Jen Walters is back, but that doesn’t mean all is right!
Creative Staff:
Writer: Mariko Tamaki
Art: Nico Leon
Colors: Matt Milla
Letterer: VC’s Cory Petit
What They Say:
JENNIFER WALTERS has survived the Civil War…barely…and having risen from the rubble, she re-enters the world a different kind of hero. Fueled by a quiet rage, she is determined to move forward, to go on with her life,but the pain of the past and all she’s lost is always there- an undercurrent, a pulse, waiting to quicken and trigger Jen’s transformation into the one thing she doesn’t have control over…
Content: (warning, content section may contain spoilers)
After the disastrous attack on Thanos in Civil War II # 0, Jennifer Walters was sent into a coma that lasted pretty much the entirety of the war (if you can really call it that…), and by the time she woke up, Her Cousin Bruce Banner (the original Hulk) was dead, and now she has to pick up the pieces of her life while holding a monster inside-Hulk! We start as Jen hurriedly leaves her messed up apartment for her job at a law firm, meaning that she’s still a lawyer despite being MIA recently. As Jen makes her way to work, the thought boxes she provides give a clear picture into her mental state. Normally, Jen Walters is a pretty confident person, but now we see her constantly on edge and second guessing choices. She’s not the same person as she was before the war, and now she’s just not sure of anything anymore.
Jen makes it to work and ends up meeting a client with an eviction case, Miss Brewn. Brewn tells Jen that her landlord has been banging on her door yelling for her to leave and Jen says she’ll look into it immediately, giving Brewn a card and saying that if her landlord tries to talk to her, she can direct him to talk to the firm instead. Jen leaves work way later than ost wouldand is waylaid on her way home by a man named Florida Mayer, who seems to want to talk to her about what happened to her and Bruce. He hays he is writing a book about trauma, and Jen is having absolutely none of it, but the mention of what happened to her and her cousin produces worse results. We get small panel shots of what looks like the beginning of a painful Hulk transformation, but Jen manages to stop herself and make it to her apartment, where she collapses. her thoughts here are probably the most powerful and emotional part of the book. The scene then changes to Miss Brewn at her abode, where she is telling some unseen figure that she met with a lawyer and was promised she won’t lose her home. She asks the mysterious figure if they’ll stillprotect her and we switch to the darkness she is talking to, where the figure must still be obscured, who answers, “yes.”
In Summary:
Marvel has not had a great time comics wise recently, but this is one comic that shows how good they can be when they put effort into things. This was something I was interested in picking up after the original Hulk died and the newer Hulk series about Amadeus Cho just isn’t sitting right with me. This is a very emotion heavy issue and the big part of it is about Jen and her emotional state. Jen’s always been an upbeat and confident character, whether as She-Hulk of regular Jen Walters, but the death of Bruce and the trauma on her own life from the Thanos attack has felt her in a vastly different state. She-Hulk is gone, and now there is only Hulk,and Jen makes clear that it isn’t something she wants or can control anymore. The best line is the entire book that really drives just how much things have changed home is when Jen gives us, “This is what happens now when I think about what happened to me. It used to feel strong. Changing. Becoming something powerful. Now it feels like dying…like a truck driving through my heart..,”. Jen now finds her transformations are a brutal, horrifying process,and now she wants to avoid doing it as much as possible. The emphasis on Jen’s new life and how things have changed is what sets the book apart and makes it great. The tone of worry and uncertainty coupled with the art and writing make this a comic that one would be foolish to miss out on. This is a whole new direction for Hulk, and i’m certainly going to stay on this ride!
Grade: A+
Age Rating: T+
Released By: Marvel Comics
Release Date: December 28th, 2016
MSRP: $3.99
