After her victory over death and the Cotati, Jennifer Walters ruminates over her deaths and resurrections, leading back to her experiences Down Below in this issue by Al Ewing, Jon Davis-Hunt, Marcio Menyz, and VC’s Cory Petit.
Cori McCreery: Taking a slight detour this week with The Immortal She-Hulk one-shot, which I know I’ve been highly anticipating for months. And for this special occasion, I’m being joined by my colleague Zoe Tunnell, while Rob takes a well-deserved break. Excited to chat with you about this sensational issue, Zoe!
Zoe Tunnell: Happy to be here! Immortal Hulk has been a favorite of mine since it launched and with She-Hulk being another personal favorite, I’ve been really looking forward to Immortal She-Hulk. I’m just so happy Al Ewing finally got to write her, she has needed it.
“Are you still the same you?”
CM: So much like all things Hulk, my knowledge of She-Hulk is extremely limited. But like all things Immortal Hulk, Al Ewing doesn’t make that feel like a barrier to understand the story. This does a good job of exploring the character, even for those of us who don’t know her well. I feel like I know her now, as well as I could, despite my limited time spent with her. I know you are coming at this from a different perspective, Zoe, so how did this issue do for you as someone who was already a fan of Jen?
ZT: As an existing fan of Jen, this issue was just about everything I could have hoped for. She-Hulk has had a rough several years, with multiple character shifts that often felt jarring and uncomfortable. I fell in love with Shulkie reading the, now deeply flawed in hindsight, goofy Dan Slott run of the mid-00s. The flirty, confident and strong as hell super-lawyer won me over and largely stuck around as one of the more reliable presences of the MU until Civil War 2 shunted her to a more damaged, unstable persona. This issue does what Ewing has done elsewhere so well and weaves these disparate takes on She-Hulk into a cohesive, satisfying whole. It’s truly impressive.
CM: I’m guessing Civil War 2 is what we see as Jen’s second death? But first we should talk a little about that first death and thus first visit Below. I find it extremely interesting that she was able to visit in the very brief time between time right after she received the transfusion. I really loved that the “person” she encountered on that first trip was just a looming, monstrous Hulk in the clouds. It absolutely sets the tone for the thing that will hang over her for the rest of her life, her forever bond with Bruce.
ZT: The thing that stood out to me was how the sequence re-telling her origin highlighted how little agency she had in the incident. She was shot by surprise and Bruce made the decision to give her a blood transfusion while she was unconscious. Would she have died without it? Probably. But that looming, leering face and the eternal brand she bears as someone with gamma in her veins was a decision she never had a say in, unlike most of the Marvel Universe’s gamma mutates. Even if Bruce had no idea he was going to turn into the Hulk, he chose to jump in front of that bomb.
CM: That lack of agency clearly sets up the meat of this story, because Bruce’s “gift” is also a curse, and a curse that comes with things most people don’t. She’s realized that she can’t die, not really, not for real. And she’s seeking out people that she can talk to about it. I really like how Logan talks to her about it, that escaping death is just another form of healing, and that it gets easier with time. It’s also a nice thematic touch for Ewing to have Logan reference a door, even if he has no clue that that’s the form that the Gamma afterlife and resurrection takes.
ZT: Ewing pulling in Wolverine, of all people, to be one of the voices Jen seeks out in regards to her rebirth is such a galaxy brain move from Ewing. Even beyond the Krakoa synergy, which is very well done, Logan has died and come back more than maybe any superhero out there. His unique viewpoint of death and rebirth as just a mundane part of life you have to accept, you can’t “make it weird”, is such a harsh contrast to the usual weight this sort of thing is handled with. While less surprising than Logan, Ewing’s next pick for Jen to consult ends up being even more fascinating to me.
“There are none who have forever.”
CM: Yeah, definitely, and it shows the different perspectives that she is approaching this knowledge from. She talked to Logan specifically about rebirth and how to deal with that aspect of her life, but she needed someone else to talk to about the promise of immortality. Logan’s a couple centuries old, but Thor? Thor’s a couple millenia old. Thor’s advice is different from Logan’s and I think it does a lot to help settle Jen’s mind.
ZT: I’m not sure how closely you’ve followed Jason Aaron’s Avengers, Cori, but over in that book Thor and Jen are hooking up, which made this scene work even better for me. Their relationship had largely been built around Thor genuinely enjoying both Jen and She-Hulk’s company but viewing Jen as the more serious relationship and Shulk as a fun sexy fling. The sheer surprise in Thor’s face (thanks to some great art by Jon Davis-Hunt who was a fantastic pick for this issue) when She-Hulk busts out lines like “What forever like from other end?” and he is forced to treat her as an intellectual equal worked wonders.
CM: The answer to that, Zoe, is absolutely not at all. I haven’t really followed any Avengers book since Hickman was on them. But that certainly does change how this interaction went, thank you for that context! Much like the Logan section, this one is tied to current events in the Marvel Universe, notably Thor killing the great Galactus. But that makes his point more salient, that even those we think are immortal and who think themselves that way, are not truly. Death in a permanent form will come for everyone, it’s just a matter of when. Speaking of deaths, this section of the story is framed by that previously mentioned second death that occured in Civil War 2, and includes Jen’s second trip to the Below. What do you think about that sequence?
ZT: It made me like something from Civil War 2, which I thought was just about impossible. Recapping the extremely messy inciting incident from that best-forgotten event, Ewing makes the smart call of grounding everything in how Jen processed her pain and trauma. Even as she died on a hospital bed, her fury was entirely directed at Tony Stark for not caring that she was dying right in front of him. On top of turning straw to gold with Civil War 2, the seamless inclusion of Brian Banner lurking Below causes the messy Hulk series that followed to make a lot more sense.
