Little Green Girl

She-Hulk #37

The Man-Elephant is back (snicker) and he’s gotten a lot more powerful — powerful enough to knock the She-Hulk around easy. Only thing is, it’s not She-Hulk, it’s her Skrull pal Jazinda in disguise. Where’s Shulkie? She’s getting bailed out of prison by Mallory Book, her old nemesis at Goodman, Lieber, Kurtzberg & Holliway, and having happy reunions with her old friends at the law firm. And it looks like she’s going to get her law license back again, so she’s leaving the bounty hunter biz. About time, too.

Verdict: Thumbs up. This title is about to be cancelled, so they’re trying to return things to the old status-quo as quickly as possible, so this is a somewhat clumsy switcheroo. However, I still enjoyed how it was done (and the very welcome reappearance of Mallory Book makes it clear that she was too good a character to be abandoned for so long). Not sure how many issues are left, but I’m looking forward to at least one more courtroom escapade before this title goes away.

Secret Six #6

Well, Ragdoll’s sister is the extremely twisted and creepy and mutilated and naked Junior. Eww. Ewww, ewww, ewww. The Six release Bane and, for whatever reason, don’t kill Junior, though they know she’s going to be gunning for them for as long as she can. After the team leaves, Jeanette tells her story — she’s a banshee, made immortal and attuned to death when she was a servant of the notorious Erszebet Bathory, medieval serial killer and vampire. We also learn that the Mad Hatter, a former member of the Secret Six, is now plotting nastily against them. And at a roadside rest stop, Deadshot makes some very, very surprising decisions.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Not sure what I think of Jeanette’s weirdo origin story, but wow, Deadshot sure does drop a big reminder that these guys are all supposed to be villains, not superheroes. Can’t wait for the next issue.

The Age of the Sentry #5

Marvel’s tribute to Silver Age lunacy continues. In our first story, we visit the distant future as Sentry and the Guardians of the Galaxy (a weird combo of Marvel’s original Guardians of the Galaxy, DC’s Legion of Super-Heroes, and a bunch of modern-day characters with a futuristic retrofit). The team has been instructed to help assist a pregnant planet. A what?! Yeah, it makes no sense, but that’s the Silver Age for ya. In the second story, the Sentry’s life is manipulated by shadowy children, who send a robot Sentry to break up his date with Lindy Lee, and try to set him up with the Sentress. Finally, we discover the identity of the mysterious and half-glimpsed parent who’s been telling his son stories about the Sentry’s adventures.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Any story that includes the Boy Blob, the Interstellar Mailman, fruit-pie-loving hippies, and a stoned Dr. Strange has got to be worth reading.