She-Hulk #25I'll make this quick because it's not worth much of my time. In She-Hulk #25 I found:
- Lots of under-characterized new characters whose problems I don't care about.
- She-Hulk behaving utterly out of character.
- Sloppy handling of setting. ("Allentown National Park, Pennsylvania"? Are there so few parks in Pennsylvania that PAD has to invent one? Or is he just too lazy to use Google?)
- A generally slapdash storyline with inconsistent pacing.
There's also a "parody four-pager" at the end that pokes fun at anyone who's unhappy with inconsistent handling of the She-Hulk character. If you were looking forward to being laughed at for feeling dismayed or confused about all the changes to the character and title since Peter David took over, you will love it. Otherwise you may come away wondering, "Is this guy mocking me?"
Because when sales are going down the toilet and the new writer has alienated people who have been reading the book for years, the best plan is to ridicule the concerns of the readers who are still hanging in there. After the writer fails, he can blame it on the readers for not getting the "joke".
Still, by all means please go buy the book so that it doesn't get canceled before Marvel finds someone else to write it.
God, this book is such crap
God, this book is such crap it's ridiculous!
Humor book
People on some of the message boards are saying that sales are declining because PAD isn't treating it as a humor book anymore, and long-time readers expect it to be a humor book.
I don't think that's really valid. It could play a part, but to me the problem is fundamental dislocation from past continuity for no apparent reason related to plot.
What seems more likely to me as a cause of declining sales is that readers were prepared and interested in seeing a change in the format of the book, but are not interested in seeing a fundamental change in the character. If I'm right, PAD's partial reboot of the character is the major source of friction.
Adding insult to injury, the stories aren't very good and seem rushed. The absence of quality storytelling makes the whole PAD takeover seem arrogant and pointless. He took over a favorite comic, tossed out much of what the readers enjoyed, and then replaced the discarded bits with poorly thought-out crap.
When Peter David took over the book...
...he said that She-Hulk could be Marvel's WW if handled right. WW hasn't been this bad since Bill Leobs had her working at a burger joint.
Ugh
I forgot about the burger joint episode. Ugh.
Part of the success of the character is the wish fulfillment stuff - here's a normal, professional woman with a disappointing personal life who's able to become beautiful, desired, the center of attention wherever she goes and also one of the most physically powerful people on the planet.
The genius of John Byrne was in making that character aware that she was the star of her own comic. The genius of Dan Slott was in keeping Byrne's innovation while shifting the focus somewhat back to the normal, mundane woman at the core. Three or four times a year, Slott produced something that I read a dozen times over, smiling the whole time.
Peter David doesn't seem to have any rival vision for the character - certainly not one that he's introduced thus far. Yet he's arrogantly discarded something that's proven commercially, and that a lot of us loved besides. It almost seems like vandalism. It turns my stomach.