New Warriors 11, She-Hulk 9

New Warriors 11

The Eternals have picked up the fight against the New Warriors on behalf of the High Evolutionary, making things infinitely more difficult for the young team. Justice gets dragged away to the Arctic Circle, trying desperately to explain to his captor that they just want to save everyone while Jake Waffles mourns the loss of Mr. Whiskers and the rest of the New Warriors gets pummeled or otherwise captured. Only Zuras of the Eternals, though, seems complicit in the actual plan, the rest of the Eternals clearly think something else is happening, with Zuras keeping them from the truth. Meanwhile, Justice comes to in the Arctic Circle, ready to rush back to the High Evolutionary's ship and get his team back.

It's a huge loss for the New Warriors here but the pieces sure are in place for an outstanding comeback. Yost and Burnham work together here to build our characters up while also developing the plot into something familiar but exciting. The key to making a familiar story worth reading is developing characters that the reader cares about and Yost has spent this whole series making sure that's true. Even the least developed character (probably Water Snake) matters and you care about what happens to her. In the spotlight in this one is Speedball, whose inner monologue keeps fighting but wonders if maybe this isn't for the best, as he recognizes that this is the second massive tragedy he's been at the start of. Poor guy. There's something for everyone and the book is doing a great job of keeping the stakes raised even as the end nears.

Total Score: 5/5


She-Hulk 9

The day in court goes rather badly as prosecutor Matt Murdock plays his cards the right way and keeps She-Hulk off-balance. We hear the charges lodged against Steve Rogers, part of a deathbed confession that accuses Steve of getting the recently deceased man's brother killed back before Steve was Captain America. The plaintiff, Harold Fogler, said that he had gotten in with some bad guys out on the West Coast while his smarter, more gifted brother studied to be a doctor back in Brooklyn. When his brother caught wind of the things Harold was getting up to, he made his way west with his friend Steve to try to get Harold home, only to get the two of them captured by the bad guys. Steve, of course, refuses to be silenced and his insistence on demanding the bad guys do the right thing leads to said bad guys shooting Harold's brother. Harold had kept his mouth shut even after Steve became Cap because he recognized that Cap was good, but he always believed Steve to be the reason his family had suffered for so long. As the day in court ends, She-Hulk isn't feeling great about the whole case and tries to train Steve for the stand, though Steve is prepared to go up and tell the truth without concern. Daredevil comes to visit She-Hulk at night, asking her to take a run with him. They run through the city as Matt tells Jen that he had declined the case, basically laughing in the face of the plaintiff, but that he warned Steve a case might be coming, whereupon Steve asked Matt to take the case and argue it to the best of his ability. Annoyed, She-Hulk heads back home and, the next day, calls Steve on to the stand, only to have him immediately say that everything Fogler said was true, to the frustration of his lawyer.

Rounding out this week's "soon-to-end" books, SHE-HULK once more brings forward a story and several characters that we can immediately care about and that we can be entertained by. I talked in this week's AVENGERS review about how I'm having trouble with the take on Steve, not because I think it's impossible and a terrible character change, but just because it takes his good qualities and pushes them too far, making them stubborn, bad qualities. Here his good qualities are on full display and they're pushed to, for She-Hulk, a frustrating place but still a ridiculously good one. It's the idea that his goodness will get him in trouble versus the idea that his goodness could turn into bitterness and obsession. While I think both ideas are potentially valid (when placed in the right stories), I much prefer reading this one, which also hinges on the humor of She-Hulk rolling her eyes and continually being taken aback by the way Steve does things. Soule and Pulido put in the perfect ending to this issue as Steve takes the stand and ignores She-Hulk's urging to tell his side of the story, instead saying that everything in Fogler's account is accurate, eliciting a gritted teeth "COME ON" from She-Hulk. Great moment, really excellent and fun book.

Total Score: 5/5

This week's picks

Lotta good books out there this week. Makes it tricky to pick the top three and it's helped none by the fact that so many books got full 5 star reviews from me, even some that didn't necessarily strike me as much as others (technical five stars count just as much as gut-feeling ones! That's all this is, really, gut feelings! And maybe I should stop bringing that up so much!). HOWEVER, as there were so many good books this week, I want to shine a light on a few different books, worthy of this list but would undoubtedly be unseated by the likes of BLACK WIDOW and MOON KNIGHT (both of which I do still wholeheartedly recommend). So let's talk about some different books this time.

New Warriors 4

NEW WARRIORS has an interesting story and some compelling characters, enough so that it would warrant a look even without the strong writing and art. Simply put, it feels like a book that's doing everything right so far. This one is certainly more of an all ages book than some of the other books/team books that are coming out right now (though parents be forewarned that there are some bleeped out swears here and there, mostly from Kaine, so if that's something you worry about your kids seeing, maybe read through the book yourself first, or maybe do that anyway?) but there's still plenty there for everyone. The characters are all worth learning about and the team has set itself up as something fairly diverse without going for blatant diversity. The book is the whole package, story, characters, writing, art, and everything else. Strong, strong book.

Punisher 5

There were a number of really fast-reading books out this week that struck a chord because of the pace at which they moved and the way that the art worked with the writing. PUNISHER was a prime example of this and reads extraordinarily well because of it. We're getting some good glimpses of character here and there (although Punisher is perhaps a character more set in his ways than most) and some really interesting story stuff. Mitch Gerads' art feels like a perfect fit for this story and for, really, any Punisher story that's ever happened. As opposed to going the common route of bigger and more cartoonish (that's not what all Punisher artists do but it's one of the directions some artists go in light of such big and brutal stories), Gerads' realism (even in the shape and design of someone like Castle) hits on a very poignant note and carries the series into a spot that lifts the series into another realm.




She-Hulk 4

I continually give Charles Soule a lot of credit for taking THUNDERBOLTS, a book that I thought had a fairly strong premise and a really interesting team but had already gotten bogged down into its own stories, and making it a book that was both exciting and really fun. Now he's jumped on to SHE-HULK and immediately made it his own, giving it the same tone of fun and excitement and real story-telling that's made THUNDERBOLTS such a success (look, I think it's a success, I don't know what the numbers say). Jennifer Walters is a delightful character who gets handed problems and finds ways to solve them. The writing is fun, the characters that support her work well with her, and the art is working wonderfully for the tone. Can't ask for anything more out of a series than that.