As I said before, I buy in bulk and I never know what I’m going to get. I’ve had very little exposure to She-Hulk to be honest with you. I read Avengers Disassembled and she’s made a few guest appearances in some of the mutant-line of books I am more familiar with but that’s where my experience with Jennifer Walters (She-Hulk) ends. I have to be honest with you, aside from impossibly perfect & buxom female bodies in tight spandex, I wasn’t expecting much from this book. I was proved wrong.

To begin with I really enjoyed the somewhat unique softer art that is found more often in anime and less often in super hero comics. I normally don’t show pictures of interior artwork, but I just had to share the artwork Vincenzo Cucca & Pasquale Qualano teamed up to provide. They demonstrate perfectly how sometimes you can do less with more.

The dialogue in the story was well thought out and mature, not dumbed-down in the least. She-Hulk actually came off as being an intelligent ex- lawyer, not just another muscle bound hero. She-Hulk’s thought baloons and discourse with fellow Liberators question topics such as morality, religion and even the definition of friendship and the relationship between the protagonists comes across as genuine.

Ok, so the artwork was great and the dialogue was well crafted, but how was the story? Well, the story like all super stories was a bit over the top and like many comic books deals with issues that lie parallel to real world problems. The first half of the book told the story of a fictitious country called Merinmer which is in the middle of civil war with religious basis. When a major earthquake strikes Merinmer the government hordes the supplies and denies aid-workers entry into the country with the explaination that God is settling the civil war with his own hands. This doesn’t sit well with our green heroine so She-Hulk gathers the Lady Liberators which are made up of the Invisible Woman who is part of the Fantastic Four, Thundra who is an amazon style warrior from a planet ruled by women and Valkyrie, an honest to god Valkyrie (pun intended). The Lady Liberators head off to Merinmer to distribute aid to the earthquake victims regardless of who stands in their way. She-Hulk’s best friend an side-kick Jazinda (Jaz for short) also makes the trip but plays a reduced role in the story.

This of course brings up the moral dilema of whether it’s Ok to break international laws and invade a foreign country if innocent lives are at risk. The characters don’t side-step the issues and the possible ramifications of their actions, they deal with them and discuss them and make what they as a group decide what the right thing to do is.

The second story intimately involves Jazinda and her Skrull heritage. Did I mention she was a Skrull? Well she is and you can imagine what kind of problems that might bring about right after Secret Invasion. Compared to the first story it’s kind of weak but at least there’s a decent brawl in it.

Spoiler

When She-Hulk and the Lady Liberators land in Merinmer they are immediately confronted by soldiers which they quickly subdue and then by the Winter Guard the Russian equivalent to the Avengers. The Winter Guard consists of the Red Guardian (Captain America rip-off), Ursa Major, Crimson Dynamo (Iron-Man rip-off) & Darkstar. In the story Russia has interests in Merinmer and so they have sent over their super-hero team to stop what the government believes is an illegal invasion on foreign soil.

They do obligatory fight scene but end the violence when the civilians impacted by the earthquake show up and beg for all of their help. With some reluctance the Winter Gaurd join the Lady Liberators in clearing rubble from affected areas and distributing medical supplies.

The president of Merinmer named Darqon Par sends represenatives to offer a truce to the two super teams with his only request being that he be allowed to speak to She-Hulk personally. What he really wants is to do is take advantage of She-Hulk and uses a knock-out gas to dope her to make her more compliant.

Jaz however has shape changed into one of the president’s generals and saves She-Hulk and the Invisible Woman who unbeknownst to us was spying on Darqon Par & She-Hulk and was also affected by the knock out gas.

Jaz shape changes into Darqon Par and holds a press conference opening up the borders to all aid workers before blowing her head off on national Tv. It’s Ok, apparently she can come back from the dead for some unexplained reason.

The second story begins with the government dropping their charges against She-Hulk, but what about the other Lady Liberators? Anyway after that Jazinda in She-Hulk’s form (Skrull shapeshifter, remember) gets a beat down from the Behemoth (a new form of Manfred Heller aka the Man Elephant). Jaz gets captured by the government who play at mortal experiments with her alien body.

She-Hulk goes to free Jazinda from the government’s clutches and the Lady Liberators show up just in time to save the day – even though they previously didn’t know Jaz was a Skrull. Oh and She-Hulk beats up the Behemoth.

Thanks to a little deus ex machina, the government doesn’t charge any of the Lady Liberators with the destruction of a government base and I guess they are Ok letting Jazinda the Skrull go free. All are left to return to their normal lives. Wait, what? Lame.

So if you read the spoiler you already know that while I really enjoyed the Merinmer story, Jazinda’s tale was pretty weak. They even swapped out artists in between the stoires and while art isn’t bad at all in the second story, it just isn’t up to par with the first half of the book. So there you have it, my first She-Hulk book and it gets mixed reviews.

Story
Artwork
Value
Can It Stand Alone
Cool Factor
Average