She-Hulk #10 // Review
Jen’s boyfriend Jack was dead. He was just...lying there lifelessly on the floor. Then he wasn’t. He shot through the ceiling and disappeared. (Evidently, he had to head out to space so that he could explode for a little bit.) And now Jen has no idea what’s going on with him. All she can do is sink herself into her work in She-Hulk #10. Writer Rainbow Rowell continues an intimate journey with Jen Walters that is revealed for page and panel by artist Takeshi Miyazawa with the aid of colorist Rico Renzi. It’s a very close series of scenes with a very interesting title character.
Jack left through the ceiling. He didn’t say goodbye, but he DID apologize. Jen’s alone, but she ultimately ends up in a long conversation with an old friend and fellow Avenger, Patsy Walker. The two of them discuss matters over some wine. Jen gets back to work with her client: a Doombot that thinks it’s Doctor Doom. (It’s a long story. Jen’s a good lawyer, though. She’ll get justice for the well-meaning but despotic AI.) If all goes well, she might even get a decent moment to herself.
Rowell’s pacing is just so...indie. Jack leaves four pages into the issue, and then a few pages later, she’s getting into an impressively deep emotional conversation with Patsy for like...five pages before finally returning to the courtroom and beyond. Rowell is allowing Jen’s own personal emotional energy to run the pacing of the story, and it’s working beautifully. The five-page conversation with Patsy ends up diving a HELL of a lot deeper into the mind of Jen than many recent authors have managed to get. Too bad Rowell doesn’t give the Doombot more time. The comic potential of THAT character is more than Rowell seems to be willing to commit to right now.
Miyazawa moves with the strange pacing of the script in a way that makes some sense of it on an emotional level. Miyazawa handles the delicate subtleties of interpersonal drama with a great deal of empathy. There are few artists who can handle largely silent moments between characters and lend a sense of depth to them. There’s so much that Jen and Patsy aren’t saying in their conversation that Miyazawa pulls into the frame with just a few lines here and there. Renzi lends the drama depth with subtle variations in the color.
So many previous incarnations of She-Hulk have crammed themselves into the standard rotation of a superhero comic. Rowell distinguishes her walk with Jen by allowing her inner emotions to dictate the way the scenes play out. It’s a refreshing approach to a superhero drama that fully embraces the Marvel Universe in a way that it rarely has had a chance to be embraced. Rowell’s She-Hulk is in no hurry...and it’s a welcome alternative to the standard mainstream superhero story format.
