She-Hulk #2

I never knew part of She-Hulk's morning ritual was painting herself green!

So I decided I wanted to fall way behind schedule on doing Comic Book Commentaries this weekend by finally finishing Bioshock Infinite. I actually restarted and set the level to Easy-Peasy (I usually play all First Person Shooters on Maximum Difficulty because I am the best at shooting things in the face and also video games) just so I could get through the story. Now, I haven't finished! So no fucking spoilers in the comments, you animals. But I did want to mention something I noticed and then was rewarded a bit for noticing later in the game. So as you're running about Battleship Bay, some calliope, amusement parky music is playing in the background. The game takes place in a fantasy version of 1912 so I was surprised to recognize the tune as "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun". Now, the other music on the radios that play aren't exactly accurate to the time either but they still fit the Bioshock Mood and are still old timey. But this was so far out of the realm of possibility that it just seemed like a cute little Easter Egg. But then later when you're running through Finkton, you encounter a red tear with "Unfortunate Son" playing through it. And later still, a Voxophone message from Fink to his brother mentions how his brother has found a way to make money with the strange music they've been hearing through the tears (rips not salty brine from the eyes). So it seems "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" was heard through one of these tears, converted into an amusement park version, and sold to parks all over Columbia. Dammit. Now I think I need to rush through this commentary so I can get back to Bioshock where I'm trying desperately to bang Elizabeth before I find out she's actually my daughter.

That last sentence was a joke! I don't see Elizabeth as a romantic interest in the game at all! From the moment you meet her, she actually feels like a daughter or a beloved, slightly off-kilter sister. She's so adorable and fun and I love her facial expressions when something disturbing or odd is happening. You can tell she doesn't give any fucks in situations where fucks should not be given. Plus she's constantly giving me money and ammunition! She's the best!

Also, the fact that they decided to give her a bit of acne instead of going for beautiful porcelain skin is a fantastic design choice. Maybe it's to help confirm in the mind of the player that she's still very young. It could also be a way to distinguish Elizabeth at the beginning from Elizabeth after she loses her innocence and grows up quickly by doing that thing she does before leaving Finkton that's a big spoiler and then does that other thing she does so that she looks different. That's right about where I stopped playing last, so I haven't taken a good, close look at her face with my sniper rifle scope to see if her blemishes have gone.

Okay, enough about video games. Although I would totally have a video game blog if I had more time. Or a clone. Or a Patron of the Low-Brow Arts! Do those exist? Are any of you out there rich and love dick jokes? Want to hear more of them?! Patronize me!

Issue #2 begins by telling you everything you needed to know about Issue #1! So why did I buy Issue #1? Or why am I buying Issue #2? Maybe I should simply buy every odd issue! I guess if I don't care about the experience of reading the comic book and enjoying all of the dialogue and maybe miss She-Hulk's purple underwear, I could do that. But then I could also just skip out on life entirely too by asking to be placed in a medically induced coma! "Hey Doctor?! Put me out for twenty years so I can see how it all comes out. I'll just get filled in on the intervening time period through short, biased synopses of events! Thanks!"

She-Hulk had just opened her own Law Firm so she can sit in one place and help those that need help instead of running all over the country like her television cousin, David Banner, helping people that didn't know they needed help until half their town was suddenly transformed into rubble and angry local police. Currently she has no clients and one case: The Blue File.

I don't know enough Marvel to recognize these people. A shitty version of the Defenders? Great White North Coast Avengers?

It turns out She-Hulk is leasing an office at Idea Hive, Inc. It's an office space for people with super powers specially designed with break-away walls and no skylights. The landlord used to be a Mutant but she didn't really excel at Xavier's and eventually she lost her power in something called M-Day. My guess is that was a big Marvel Crossover Event where Mutants lost their powers! Nobody's going to get anything past me!

