I Only Read She-Hulk for the Articles

From naughty librarians to lady lawyers eager to examine their briefs, I think it's universal: dudes dig smart chicks. I know my own admiration for the She-Hulk is focused entirely on her large, powerful, heaving brains.
So, taken from that perspective, this comic is VERY thought-provoking. Reading it is a deep, meaningful experience rife with well-considered messages on Jung's 'shadow side' of the human psyche. Is man inherently evil? Does it do more harm than good to suppress our rages and lusts? Is man merely an animal or instead a spiritual being capable of transcending his baser instincts?
Consider, too, the double standard of gender politics and the inequality still inherent in the relations between the sexes. Tony Stark might have a list of sexual conquests as long as his... arm and he's still a matinee idol. Give a similar checkered past to the She-Hulk and suddenly you've got people yelling 'Slut!'.
(I prefer the term 'Sexually Accessible' myself.)
Because sluts are BAD. Sluts are just... NAUGHTY. And I think it's pretty clear to everyone that She-Hulk is a GOOD GIRL.Is it her fault if a rocket engine blasts her pants off? Or that even unstable molecule costumes can rip in the most EMBARRASSING of places in the midst of an ordinary day's heroics?
It's just the job, that's all.
But men get too hung up on the whole Madonna/Whore angle. Real women tend towards the middle of that scale, neither unreachable perfection nor skanky trash.






In a genre and medium still rather dominated by male creators and readers, most of whom are very handsome, desirable, and brimming with confidence, it only makes sense that they would craft a female character so similar to themselves. Thus, there can occasionally be a danger of objectification, but entirely unintentionally, of course. After all, Wertham fought bravely to defend our minds against that kind of filth and impurity. Comics are safe as houses nowadays!Superheroine costumes NEED to be skimpy: it distracts the villains. That's just shrewd tactics, not cheesecake.
Also, Jen Walters being a shape shifter, she just normally has to deal with clothes that rip or slip. Wardrobe malfunction is a hazard of supernatural combat.
What fan service? Sometimes a gal just wants an all-over tan. Plus they don't make towels big enough for your average glamazon, do they? They're so dinky!
So if a grown woman feels like supplementing her income with a metal bikini photoshoot in a magma pool, who are we to stand in the way? That would be... wait, what's going on here?
I've lost all credibility, haven't I?

And Lo, There Came A Shulkie Week!

