Avengers 26, She-Hulk 1

Avengers 26
Hickman (w) and Larroca (a) and F. Martin (c)

After the events in Perth right on the front end of INFINITY, AIM had managed to get DNA from many of the unconscious Avengers. Now they're putting it to use in the form of new and improved Adaptoids, which is never never never never NEVER a good idea and I don't know why everyone continues to think it is. More of the story from AVENGERS 25 comes to light as the new Adaptoids are set upon the dimension-hopping Avengers in the middle of New York right around when they're putting a big old crater into the city. The factions fight with the Adaptoids containing the majority of the Avengers, killing their Pym, and destroying the device that Wasp used to control Hulk. With that device destroyed, their Banner returns to his normal self and we can see that he's not really there of his own will. He wanders off and, realizing that he's in another dimension, makes for Avengers Tower in the hope that things are roughly the same there as in his world. It is and he runs across the other Banner. ANYHOW, the fight breaks up as the other Avengers flee the scene and the Adaptoids return home from testing. While AIM evaluates the information and the real Avengers try to put the pieces together, the Adaptoids do what they always every single time do and adapt, becoming something more powerful and gaining self-awareness.

I know, you were settling in to a story that was maybe a little LESS complicated than INFINITY. Sure, we had to deal with two different Avengers teams, one from some alternate dimension, but we can handle that, we're savvy, smart, regular AVENGERS readers, we had worse to contend with in issue one. BOOM, Adaptoids are back on the scene and they kind of look like Avengers, or like those toys that the back of every single Marvel comic seems to want us to care about, the ones where you can interchange parts to create an inexplicable new mash-up of a hero (GUYS, those things are clearly a scam and I don't have to tell you that but I kind of resent that this issue practically makes them canon). Anyway, things are a bit more complicated (though helped by the fact that the Adaptoids lose the mash-up Avengers look by the end of the issue) than they had seemed and now we're fully embroiled in a big story involving robots and AIM and parallel dimensions and SHIELD being terrible and multiple Banners. Geez, this got a lot bigger a lot faster than I anticipated.

She-Hulk 1
Soule (w) and Pulido (a) and Vicente (c)

Jennifer Walters finds herself out on the street after leaving a terrible employment with a jerky law firm that, though she performed admirably in her year there, expected her to bring in more superhero clientele. She leaves the law firm (with the promise of intrigue about a "blue file" she's forced to take with her) but almost immediately picks up another case in the form of Holly Harrow, wife to the late criminal Jonas Harrow, who claims that her husband's designs were stolen by none other than Tony Stark and Stark Industries and that they haven't seen a dime of the money. She-Hulk promises to talk with Tony and get it worked out but ends up being routed through Stark's impressive and heartless legal counsel. Unable to actually reach Tony, Jen ends up in court with Stark's men, who are content with simply delaying the case for as long as need be. She-Hulk manages to go to Jonas' old warehouse, filled with weapons and old tech, and find the evidence she needs, a tape recording of Harrow's meeting with one of Stark's engineering heads. She brings the evidence straight to Tony, preferring to fight through robots that try to keep her from reaching him in the matters of legal counsel and shows Tony the evidence. Tony hadn't been trying specifically to keep her out but anything to do with "legal matters" has been practically automated so he didn't even know about the case. She finally talks with him and he agrees to send a sizable check to Holly, who pays She-Hulk a hundred and fifty thousand dollars for her help. Jen quickly uses the money to set up a law office of her own in New York.

I called an audible here, folks. Hopefully I'm able to get my hands on SECRET AVENGERS in order to slot it where SHE-HULK had previously been slotted (second post Thursday, see, I have a plan typically). Anyway, this was worthy of making its way to a day-one review as Charles Soule brings the same sort of fun and natural dialogue and exquisite characterization that he's brought to his other current major Marvel product THUNDERBOLTS (hoping for similar results when he kicks off INHUMANS). Jen has a definite personality here, one matching the confidence and competence she's always brought to the table but one that ultimately distinguishes itself from its past. It's a smart book with a fun core and one that I think really has a lot of potential. Not too often we get a rip-roaring legal tale (though it's one of television's favorite genres) with a confident and powerful superhero as its star. I mean, not too often ASIDE from DAREDEVIL. Look, it's still pretty fun is all. Check it out. Should be fun.