Since She-Hulk has no money coming in because she has no clients, she decides she needs a paralegal. Maybe all Law Offices need at least one paralegal. I don't even know what a paralegal does. Sure, I read The Firm just like everybody else back in the early nineties. I think a paralegal does filing and rushes out to pick up coffee and sandwiches and rats out the company's double billing policies, sending them into a really exciting bureaucratic mess that somehow involves enough exciting action to make a Tom Cruise movie out of it.

Jennifer decides to hire Angie Huang and her monkey Hei Hei because they're the only ones that didn't flee from the interview. It's probable the reason for that is that Hei Hei doesn't normally attack Angie and himself. If I had a monkey, it wouldn't prevent other people from getting jobs. It would help prevent me from getting jobs! Then I'd have to apply for disability and say, "But I can't work! My monkey won't let me!" And the government would be all, "That's perfectly understandable. Here is $5000 per month! It's the standard rate we give everybody that chooses not to work because they are obviously just lazy bastards but still deserve to live an exorbitant lifestyle at hard working billionaires' expenses!" Now I wish I wasn't just making up job-defeating monkeys and non-paltry government handouts and hard working billionaires!

After a hard day at work, She-Hulk and Hellcat get drunk, put on their costumes, and raid a building rumored to house an A.I.M. Lab. I don't really know much about A.I.M. except that they wear Hazmat Suits and I have about five billion of their Heroclix figures.

Drunken Hellcat #1. Marvel NOW!

Things don't go too well for anybody since Hellcat's drunk and A.I.M. low level thugs are desperate failures and She-Hulk has real life concerns that are bigger than a crappy A.I.M. meth lab. Also, Javier Pulido is having a serious case of Charlie Adlard Double Page Splash Syndrome.

Charlie Adlard Double Page Splash Syndrome: when an artist takes the most boring visual moment of a comic book and draws a shitty image across two pages simply to emphasize the character's current dialogue.

I'm not going to put all the blame on Charlie Adlard and Javier Pulido here. I don't know how much of these crap double page splashes are directed to be done by the writer. In this case, Charles Soule and in Adlard's case, Robert Kirkman. Perhaps when you've got writers with really tight control over the stories they're telling, they might ask for these moments, but they don't quite visually grasp how ineffective the double page splash is when it's just replacing Bold Type. Or accentuating bold type since She-Hulk's words in this panel ("...and tell me again what I wouldn't do.") are indeed bold!

This tiny, little panel with no background conveys much more than that two page bullshit earlier. I don't get the need for wasted space when each page of comic book art should be a frickin' premium! There's only twenty per issue! Please take care in the way they're used!

Jennifer hires Hellcat to be her in-house private investigator so that's pretty awesome.

The next day, She-Hulk gets into work late to find her first client! I don't know who it is yet because the reveal is on the last page! But on the penultimate page, Angie and Hei Hei inform She-Hulk on her way into the office that a new client has been waiting for an hour! I wonder who it will be! Since Charles Soule likes writing for green people, my guess is it will be Doop! And this will kick off Milligan's Doop #1 which I will be purchasing!

Luckily, the reveal of the person isn't visually stunning so I don't have to scan it! But it's not Doop! It's, and this part is a huge spoiler and I don't know why I'm warning you because if you've read even just one of my 1500 comic book commentaries, you'll know spoilering is all I know how to do! I don't think I finished the sentence I started so let me try again! It's, and this part is a huge spoiler and I don't know why I'm warning you here in the text when you can read right along the sidebar that these reviews contain heavy spoilers so if you find yourself spoiled by any of these it's your fault much in the same way that if Batman kills someone, it isn't his fault but the criminal's fault for getting involved in crime! Shit. I forgot to finish my sentence again! Anyway, it's Doom's son, The Son of Doom. He wants to defect from Latveria because that place fucking sucks Incredible Hulk Dong.

She-Hulk #2 Rating: Oh wait! I don't rank the Marvel Comics in the same way I rank The New 52 comics at DC. I don't want the Marvel Comics to feel like they're competing with one another. I tell them every day that they are each unique in their own way and that they are all special little marsupials. Then I touch them right in the centerfold staple and whisper, "This will be our little secret, munchkin."

Shit. That got weird.