Long time readers may recall that I, Mike, have enormous affection bordering on a personality disorder for comic book super-heroine Jennifer 'She-Hulk' Walters. And it's the 30th Anniversary of She-Hulk's first appearance in 1980. YAY! So in the dwindling hopes of garnering as much attention as I apparently got on Legion Week back in November, I'm going to shoot for a post per weekday.
Most people (including my beloved and, let's face it, long-suffering wife) know that 5 posts will barely scratch the surface of how much I can blather on about this PARTICULAR topic. THE SENSATIONAL SHE-HULK.
Her story began in the very early eighties with one visionary and iconic man.Yes, Benjamin J. Hill, creator of the She-Hulk... oh, what? That doesn't count? Sorry, Marvel's legal department is beaming telepathic messages into my cortex suggesting that Stan Lee and John Buscema created She-Hulk in the very early 1980's. Go figure.
I'm pretty sure Stan and Jack created the Hulk, so I imagine Hill's estate's not getting any royalties. But I haven't done any research, so, who the hell knows?
Scott Tipton has a splendid blog history of She-Hulk's comic book appearances. Read them, they're undoubtedly better than mine.
In a nutshell, mousy Los Angelino lawyer Jen Walters is shot by gangsters while her cousin Bruce 'You May Remember Me As Television's Bill Bixby' Banner just HAPPENS to be in town and JUST HAPPENS to have the same blood type and it JUST SO HAPPENS to be gamma irradiated, and hey, presto: you have a green-skinned cash machine who (in theory) appeals to sex-starved teen boys (and roue Benny Hills of all ages) and 'newly' liberated roller-disco girls who, now that it is the eighties, are fully entitled to read comics, too, or at least do lines of coke off of them.
Shulkie's first series lasted longer than it really deserved because, well, 30 years ago they didn't cancel books just because they were terrible. (This tradition has declined in recent years but is ongoing.) The Jade Giantess even got a couple of trade paperbacks before the days when EVERYTHING was suddenly worthy of a trade paperback, and one of those may well have outsold Dazzler's! I kid you. The Disco Dazzler had about 50 issues, just like Jessica Drew's Spider-Woman. She-Hulk had 25. Then Jen did some crossovers, then she joined the Avengers. Tossed from writer to writer, each more confused and befuddled than the last, the Green Glamazon rocketed to recognition (or at least became slightly less obscure) when John Byrne made her a member of the Fantastic Four. Byrne apparently fell in deep and unsettling love with She-Hulk, made her much more vivacious, intelligent, and funny, got her a second, MUCH superior book. Paving the way for Steve Gerber, Dwayne McDuffie, and then some lesser lights who got to ride it into the ground again at issue 60.
All was silence for nigh on ten years. If the decades have a place reserved for them in hell, I hope the 1990's are on the very bottom.
She-Hulk never went entirely away but tended to be the muscle/eye-candy in the Avengers if you couldn't get the X-Gals or Carol Danvers. Then in the noughties, presumably for some kind of legal reason (?) they dusted poor Jenny off again, with some good parts in Busiek & Perez's Avengers, then Geoff Johns 'The Search for She-Hulk' storyline. 2005 saw much rejoicing (mostly by me) when She-Hulk's third volume was launched by Dan Slott. It was 100% worthy of the excessive praise I heaped upon it. Templeton, Loeb, Pak, Van Lente, Parker and others have served her well since. Depending on who was writing, she was strong and clever and sexy, or a mindless violent mess, or some kind of damn bounty hunter in a Torchwood rip-off. Depending on who was reading, she was a role model, Good Girl Art pin-up, silly parody or nothing whatever to write home about, and certainly nothing to keep buying. And if you're keeping score, that's 4 times a She-Hulk series got cancelled.
I cannot stress this point enough: THIS IS MY FAVORITE COMIC BOOK SUPERHERO.
Created by putting boobs on the Hulk so nobody else (except Benny Hill) could do it first. Created just after Girly Thor, Spider-Woman and Ms. Marvel and thankfully long before Wolverine-With-Boobs X-23.
Why, oh, why don't I have a sensible favorite superhero like the Silver Surfer or Mary Marvel? Man, oh, man, that would be SO much easier! But, no, I cannot in honesty deny my first comic book crush. And I do mean CRUSH!

My Favorite Characters: Sadistic Scientist of Skaro

Last weekend I enjoyed the crap out of a Toy Fair and snagged myself a 5 inch action figure (some might call them dollies) of one of the best villains in Doctor Who's long history of terribly scary monsters. I speak of Davros, creator of the tyrannical cyborg Daleks. Oh, is he ever a baddun! (Here's his Facebook page. I personally recommend NOT friending him. Dear lord!)
Portrayed with venom by Michael Wisher, David Gooderson, Terry Malloy, Rory Jennings, and Julian Bleach, usually under a batch of icky gooey make-up, he's right up there with Darth Vader in the top boogeymen of my childhood.
Very much the product of his world and his time, Davros was a cunning, backstabbing fascist alien scientist even before chemical weapons from the ongoing race war on his planet robbed him of his legs and hideously mutated him. If I do say so myself, the English have a great talent for mad soliloquy, and Davros is chock full of crazy rants. Try this one, when the Fourth Doctor posed the kooky Kaled a hypothetical question about his willingness to unleash intergalactic genocide. Davros gave it a moment's thought and replied:
"To hold in my hand a capsule that contained such power... to know that life and death on such a scale was my choice. To know that the tiny pressure on my thumb, enough to break the glass, would end everything. Yes - I would do it. That power would set me up above the gods!"
Charming. Or when the Tenth Doctor faced down Davros centuries later (Davros is essentially a hollow shell on life support, who has better success cheating death than every comic book supervillain combined). I love the sound of a rotter clever and bitter enough to really twist the knife into his opponents' psyches:
"The man who abhors violence, but this is the truth: you take ordinary people and fashion them into weapons... How many have died in your name? The Doctor, the man who keeps on running, never looking back because he dare not, out of shame. This is my final victory, Doctor. I have shown you yourself."
Personally, my favorite is from 1989's 'Remembrance of the Daleks', when Davros really gets going on his merciless army of terrible tinker toys:
"The Daleks shall sweep away Gallifrey and its impotent quorum of Time Lords! The Daleks shall become Lords of Time! We shall become all--"
The Seventh Doctor carries on sarcastically: "--powerful! Crush the lesser races! Conquer the galaxy! Unimaginable power! Unlimited rice pudding! Et cetera! Et cetera!"
We haven't seen the last of this vengeful hatemonger. He's crazier than a starcruiser full of Zygon droppings and I love to loathe and fear him.

