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Edited by Mrph1 on Jul 29th 2024 at 3:09:00 PM
Marvel comics, almost as if to spite their big-screen cousins everyone likes, have spent the last 15-20 years making their characters as unlikable as possible, or taking them through wildly unpopular changes and then laughing at people who complain (case in point, She-Hulk). If I didn’t know better, I would guess the goal is to make characters so radioactive they don’t have to share anymore.
As Captain Marvel demonstrated though, no one really cares enough about the comics (or outrage channels) for such a tactic to actually work.
An often misguided attempt to keep characters of an ongoing story relevant. The longer a story lasts, the more twists you have to add to keep things interesting. In theory, a character taking a level in jerkass can work but execution matters. It doesn't help that a lot of these choices were done for shock value rather than any real character development.
I doubt it has anything to do with the movies. It's more or less the direction they've been following since Civil War which, for good or for ill, boosted the profile of quite a number of characters including Iron Man.
Edited by windleopard on Feb 22nd 2021 at 4:17:47 AM
I know it’s more coincidental than anything, but it feels like the two interpretations have tried to go in opposite directions in tone. The comics, independent of anything else, have become profoundly cynical, everyone is a jerk, and the narrative actively ridicules people not on board with the direction (She-Hulk being the most recent example off the top of my head).
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Yeah, but describing it as willful sabotage is just Poison Oak Epileptic Trees.
What is the deal with She-Hulk now? The two main runs I remember from her were the Byrne one where the fourth wall was subjected to outrages Deadpool would only dream of, and another where they concluded she was more useful as an attorney than as a green punching giant because they already had one, and she was rather well handled in both. What have they done to her character now?
Whatever your favourite work is, there is a Vocal Minority that considers it the Worst. Whatever. Ever!.If Im on the right page, she's abandoned her normal She-Hulk form for a Savage equivalent. And also a character tirade about how the pretty form wasnt the real her and now she's free to be ugly or some such. I haven't seen much of it, but it reads like the author has a very specific message in mind and it wasnt for me.
Edited by Zeromaeus on Feb 22nd 2021 at 8:16:00 AM
There’s more to the She Hulk thing than that
Due to exposure to cosmic nonsense she’s bigger and beefier than ever although not remotely a gross pile of muscles like I’ve seen people say
Daredevil under the influence of OMNISCIENCE said that there’s some cosmic conflict that she’s been beefed up for. Probably Dan Slott’s Reckoning War which has recently been teased again
At the same time she was in an emotionally bad place after being blown up, dying, undying, and learning her cousin died while she was in a coma
So she’s been enjoying getting to just be a monster and not have to be charming while at the same time hating herself a little about it and literally having Classic She Hulk put her on trial in her mind
Her inner monologues have her being pretty much just as Jen as ever but she has trouble getting her thoughts out now in Hulk form and rarely bothers
Jason Aaron has taken some shots at critics about it, because he does that, and there was an ill conceived monologue about a conversation Jen and Bruce had where Jen said being a woman was more difficult than being a Hulk
But overall the arc is similar to but not as masterfully executed as Betty Ross/Harpy on Immortal Hulk where she also decided she’d rather be a monster than nice
Aaron isn’t great at juggling character beats though so there hasn’t been a lot of progress on She Hulk but I really feel that people mischaracterize what’s going on there
Forever liveblogging the Avengers
Assuming MCU!She-Hulk has some fourth-wall breaking abilities too. Although if not Deadpool can still tease her about how he's the only one to have them in this medium.
It would be quite fun to have Shulkie pick up on Deadpool's fourth-wall breaking references and answer to them.
Whatever your favourite work is, there is a Vocal Minority that considers it the Worst. Whatever. Ever!.If ya wanna get an idea of how bad the treatment of She-Hulk is now.
In the author tirade issue, Jen recounts a past encounter where Bruce says he is jealous of Jen because the world loves and doesn’t fear or hunt her down like a dog. While Jen reveals that this made her want to punch him because she’s actually jealous of him because she hates all the attention she gets from guys like people putting posters of her in their room and......... apparently being groped all the time.
She much prefers being feared and everyone hating her because she thought Bruce had it better.
"I am Alpharius. This is a lie."Not that I'm against using She-Hulk to explore such issues, in fact, as an Ethical Slut I feel she's a perfect character to do just that, but the problem is that the current run not only went in the opposite direction of all of her established characterization, it just turned her into "Hulk-lite"
It made her redundant, and as Slim said once, there's no worse fate for a character than becoming redundant.
As noted the primary reason why she is on the run to begin with is because Jason Aaron the writer of writers said Avengers run, can’t use regular Hulk cause he’s over in Immortal Hulk with just generally better everything writing.
Aaron’s Avengers is essentially just the 2012 movie, mindless popcorn action with some bad character takes though like Moon Knight somehow power stealing from Iron Fist and Doctor Strange to then take over the world, and the Phoenix being revealed as Thor’s mother somehow.
Edited by slimcoder on Feb 22nd 2021 at 10:07:20 AM
"I am Alpharius. This is a lie."And his ex
The power stealing is easy to handwave given that he was being backed up by a god who had a doom army complete with scores of werewolves ready to go
“ Who in the fuck gropes She-Hulk, and why do they still have arms?”
Santa Claus. Yes, seriously
Edited by Bocaj on Feb 22nd 2021 at 1:22:14 PM
Forever liveblogging the AvengersYeah Norse mythology is the perfectly sane one where a dude gets fucked by a horse instead
More to the point, we don’t know where that reveal is going and it’s got room for ambiguity
Forever liveblogging the Avengers

I agree, it depends on what his next appearances will show him to have evolved. I guess that having his family returned to him and Nat's sacrifice should help, but I wonder how much his Ronin phase will come back to haunt him one way or another.
Whatever your favourite work is, there is a Vocal Minority that considers it the Worst. Whatever. Ever!.