studios, marvel cinematic universe, jennifer walters transformation, she-hulk transforms

Id: EmA6sYmQ1vY

Length: 22min 17sec (1337 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 16 2022

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