snaps: Sensational She-Hulk (one-shot)

... where we celebrate Jen Walters' 30th anniversary with three tales, notably from greenskin powerhouse writer Peter David, plus a reprint from the John Byrne days, but surprisingly none from Dan Slott. however, i enjoyed Brian Reed's contribution, set in pre-Secret Invasion days, where there's a titanic team up, with the now-we-know-she's-the-Skrull-Queen Spider Woman.

what? how can you say that about your original costume?


hello, Yancy Street Gang!


Carol never likes taking her pills.


also, she's been selling Toyotas and it eventually came back to haunt her.


really?? (of course, duh. its Peter David just being cheeky)


Jen survives 10 Screamin' Greenie Weenies.


and the obligatory Dan Slott cameo. oy!

heckling from the peanut gallery

the call to assemble has gone out again, and we the people, the huddled masses of collateral damage from disassembling, house of m-ing, civil warring, planet hulking, secret invading, and dark reigning, exercise our right to yell our opinion from the streets, as is our democratic right.

"Forge? whattayamean, Forge?? you're an X-Man mechanic now??"
"Captain America don't need no guns, and if he did, he'd have a MEU(SOC)!!"
"do you know that the Black Widow slept around with half the Marvel Universe?"




"yes, you better have no fear, 'cause you can't do anything right, schmuck!!!"
"Bullseye was more fun than you!!"
"you don't deserve Bobbi!!!"




"destiny? is that your stagename for your new career as a Vegas stripper?"
"boooooo!! Hydra sucks!!!"
"how do we know you're not a Skrull?!"





"oh yeah? did you defend that poor hamburger from Volstagg??"
"where were you when the Indonesia tsunami happened?"
"where were you when Haiti happened?"
"does this mean you should join the Defenders instead??"




"and we're gonna have nightmares because of it!!"
"you've been Sec-Def and head of S.H.I.E.L.D. - are you gonna run for President next?"
"who died and made you the dreamer of futures??"
"did you create Jersey Shore too??"



roll out the rest of 'em bums!!

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images from marvel.com

does what ever a Spider-Woman does

drive-by readings

Spider Woman #3 (Marvel) "Agent of S.W.O.R.D., Part Three" Brian Michael Bendis Alex Maleev Cory Petit

you know, this Spider-Woman series is turning out as i expected it to be - confused girl trying to find herself, yakking it up with her peers and enemies, slow burning not far from Alias and Daredevil. but somehow the latter two were a lot more riveting.

Jessica's hunt for Skrulls (closure. meh.) puts her into a collision with Madame Hydra (or Viper if you will ... wasn't she Wolverine's ex at some point?). the green haired biatch wants to restore family ties with Jessica; after all, she's a Hydra creation, wasn't she? normally, girls in this situation would end up as emo goths. its just our luck she has better genes and a stronger moral fiber and thus ended up as a crimefighter.

back to the work at hand, with all the crazy/convoluted things going on now (Hydra has been running S.H.I.E.L.D. all along, and Nick Fury is part of the Zodiac, and who knows what else), where is thing gonna end up? will Jessica find herself, love herself and be at peace with her past, in the long term? and in the short term, will she rip this Skrull prisoner that Madame Hydra is offering her, to shreds and itty bitty pieces? conventional wisdom says no. probably on both counts.

web 2.0

drive-by readings

Spider Woman #1 (Marvel) "Agent of S.W.O.R.D." Brian Michael Bendis Alex Maleev Cory Petit

are we really still on the Skrull thing? they're so 2008. but oh well ... i guess we all have to exorcise our demons sometime.

now recruited into S.W.O.R.D. (who just like S.H.I.E.L.D. got effed over during the Skrull Infiltration and Invasion) by Hank McCoy's probable still-girlfriend Abby Brand, Jessica Drew becomes a one-woman Skrull hunter (ummm, Skrull Kill Krew, anyone?). Abby figures Jessica needs to reconcile her being the face of the Skrull invasion, and needs to lash out, hence helping her in that regard. the difficulty of getting a grip on yourself and reality is rendered beautifully by Maleev's noir paints and Bendis' narrative. there's a lot more color this time, as compared to Maleev's excellent Daredevil stint, despite both characters being bedecked in red.

the prevalent school of thought here is that Bendis loves Spider Woman so much, he's made her the linchpin of most of the major storylines he's written. but i think he hates her that's why he screws with her that much. if Susan Richards or Janet Van Dyne was the Skrull queen, it would be difficult to make them pariahs, though certainly there would be some backlash. Spider Woman has always been a mysterious quantity and thus the character was perfect for the roller-coaster mind-bending crap Bendis needed to unleash.

i await the eventual meeting with Nick Fury - oh, that double/triple agent recruitment thing was oh-so-long ago.

you hit like a girl! #12

way before she got replaced by the Skrull queen, Jessica Drew a.k.a. the original Spider-Woman, has been on the side of the good guys (most of the time anyway, at least perception-wise), and she does kick a lot of bad-guy ass (most of the time anyway).

a few exceptions include this one when she was still a brainwashed Hydra soldier and gives the S.H.I.E.L.D. boys a good whuppin' on the way to meeting her future boss, Nick Fury, for the first time.

note this kung fu move combined with her vaunted "venom blasts".

having learned the hard way that she was a product of genetic testing by her psycho pop funded by Hydra, she lashes back at them the best way she knows. i would.

i wonder how these guys would deal being beat up by a girl later. i mean, they probably organized an ACA - Asskicked by a Chick Anonymous.


members would be those who survive and can still walk and talk after say, six months of rehab.

aside from being betrayed by her dad, Jessica was also betrayed by a one-time lover, Jared, who made her think Hydra was a humanitarian agency who distributed relief goods and took down terrorist groups. learning the truth made her see red. that, and finding out that Jared was really a fat bastard before he became the Subway mascot.

another thing Jessica hated apart from being lied to, is being cloned. too bad, clones don't really come close to the original. ask Michael Keaton.

one of her early mentors was the morally ambiguous (sometimes) Taskmaster, and she pretty much gave him as good as she got.

wait, it gets better, when she encounters him years later, out of costume, and on the side of the angels.




giving a "jolt" to about 50 guys at the same time uhm, ... seems to be some kind of record.


let's see if in Secret Invasion, the Skrull Jessica gets to kick as much superhero ass before she finally gets taken down.


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from Spider-Woman: Origin
Brian Reed/Brian Michael Bendis/the Luna Brothers

and he's not dead!

from Civil War: The Initiative




ok, that just took two days. way to go, Marvel!