The Good: Moments of concept and character
The Bad: Unremarkable artwork, Story has little to do with She-Hulk, Abrupt resolution
The Basics: Jennifer Walters resolves her cases after a brief, pointless adventure in She-Hulk: Disorderly Conduct.
Recently, I picked up and read, She-Hulk: Law And Disorder (reviewed here!) and I was generally pleased with the new direction of She-Hulk's storyline. The general quality of that book was what encouraged me to pick up She-Hulk: Disorderly Conduct. Unfortunately, She-Hulk: Disorderly Conduct seems an odd combination of random and rushed. The afterward in the trade paperback anthology confirms what one reading of She-Hulk: Disorderly Conduct suggests: writer Charles Soule was leaving the title after a year of writing She-Hulk and needed to wrap up his time on the book.
She-Hulk: Disorderly Conduct reads like a book that was randomly going forth right before it abruptly comes into sharp focus. The book is comprised of three adventures that feature Jennifer Walters/She-Hulk and they continue the basic format from Law And Disorder with Jennifer Walters running her own law firm, using Hellcat for undercover work and employing Angie and her pet monkey as a paralegal.
Opening with Jennifer Walters witnessing a new form of miniaturization technology, She-Hulk and Hellcat are drawn into a case between two scientists feuding with one another about selling the miniaturization technology they have developed. One of the scientists has miniaturized himself in an attempt to keep their work from being sold by the other partner. Jennifer and Patsy track down Hank Pym and enlist his aid in recovering the missing inventor in an attempt to keep the unstable miniaturization technology from causing serious damage to other people!
Jennifer returns to the office to discover that Steve Rogers needs legal representation. He is being sued out in California for Wrongful Death thanks to a deathbed confession from someone who knew him ninety years ago. As Jennifer prepares the case, she is dismayed to discover that Captain America does not want to fight the case on a technicality. Instead, the legal team has to fight the case on its merits and as the case goes to trial, Walters discovers her adversary in the courtroom will be none other than Matt Murdock! Following the trip to California, the Blue File resurfaces and Walters, Hellcat, and Angie encounter a villain who altered the nature of reality, including She-Hulk's memory!
She-Hulk: Disorderly Conduct is a very basic book without much in the way of genuine character development and little real spark. From the moment Steve Rogers appears in She-Hulk: Disorderly Conduct, his case monopolizes the storyline and much of that section of the book is retelling stories set in the distant past and it kills what little momentum the book developed. As well, the Hank Pym story starts the book as a complete non-sequitor and Hank Pym and the gimmick of miniaturization dominate the book.
That said, despite the lack of character development in She-Hulk: Disorderly Conduct, the volume ends well by revisiting the Blue File. The mystery behind the altered memories of various heroes interviewed in the prior book is revealed in a generally interesting way.
The best that can be said of the book's climax is "generally interesting" because of the artwork. The art in She-Hulk: Disorderly Conduct is largely simplistic and the flow of the panels is awkward. The fight, for example, with Titania is laid out in an inorganic way and the artwork depicting the truth of the events in the Blue File is not of a quality that actually tells the story using both the language and visual mediums effectively.
The result is that She-Hulk: Disorderly Conduct feels like a collection of comic books more than a single, quality, anthologized story and it is one of the books that fans can afford to pass by.
For other She-Hulk books, please visit my reviews of:
The Sensational She-Hulk
Single Green Female
The Avengers: The Search For She-Hulk
Superhuman Law
Time Trials
Laws Of Attraction
She-Hulk: Planet Without A Hulk
Fall Of The Hulks: The Savage She-Hulks
Red She-Hulk, Volume 2: Route 616
Marvel Her-oes
3/10
For other book reviews, please check out my Book Review Index Page for an organized listing!
© 2016 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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