Man-Child in Toyland

My wife returned from her trip to Las Vegas bearing delicious Popeye's biscuits and swanky new threads. Then she fixed my computer, which has been unable to log on for days now, which is why you get Monday's post on Wednesday.
For my part, the weekend offered various delights at the pinnacle of Fanboy fun, the Toy and Collectible Fair. I managed to blow my wad of tax refund cash on Doctor Who action figures, used $5 Anime DVDs, and the classic 1984 Transformer Jetfire, now living under the assumed name of Rick Hunter's VF-1 Valkyrie Veritech fighter on my living room rug.
Now that I see it on the screen, this post seems rather more like a confession than a record of an event: as an adult I should really be beyond this sort of behaviour.
I mean, do I really need to hug an astromech droid? (If it's R2-D2, then yes! If it's that ill-fated R4-P17, then... well, yes.)
Do I really need to pick a fight with a loudmouthed moron in a Toxic Avengers T-Shirt trying to harass a Happy Harbour vendor for his "outrageous" Canadian prices? (Apparently. Like I told THAT boob: Are you here to have fun or complain? Buy something or move down to the States.)
And did I REALLY have to calm down afterwards by shaking the hand of Boba Fett? (Too frakkin' right. His backpack's got jets!)
And did I somehow feel the need to pre-buy tickets to the much BIGGER convention in Cowtown later next month? (Do a pair of Exxorian wonder twins wear purple?)
There are more sensible things to spend my pittance on. I know this. I know also that at 33 I can't possibly derive as much joy from my toys as the boy of 3 I saw bashing his new Hulk against his stroller. Sadly, there IS no way to defend these choices. Except my partner-in-crime Anthony's tride and true rejoinder: if we're blowing money at least we're not blowing it on blow.

Zom-Com

Thanks to my friend Anthony for screening a fine film for me yesterday! It's inspired me to run down 5 favorite zombie comedies, or 'Zom-Coms' as those in the know are calling them when they are not too out-of-breath from being chased by zombies.

Zombieland- The one I saw last night, which actually might be trumping them all by pioneering its own genre: the Zom-ROM-Com. A great cast. A very cool soundtrack. Graphic but cartoonish violence played for laughs, balanced with a very good story, and a good heart. This is definitely the SWEETEST zombie movie I've seen.

Night of the Creeps- This is the most sci-fi of the zom-coms, (and the most Archie-comic-like, too (see Bookmonkey's post for the opinion I share).

Army of Darkness- The most epic, sweeping zombie comedy, and a deserved classic. Time travel, magic, demons, and the time-traveling magic demon known as Bruce Campbell. You can't go wrong with that one. Well, you can if you don't get the magic words exactly right. It's Klaatu, Barada, N*-coff, coff, coff*, isn't it?

Young Frankenstein- certainly has great moments, too. Although, it might not TECHNICALLY be a zombie movie, in the modern sense of the word. Ahh, it's close enough.

