[Prophet Tenebrae]

Yeah, as they say – status quo is God and Banner being in control of the Hulk or being cured always last for about five minutes and then he's back to Hulk smash… the fanboys would throw their toys out the pram if it wasn't so… and Jen gets depowered? Again? When did/does that happen? I thought she was just going to go missing?

[Prophet Tenebrae]

Oh, Joe Q is just doing it because it sells comics – and because he's the genius that likes to give Hollywood writers comics and then doesn't seem to be bothered when they're awful and go two years over their deadline and the less said about deals with the devil the better.

Regardless, meta-events are just part of the cynical comic doctrine these days. It sells comics. Hell, I think we should all acknowledge that She-Hulk held on a bit longer due to her tie-in events. Ah well.

[Prophet Tenebrae]

Like I've said before – Loeb seems to be damaged goods since his son died… which makes sense… because his son died (what's your excuse Chuck Austen and Kevin Smith?). Someone needs to give the guy a hug and say "it's ok" and give him some time to get over it. He pretty much tanked The Ultimates in 2 issues… and that was a title that Dan Slott said people would three months for in the rain, just to see a splash page of the Hulk punching someone.

That aside, "In Search of She-Hulk", "World War Hulks"… I'm guessing that Marvel lost a saving throw against originality recently.

But we'll have to see how it plays out.

[Prophet Tenebrae]

Using my patented bullshit translator – Loeb is saying something along the lines of "I haven't got a clue where this story is going, I'll be throwing in a lot of twists which are at best random and often nonsensical – not to mention that no one is going to bother checking continuity, so expect plot aspects to be raised and dropped arbitrarily. Red She-Hulk is just going to be cheese cake for the sake of it – any chance at character development is pretty small."

[Prophet Tenebrae]

Oh, sure – you can say of pretty much all big characters like Batman, Superman, The Hulk etc. have had that. It's pretty much inevitable given the time the characters have been around. The problem She-Hulk has is, there isn't anything that can be seen as… a definitive She-Hulk. With the Hulk, most people would quickly turn to the "Hulk smash" before they went into the Green Scar, Mr. Fixit, Professor etc. Those are of course, aspects – but there's an iconic quality to the aforementioned. I mean, we've had a whole mess of Batmans but people will probably always hold up the brooding Dark Knight Bob Kane type interpretation.

She-Hulk just doesn't have that. There's no quintessential She-Hulk costume or character… Although, I suppose we've moved closer to that of late… With the purple and white unitard and She-Hulk being a bad ass brawler… with quipping!

And Domino… well, the MYSTERY OF THE SHE-RULK! Will presumably run for a while and do what the original issues with Rulk did and introduce a number of potential suspects. I hope that Loeb manages to do a better job a second time round… scant hope.

[Prophet Tenebrae]

Yeah, it strikes me as a bit silly to bemoan the lot of muscular women in comics when they've really never had it so good.

As to Jen being dead… she was just hanging out with Rulk and Doc Samson when a gamma reactor went kaboom – which is clearly just to set up Jen as the #1 candidate for being She-Rulk… because presumably everyone has stopped caring about the identity of Rulk because they introduced a bunch of potential candidates and then went "Oh, actually – it's none of them."

To be honest, I get why some people are disgruntled with the addition of Lyra and now She-Rulk but as I said before, while it's clearly Marvel pushing characters at the expense of Jennifer, I can't really BLAME them for that. With Lyra and (I'll assume with She-Rulk) you're getting characters who are clearly defined and don't have thirty years of backstory that has given several quite different takes on the character.

Lyra even has her own schtick in that anger makes her weaker… and she has her "hulk fu". I'm sure She-Rulk will have her villain thing… Jen is subject to terribly fractious fanbase that could probably have a fight over anything you mentioned about her. I assume Marvel want a strong female to push as a Wonder Woman equivalent… or something and Jen just has too much baggage.

[Prophet Tenebrae]

Wow, I am never contributing to a thread like this again. :-

Never contribute or create anything with the expectation of any response – let alone a positive one. People are ungrateful for pretty much everything. Those who might choose to acknowledge what you've done are the tiny minority – most are happy to simply take, take, take.

[Prophet Tenebrae]

Wait… are they pretending ANYONE really cares who Rulk is? Didn't they drop that entire aspect when it became apparent it was none of the above and hence was going to be an ass pull. You know, if you want to know how to do a "who is X?" mystery, Loeb – go and read PAD's run on Supergirl. He had a list of suspects that kept the eponymous guessing and the reader and it turned out to actually be ONE of those people and it was a pretty cool twist – before the whole Earth Angel thing bogged that book down.

Anyway, I think Loeb's son died recently? I think that's a pretty good reason for your writing to go down the tubes but then – Marvel will let Kevin Smith retcon Black Cat into a rape victim for shits and giggles, so far be it for me to suggest they give the man a leave of absence to actually deal with the issues that have made him become the new Chuck Austin.

Where was I? Ah, yes – She-Rulk… well, as someone was calling Lyra that… that's probably going to piss all over their parade.

Me? So long as it's not Jen and Jen isn't banished for a while to respawn, I'm happy to have another girl run around. Red haired or red skinned. So long as She-Hulk keeps her profile up… and hey! Who knows, it might be someone to add to her rogue's gallery that isn't Titania!

[Prophet Tenebrae]

Well… obviously. There are plenty of unpleasant growth disorders. Virginal breast hypertrophy isn't pretty either. The human body has a whole lot of ways to fuck up.

[Prophet Tenebrae]

Smallville just needs to DIE. They got rid of Lana – thank fuck – but Lois is almost as annoying. I watch the show to prepare myself for mental torture.

Also, I hear that Chloe is going to leave… I suppose we'll have to see how her voice acting skills are. I'm looking forward to both the upcoming DC animated features – and I'm hoping they're more Wonder Woman, less Doomsday. Not like DC have any well known characters they might put into live action films… like a certain OTHER comic company.

[Author]

Posts