Saturday, September 15, 2012

The Sensational She-Hulk 46: Who Needs A Plot That Makes Sense?

I'm not sure if creator John Byrne is parodying the badly-written comics of the 1990s here, or if he just figured that if the kids wanted badly-written comics, then that's what he'd give them.  Either way this thing is a mess.  It does feature some interesting comments on identity, but they're pretty well-buried under She-Hulk learning a mind-switching trick from an alien with a head the shape of an egg (a literal egghead); She-Hulk trying to swap brains with her sidekick Weezi (never mind that she's in outer space and She-Hulk is planetside); Weezi teaming up with Skrulls, more aliens, somehow, but mainly because Byrne made them teamup because he needed that in the plot, what plot there is; Skrulls killing asparagus people who turn out to be Carbon Copy Men, who would have been great stupid villains to make fun of but Byrne just kills them off and then explains who they are afterwards; Weezi getting She-Hulk's powers but not turning green; an alien with a gun that turns people to stone; a space race against a whole planet being turned to stone; and Razorback and Rocket Raccoon turning back from stone but still having little reason to be in the story (Razorback can be justified as a plot device at least, since that's what gets She-Hulk to the planet in the first place--why bring RR in when he won't be used?)--I could go on but you get the idea--what idea I have no idea though.  This probably was a one-issue story (it might have worked as that), but by this issue Byrne managed to stretch it out to three by using three or four panels per average on a page.  I don't have any random thoughts on this issue, other than I'm glad it's over.  This has to have been a parody.  I don't think Byrne could write this badly accidentally.  Maybe he was challenging himself to write the script in only an hour or something, or maybe he just decided that he didn't need a script.  Indeed, he almost dispensed with plot here.  It's more like one thing happens and then another and then he explains how they were connected later.  This might be the worst She-Hulk comic ever; it's certainly the worst Byrne one.

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