Planet Terror- Weirdly, my wife watched this recently. I could hear her from the other room, occasionally laughing but mostly going 'Eeurgh!'. It's a DARK, dark comedy, but worth the watch if you have a strong stomach. It's the goriest zom-com I can think of that was still amusing. I wasn't in the mood to see it again that day, but on the other hand, I'm always up for:

Shaun of the Dead- The zom-com that started it all! And maybe always the finest. We'll just have to wait and see. And in the words of Conan O'Brien's disembodied head 'I'm out of material!' Let me know what zombie comedy is the one YOU think is funniest- intentionally or otherwise.

The Hugos: A Case of Conscience

It won the Hugo in 1959: James Blish's 'A Case of Conscience'. It's the tale of a Jesuit scientist and his exploration of the planet Lithia, populated by godless but happy and crime-free lizard-men.
Sometimes there are stories that are not dreadful, neither are they splendid. They are just O.K. For me, this is such a story. This makes them a bitch to review: I can't thumbs up with any enthusiasm or thumbs down with any kind of leg to stand on. I gave it a middle-of-the-road 2 stars out of four. Two stars because I agree with what may be the theme: human greed and human religious conflict have destroyed and will continue to destroy many perfectly nice people. Books where the message has stuck with me have worth even if the story itself isn't any fun. I don't recall LIKING any characters except perhaps the sensible and friendly Spock-like space-lizard Chtexa. It's a very poor showing for humanity overall. It may not be fair to mention it at this juncture (since it was written many years later) but if you want to read a first alien contact story with strong religious overtones 'Speaker For the Dead' by Orson Scott Card was much more impressive. It's quite moving. But it won a Hugo itself and I'm jumping the gun here. Like some plodding human mired in ancient superstition might do when confronted with pleasant but atheist reptiles.
Addendum: it may be fair to say that I judged this story with extra harshness because it beat out 'Have Spacesuit- Will Travel' by Robert Heinlein, the favorite book of my childhood and possibly of all time. Or I was overcompensating by being too nice to Blish. You, the reader, must decide. Or not. Your call.
This review brought to you by THE SPACE POPE.

The Hugos: Fahrenheit 451

Um, sorry, folks. I swear it wasn't censorship. I just happened to forget to review the Hugo winning novel of 1954, Fahrenheit 451. Just file this in your individual libraries of Alexandria wedged between my February reviews of 'The Demolished Man(1953)' and 'They'd Rather Be Right(1955)'.
Or, if you're a Bradbury Fireman, burn the review and go back to watching TV.
Oh, now I'm just being whimsical. You can't burn computer data! Sheesh!
You may have noticed that I like 1950's SF. Four stars here and 3 stars there, all willy-nilly.
So here's a shocker: this one only got 2 stars out of 4.
And... (sigh) here's why. First, there's my enormous irrational contempt for classics. Does this book deserve the Hugo? Yes. Did the same year yield 'The Caves of Steel' by Asimov and 'Childhood's End' by Clarke, both FUNNER by a factor of four? Yes.
But F451 is a classic because its heavy-handed message is just as if not MORE important today: books are VERY damn important. And how can I not approve of that?
Second, Ray Bradbury. Sigh. I'm aware of his work. I've grudgingly sailed down the rivers of dandelion wine in 'The Martian Chronicles'. Boy, do I wish John Carter or Dejah Thoris had been there! So, not a big fan. But then again, I've barely touched Bradbury's stuff. So what do I know? (And one of those stars is for 'A Sound of Thunder', which was pretty awesome.)
Third, I just don't like any of the characters. Montag is a flatlined jerk, his boss is a two-faced ass, Montag's wife is a suicidal wreck and his potential mistress is disappeared before her perky optimism can get anybody interested in the proceedings.
Francois Truffaut (and I can actually feel myself slipping into a coma as I say his name) adapted this book into a movie in 1966, it's a fine adaptation in that it's monumentally dull, but the final shot IS extremely memorable, it's every inch a classic just like the book, and it was Hugo nominated also. You know what won instead? A classic in MY favorite sense of the word: Star Trek's 'The Menagerie'. You know: the one with the green dancing girl and the ape fights! Gotta love that cerebral stuff.