Welcome, She-Rulk. Took you long enough
I like Red She-Hulk. The book is beautifully drawn, well written, and fairly entertaining. The main issue is that it's really not about the actual Red she-hulk, preferring to focus on obscure D-list character Machine Man. If you're unfamiliar with Machine Man, he was created by Jack Kirby when he ran out of material for his adaptation of Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A space Odyssey and needed to come up with something fast. And then he fought the Hulk. Yeah. He's pretty cool. Thankfully, though, this seems to be changing, allowing itself to balance out both the characters into one title.
Like I said, MM is a pretty cool dude. He's cocky and a bit arrogant, and while occasionally his voice over gets a bit tedious from his constant describing of every little thing, it fits with his character, being an extremely logical robot and all. When Betty Ross finally comes into the picture, she is still unfortunately underdeveloped, but at least now the story has revealed it's current direction, and looks to finally peal back some of the layers currently hiding She-Rulk from us. Of course, it probably doesn't help that this direction is completely suited, nay, tailored to be a Machine Man tale.
Still, a lot of the concepts explored here are interesting to say the least. While I might never understand the current fascination with Nicolas Tesla, the idea is pure high-brow sci-fi, and serves as a neat contrast to She-Rulks simple motivation to just punch soldiers until things get better. What I also love about this issue is how it depicts a She-Hulk in a unique way
A common complaint about the She-Hulks is that while the main hulks are clearly very monstrous in nature, their female counterparts are depicted, let's face it, as eye-candy.
This story turns that on it's head, and one device in this book is about how the rest of the Avengers try and rationalize Betty Ross. Is she like the other she-hulks before her? Like her father? her husband? Skaar? This is something I always felt this book should tackle, so seeing this hear pleased me.
Art is fine, as always. It's very consistent and well drawn, so I won't linger on it.
This book seems to be moving towards finally pushing Machine Man and Betty Ross together, and actual allowing Red She-Hulk to, you know, star in her own goddamn title! Joking aside, this was a great step forward. Jeff Parker is always a fun read, and this is slowly shaping up to be another solid Marvel NOW! book.
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