The Sensational She-Hulk # 12
Writer: Peter David
Penciller: Steve Leialoha
Inker: Trina Robbins
Letterer: Jim Novak
Colorist: Glynis Oliver
Cover Date: February 1990
Rating: 
For this week’s installment, I’ll take a look at Sensational She-Hulk # 12 which gives us the story of a lifetime: The making of She-Hulk: The Movie!
If I’m not mistaken, John Byrne took a brief hiatus from this title (Probably to concentrate on “Avengers West Coast”) so SSH had a revolving door of creative teams coming in and out. For this issue, comics legend Peter David (Who was knee-deep in his run on “Incredible Hulk”) dropped by to deliver this zany story. After coming back from a disastrous trip to the supermarket (It was raining) Jen finds out that Hollywood is making a She-Hulk movie, so she hops on a plane to Los Angeles, and right off the bat everything about this movie is an absolute hot mess if I may say so; From the bad actors hired to play the roles of Spider-Man, Captain America, Iron Man, and Thor to Jen being attacked by a giant robot then Orka for good measure (Not to mention the inaccurate story of She-Hulk being a member of The X-Men; But in fairness, that was a lot better than “X-Men: Dark Pheonix”)
After all the craziness on set, Jen meets with the head of the studio only to find out that it’s actually Krang, the former warlord of Atlantis who, after this invasion didn’t go as planned (The somewhat favorite “Atlantis Attacks”) decided to take up Namor’s old scheme of starting a movie studio and producing a flop (Remember Namor’s plan from Fantastic Four # 9?!) where he spends very little money on the production and pocketed the rest for himself.
PAD did a spectacular job of keeping Byrne’s signature humor intact but also expanding on it and making it hilarious; The influences of Mel Brooks along with the filmmaking trio of Jim Abrahams and Jerry and David Zucker (of “The Kentucky Fried Movie” and “The Naked Gun” franchise) are well-featured here but quite frankly, the silliness adds some charm to this issue that I enjoy immensely because it’s one of the shining examples of how to use a superhero in a comedic setting without embarrassing them but it’s such a thrill to see them as the straight man reacting to all of the insanity that’s right in front of them.
This issue set out to poke fun at the inner workings of filmmaking to great effect all while being used as a testament to Peter David’s storytelling as his range knows no bounds but he always provides an issue that brings his humor to the forefront with much glee and joy and his handling of She-Hulk is right on par to his work on The Hulk. You got to love it!
Well, that’s it for me this week. I’ll be back with another She-Hulk review so thanks for sticking around and I will see you all next time.
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