People who know me know that I fulfill two of the three international standard requirements for being a complete and total geek.
1. Into computers
2. Collects comic books
3. Plays role-playing games
You'll never take me alive, role-playing games!
Ahem. Anyway, I feel the need to plug my new favorite comic, She-Hulk before it gets cancelled, which, seeing as how I like it, will happen by the time I finish this... sentence... dammit!
Marvel Comics originally created She-Hulk as a copyright stopgap measure in 1980, simply to reserve the name. In the original series, Jennifer Walters, a mild-mannered LAW-YHERRR, receives an emergency blood transfusion from her cousin Bruce Banner, a.k.a. the Hulk, thus turning her into a straightforward, female version of the Hulk, and causing her to tangle with such classic villains as "Man-Elephant."
Really.
Creatively, a second series in the early '90s changed the focus by adopting a cheesecake-and-comedy theme, breaking down the so-called "fourth wall" by addressing the reader.
The newest series builds on that comic mischievousness by placing Jen in the position of practicing "superhuman law" in the Marvel comic-book universe. Sort of like "Ally McBeal meets superheroes," but much, much better. Some of writer Dan Slott's ideas on the subject are utterly brilliant:
That's from issue #2, and it may be one of my favorite comic ideas of all time: Marvel comics, which years ago had been established as existing in the Marvel universe, can be used as evidence in court cases.
Ingenious. I like to envision this as the kind of law that all my disgruntled lawyer friends would rather be practicing.
Other favorite plot points so far:
In issue #3, Jen successfully argues that returns from the grave are possible by calling to the stand recently deceased Fantastic Four hero The Thing. She also references the Infinity War crossover of the early '90s, in which half of the Marvel Universe died and was subsequently resurrected.
In issue #4, Slott handles the obligatory Spider-Man crossover by giving the wall-crawler a chance to sue his journalistic nemesis, Daily Bugle editor J. Jonah Jameson, for libel. Sadly, Spidey is forced to drop the charges when he realizes that Peter Parker's faked photograph of Spidey-as-Electro (from Amazing Spider-Man #9) might make him equally liable. (That poor Spider-Man; he's such a hard-luck Charlie.)
Anyway, the new She-Hulk series is clever and funny, and since I like it, you should check it out before it gets utterly and vehemently cancelled. I believe Vegas has set the over/under at 4.5 more issues before that happens.
I haven't picked up the Spider-Man issue of She Hulk, though I intend to. Perhaps Saturday. The book has certainly received a lot of praise, and it seems like they're doing a great job -- I read one of the issues online.
Funny -- I also have that issue of FF where Jean Grey returns, I bought it last year for a couple bucks. Good stuff.
If you're not reading "Wanted" (by Mark Millar) yet, you should start . . .