CM: And again, it comes back to a lack of agency for Jen. She died because others wouldn’t save her. She died because Tony had to be right. And I don’t have the context of that Hulk series that you do, but it didn’t change how intense the scene with her uncle felt. Again we have the looming cloud Hulk, but that’s somehow less terrifying than Brian himself. That first panel of his face is so unnervingly creepy (and punchable). And that’s made more so by Jen’s memories of her childhood. I think my favorite parts of this issue were these scenes in the Below Place, mostly because I absolutely love how Davis-Hunt draws deHulked Jen. She’s still got power and an increased agency. She’s very fighty, and I identify with that a lot. What do you take from Brian’s last panel with the creepy green eyes?
ZT: Besides being creeped the hell out, I interpreted that panel to show this is the start, or close to it, of Brian working with The One Below All. Civil War 2 is where Bruce got an arrow in his dome courtesy of Clint Barton, so it makes sense that this would be the beginnings of Immortal Hulk revving up. I absolutely agree with loving Jen in this issue. She has been so underserved lately, the shift from Jennifer and She-Hulk being one and the same to two distinct states of mind has caused Jen to be relegated to a worrisome, anxious lady ready to snap and I truly hate it. Seeing her scrappy, funny and not taking anyone’s shit felt like a return to form in a big way.
“We’ll be using that big head as a football until the end of time”
CM: Talk about scrappy and funny, she was at her absolute best on her third trip down Below. This time around, the looming Hulk in the sky is replaced with a different looming figure. In a nice parallel to her other visits, this time, the Leader towers over her, a different creepy giant head. This third visit is the one most recent, occurring in Empyre, and since we knew by then what is going on with Hulks, this is the one we absolutely expected to see in this issue. And oh boy, it did not disappoint. This is where the real dread of this issue comes in, and I might be forever upset that Ewing doesn’t get to be the one to play with this for Jen.
ZT: I am not quite as harsh on Aaron’s Avengers as a good chunk of Xavier Files but even I am grumpy as hell that Ewing didn’t get to just slide Jen over to Immortal Hulk for the rest of its run. Aaron’s Jen is a very simple, emotion driven take that I am certain is going to file away most of the nuance this issue lays down. The way Ewing has Jen get back to her roots on this arrival, taunting Leader and showing the same bravado that won her a following over the years as a superhero warmed my heart. And then promptly chilled it to the bone as Leader lets Jen know that Hulk stories have changed since she last checked in with the family.
CM: And the thing is, that change is very recent. We only just got introduced to the concept of the red door last week, and this is the first time we really expand on how much control over things Sterns has over the afterlife. Just when Jen felt like she had some agency over her existence, for probably the first time in a long time, it gets ripped from her, and it’s absolutely heartbreaking.
ZT: I know that in interviews for this issue Ewing said that he wouldn’t just give Jen her own Devil Hulk, that she would have a unique fear that fits who she is rather than just mimicking Bruce. The fact that that fear ends up being finally given peace and confidence and the first steps towards the healthy, happy life she had only to have it ripped away from her at the last second is horrifying to me. The worst part is, she will never know what happened. As far as Jen is concerned, she talked to Logan and Thor about her immortality and then went to bed, only to be woken by a crippling fear of dying again. The whispering voice of The Leader in her head will always haunt her and, until she dies again, she will never know how it got there. Brrrrr.
CM: I do hope that Ewing gets to pull her back in to give her some sort of closure as the story of the Immortal Hulk comes to a close in the coming months, because I don’t expect the Leader to have this upperhand forever, and I sure would like to see Jen punt his giant head through the uprights. This issue absolutely lived up to my expectations for it, and more, it really contributed to the ongoing narrative of the main series. This is an absolute must read for anyone following Immortal Hulk, and is probably one of my favorite issues yet.
ZT: Immortal Hulk, more than maybe any other comic currently out, is a series where I genuinely have no idea how it will end. Most superhero books have a basic understanding that by the end of the run your hero will be largely okay and back to normal, but Immortal Hulk has broken so many rules that I’m not sure what Hulk and friend’s world will look like when the dust settles. This issue seamlessly weaves Jen into that web and while I agree Ewing should bring her in and provide some closure, I have to wonder just how much closure she can have knowing what has happened to her. It’s a giant wild card, and that is deeply exciting to me. Everyone should read this issue, honestly. It’s standalone for new fans, integrates right into the Immortal Hulk ongoing for existing fans and even strengthens other Marvel titles like the X-Men line and Thor with its connections there. Immortal She-Hulk is an achievement.
Marvelous Musings
- Joe Bennett provides the cover for this issue, and while I appreciate that it’s a connection back to the main title, I much prefer Davis-Hunt’s Shulkie inside.
- Seeing Jen reflected in the mirror as Shulkie works out is a very subtle, but very good touch.
- The shade Wolverine throws at She-Hulk over briefly being shitty about Krakoa is AMAZING.
- I love, love, love Jen’s current outfit, in both it’s forms.
Yes, it's Cori McCreery—strange visitor from DC fandom who came to Xavier Files with powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal critics. Cori, who can leap tall buildings in a single bound, race a speeding bullet to its target, bend steel in her bare hands, and who, also works as an editor for a great Eisner winning website, Women Write About Comics, fights a never-ending battle for truth and justice.
Zoe Tunnell is a 29-year old trans woman who has read comics for most of her adult life and can't stop now. Follow her on Twitter @Blankzilla.
