Posted by Pym Particle on 2/9/2008, 1:11 pm
62.178.191.153
So when Peter David took over I jumped on board. I really liked David's runs of Hulk and Captain Marvel, and I think that X-Factor at the moment is the best title ANY company is editing these days (I have done the unthinkable recently and ordered the available trades of Fallen Angel to prove this wrong).
So She-Hulk. Before reading David's run I bought the trades of Slott's run, and I have to say that his take on She-Hulk for me belongs to the finest contributions to comics of the last decades (much better than his actual Amazing and Initiative).
So it was not easy for David to take over.
What are David's strengths? One of his foremost strengths for me is the ability to take established (sometimes boring) characters and make them new and fresh. Rick Jones comes to mind, Jamie Madrox, Betty Ross. The current X-Factor cast consists of no single person David has created. Nevertheless recreated he has them all.
The only character that comes to my mind David has created and is on par to his genius is Marlo Chandler.
His strength is to build long and sophisticated plot lines with many ramifications that sometimes go over years. That made his Hulk run so strong. I just began to reread the complete run. Against my memory the run does not begin as strong as I thought. In my point of view of today it really gets strong with Keown/Farmer coming on board. The Captain Marvel run started with 100 percent. It grew weaker after the restart and that crazy fox line. Oh, that ghost lady (Lorraine) is one more of a genius' creation.
What are She-Hulk's strengths? She-Hulk has been some sort of meta dialogue of Marvel since Byrne took over. The Savage She-Hulk is almost unreadible by today's standards, although it's the last title created by Stan Lee (and Big John B. by the way). Byrne made a fun title of it (I never read it and hope it gets the Essential treatment), but everybody knows the cover "Buy this title or...". Slott turned this approach into method, and not by chance many have stated that his take on She-Hulk was very "Davidesque". The harder it was for the teacher to follow (and top?) the pupil.
My retailer had problems to deliver #23, so I waited up till I got it and read #22 to 25 in a row the last two days. What can I say? She-Hulk is not yet a stroke of genius until now (but neither was David's Hulk as I mentioned). But the potential is there. Jazinda and the Little family are the core for an interesting supporting cast (not yet as good as Goodman, Lieber & Kurtzberg), the subplots are there with the mysterious Irish bomber and Jazinda's background. Although it's not yet one of the top titles it's lengths better than most of the mainstream Marvel is editing today (Amazing, FF, Avengers). I will follow and I hope that David still will warm up.
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