Essential Volume one: The Savage She – Hulk

Title: Essential Volume one: The Savage She – Hulk
Authors: Stan Lee, David Anthony Craft
Artists: John Buscema and Mike Vosburg
Contains material originally published in magazine format in She-Hulk 1-25
First printing: 2006 MARVEL Comics
Cost $ 16.99 and black and white pages
ISBN: 0-7851-2335-0
Reviewed by Allen Klingelhoets

Essential volumes are very reasonable way to read Marvel Comic book characters without having to pay prices very high or even impossible to find back issues. I used to have a few She-Hulk first series issues in my youth. She-Hulk is single, unmarried Jennifer Walters. She is the younger American citizen and most of all cousin of Bruce Banner. She is in volume defense lawyer. She is visited by Bruce Banner and tells Jennifer that he is actually The Incredible Hulk. They had not seen each other in almost decade.

One day, Bruce Banner visited her to reestablish contact with Jennifer and confide in her about being The Incredible Hulk and the emotional trauma though the past years. At that time, Jennifer had been defending criminal named Lou Monkton whom gangster Nicholas Trask had framed for the murder of Trask’s bodyguard. While Walters drove Banner to her Los Angeles home one of Trasks henchmen made an attempt on her life. Jennifer was shot and Banner’s cousin was rapidly losing blood from the gunshot wound. Banner improvised an emergency blood transfusion, knowing he and his cousin shared the same blood type. As soon as it was evident that Jennifer would survive, Banner disappeared for fear in the excitement he would turn into the Hulk. The effect on Jennifer of the transfusion of gamma radiation mutated blood happened when Trask’s men, posing as doctors infiltrated her hospital room. The transformation takes between 15 seconds to as much as three minutes. When Jennifer recognized them as attempting again to kill her she transformed into the She-Hulk. She-Hulk is 6’7” tall. Eyes: Green, Skin: Green. Weight: 650 pounds, Hair: Green.

She-Hulks body does not get sick from illness. She can withstand lots of extremes of temperature from 3000 degrees Fahrenheit to -190 degrees F. Her leg muscles let her leap straight up to 600 feet, or jump a distance of 1000 feet. She has her normal intelligence. She does not have rage of The Hulk. It is hard for her to get injured by things like bullets or knifes. She can even withstand hits from artillery cannon shells. She cannot though withstand the detonation of a nuclear weapon.

The first issue was wrote by Stan Lee and drawn by artist John Buscema. Than David Anthony Kraft wrote and Mike Vosburg drew the rest of 25 issues. Iron Man was drawn into issue # 6. Man-Thing and Man-Wolf and Man-Elephant appeared in other issues. Members of the group The Defenders were in other stories. She-Hulk did not make any appearances with most of rest of Marvel universe. She as Jennifer had trouble with identity. Her father thought she was guilty of killing as She-Hulk (Jennifer's) friend named Jill. It was an accident. This was one of many problems for She-Hulk. She had hard time keeping friends. Richard Rory from The Man-Thing comic was constant friend of Jennifer’s as was friend named Zapper. It also seemed like others only wanted to trick her into using She-Hulk blood to create others like her. Just by being friend to Jennifer or She-Hulk made friends targets to manipulate for evil people. Zapper and Richard were good people not gangsters or super villains.

The first 25 issues laid foundation for comic book character that would later become a member of The Avengers and a Fantastic Four member.

I would think teen to adult comic. I think can probably buy from someplace on internet. I would also try inter-library services. She-Hulk story happened in time period of late 1970’s to early 1980’s. The first issue in 1979 cost 40 cents if bought from store. Issue one was cover dated February, 1979. The final issue was dated February 1981 and was double sized with price of one dollar. I appreciated finding Essential Volume one of The Savage She-Hulk. Maybe someday there will be a movie in with The She- Hulk and Hulk fighting on same team against Loki or some other super-villain.

The end back inner cover showed many other Essential books. Howard the Duck, Monster of Frankenstein, Thor, Daredevil, Hulk, Iron Man, and Doctor Strange are just a few examples of Essential books collecting in order stories of Marvel character stories in black and white format. It still is reasonable way as said at beginning to read old stories at reasonable price.


Allen Klingelhoets