Broken Frontier

Marvel’s sexiest, sassiest, strongest, and greenest super-heroine She-Hulk recommences her monthly adventures and she doesn’t miss a beat.

It took a while (and fans of the book are still wondering why it ever left) but Jennifer Walters and her alter-ego She-Hulk are back, continuing on with the same creative team that made her so lovable just a year ago. The long pause in the book’s publishing was explained by some careful writing, in which Jen’s place of work and living were both destroyed by Titania. But now that she’s back, everything is returning to normal. Or at least so she thought. For it appears that her boss made some changes to the building that he promised he wouldn’t and he isn’t even around to complain to. In his stead he has left a new man in charge, and this new guy, Mr. Arthur Zix, has some changes of his own he’d like to implement. On top of all that, Pug, her coworker (and now more) has gotten her into a doozey of case, defending someone that no one in the world believes is innocent. And boy is it an understatement to say that it looks like Jen will be getting herself into a lot of trouble.

Just like the character he’s writing, Dan Slott hasn’t missed a beat in bringing She-Hulk back. If you loved the old series, or started reading Slott’s work (Spider-Man/Human Torch and GLA) after this book went on hiatus then you pretty much need to be reading this book. He infects every page and line of dialogue with an incredible sense of humor. The jokes never stop coming and never get old. The dialogue is as fresh as it ever was and each character remains unique in voice. Slott even has some real fun injecting (what seems like) his own voice into the character of Stu Cicero as he complains about what has been done with the archives. Trust me, it’s classic. This issue is a bit heavy with exposition, as Slott catches up old readers and makes it easily accessible for new ones, yet that exposition never slows down the pacing of the book. It’s a quick and easy read and the only time readers will have to stop is when they’re laughing too hard. And with this book that happens more often than not.

It takes a talented cartoonist to keep up with Slott’s writing, and Juan Bobillo is definitely up to the challenge. His line work is simple and clean. His character designs are simple, yet incredibly unique. But somehow, he gets his work to explode off the page. His action scenes are drawn with great aplomb. Vibrant and vivid, his artwork seems to jump right off the page. Even better than the action scenes, is Bobillo’s ability to convey the characters’ emotions which adds so much to the humorous nature of the book. Angry, hysterical, happy, or sad, Bobillo nails them all. And for those who read the last series and were a little taken aback by some of his character designs of classic Marvel heroes, rest assured that someone has provided him with the proper references this time around. He adds his own unique sense of flair to them, but this time around, I’m not fearful that I’ll be reading the book and say "That’s not really what (insert character) looks like."

Honestly, this is by far the most fun book you could read in the Marvel Universe. Slott makes fun of everyone and everything. Bobillo’s work jumps right off the page. Really, the only question is: why did they ever decide to cancel it?