Avengers 20, we are at peak Aaron people!

[jwatson]

Mariko's run dealt with Jen overcoming her fear of death due to her battle with Thanos and the loss of Bruce since she wanted to continue helping people as both Jennifer Walters the lawyer and She-Hulk the superhero. Jennifer already passed that trial so if Aaron has to back-pedal and say she's still afraid of death that's some bad writing and continuity.

And yes, She-hulk does reflect one part of her personality because that's part of theme of the Hulk characters. Even Pak did that with Cho's Hulk.

She didn't pass the trial she came to peace with what happened not it's effects. That's like saying someone who is shot or go through something horrible sit in a therapy session and its all over. People deal with the results or the feelings of being a victim for their entire life. There are just days that are better than others but it's never truly gone. You don't get over the loss of a child or the pain of attack in a few weeks if ever. (just examples of trauma)

Also i read that run and running home and hiding in your home to avoid hulking out isn't exactly overcoming anything.

[Anthony W]

I would say Ulik's reaction is less about his perception of Jen as a sexual object and more about his respect for her greater strength.

That line of thinking is so wishful it makes me sad that a genie isn't around If Aaron finds this version of She-Hulk to his liking he needs to own it instead of cloaking it in ideals he does not truly believe in and suckering the poor people who do into defending him. The whole thing feels like an act of...say it with me...faux wokeness.

Sorry if I'm cynical but as a minority I'm used to seeing people commandeer causes they don't really believe in to sell you something.

[InformationGeek]

Um didn't we just have a whole run where Jen was scared and felt like a victim after the whole thanos things. So wouldn't that also still be a part of Jen. And if SheHulk is a part of her personality wouldn't it stand to reason a lot of those feelings still were there. Or do you expect Jen to be the exact same Jen after being beaten nearly to death by Thanos and then having to deal with a hulk she had little to no control over when she transformed. Or is Jen suppose to stay exactly the same personality wise after going through so much.

Nope, but then again, Aaron isn't really addressing what happened in the last series. He makes point to bring up in the second (or third issue) when Carol asks her why she is all roided out when she was getting better. And the thing is about Jen in this run is that her overhulked self is brought on by the Celestials battle if I recall correctly. So, the trauma of that run isn't really be addressed in this run since what is going on here is completely different.

Plus, as pointed out in Tamaki's run, the majority of Jen's pain and anger comes from losing Bruce. He's alive now, which Pak's run has addressed and which Aaron has not dealt with either. You cannot ignore something for the longest time and bring it in when it is convenient. You cannot have it both ways.

You're saying that Jen should only be bothered if she's in her Hulk form.

I am not saying that at ALL. I'm just pointing out the thematically it would have worked better if she was She-Hulk when she was harassed. I'm not saying she SHOULDN'T be bothered. I'm saying the writing isn't as strong in this point of connecting what happened in #1 and what is going on now.

This issue was Jen going on about how flawed the old her would have been. How the trolls would have made lewd jokes or comments when she was beating them up or how she would not be taken seriously. If this was a consistent plan on Aaron's part from the get-go, Jen should have dealt with such a problem early on as She-Hulk. Saving people lives while some cops or firefighters harass her, fighting a small fry villain who loves getting beaten up by her, or something. ANYTHING with her as her normal She-Hulk self. That's what I'm getting at here. The scene in the first issue of Avengers does not work well with what happens here because Aaron did not build well to here.

[Biclopcicle]

It's not retconning.

It's not saying those issues never happened or is revising them.

Aaron is saying that there's more to explore. That we shouldn't just take a superficial view of Jen's history.

It seems like some fans just want to point to those earlier issues and say "See? She was cool with it!" and leave it at that.



At that point the culture was in a very different place.

It would not have occurred to Byrne to perceive any sexism in his portrayal of She-Hulk.

Certainly there was likely none intended. For the time, it was a very positive portrayal.

But it's not wrong for Aaron to look at past depictions of Jen from a modern standpoint and bring a new perspective.

We know now that women have not been nearly as ok with the attention they receive as we have wanted to believe and that, for fear of speaking out, they sometimes let us believe.

How is this not retconning? How is this not contradictory to the prior portrayal of the character? I just don't see how both protrayals can co-exist or that Aaron's portrayal somehow is a more in-depth exploration of said character. It sounds like a totally different character.

I don't want people to construe this as some sort of dismissal of the demeaning and objectification of women by men. This is a critique of Aaron and his character choice to deal with this topic. I will never claim to have experienced that objectification on the cultural level that women do, but on a personal level, as a man living in a large metropolitan area with a large gay population, I can certainly relate.

[jwatson]

That line of thinking is so wishful it makes me sad that a genie isn't around If Aaron finds this version of She-Hulk to his liking he needs to own it instead of cloaking it in ideals he does not truly believe in and suckering the poor people who do into defending him. The whole thing feels like an act of...say it with me...faux wokeness.

Sorry if I'm cynical but as a minority I'm used to seeing people commandeer causes they don't really believe in to sell you something.

Well i'm a pretty woke black man and i believe it. I believe it because he also portrayed a very strong female thor that a lot of people had the same problem with. And i also believe it because as a man i see how woman are treated and everything Jenn said rang true. And i also believe it because i have 4 sisters and at different points in their lives they wanted to be seen as different things. But thats just one minority guy to go to your previous point.

[Prof. Warren]

That line of thinking is so wishful it makes me sad that a genie isn't around If Aaron finds this version of She-Hulk to his liking he needs to own it instead of cloaking it in ideals he does not truly believe in and suckering the poor people who do into defending him. The whole thing feels like an act of...say it with me...faux wokeness.

Sorry if I'm cynical but as a minority I'm used to seeing people commandeer causes they don't really believe in to sell you something.

Ah, the old "as a minority" card.

Always funny when coupled with the cries of "stop forcing your SJW agenda on me!"

I'm very sure Aaron believes in the causes he feels strongly about and believes in the characterizations he is investing in.

It might help to stop thinking of this as being a "cause" Aaron is peddling and simply about a characterization that he wants to explore.

[Prof. Warren]

How is this not retconning? How is this not contradictory to the prior portrayal of the character? I just don't see how both protrayals can co-exist or that Aaron's portrayal somehow is a more in-depth exploration of said character. It sounds like a totally different character.

It's not retconning because it takes the previous portrayal into consideration and simply adds a new perspective to it.

People change over time. It doesn't disavow who they were. It just means that they've changed and that they've come to look at things differently.

[Biclopcicle]

Ah, the old "as a minority" card.

Always funny when coupled with the cries of "stop forcing your SJW agenda on me!"

I'm very sure Aaron believes in the causes he feels strongly about and believes in the characterizations he is investing in.

It might help to stop thinking of this as being a "cause" Aaron is peddling and simply about a characterization that he wants to explore.

He definitely believes in what he's saying! He's gone full force ojnthese topics for what, 6 years now? That's quite a lot of energy to expend on something you don't believe in. I don't necessarily disagree with his message either, it's the delivery. I don't think his Odin is congruent with previous portrayals...

And back to Jen. Ok, I like jwatson's comment-- we can extrapoloate from it that perhaps Jen has changed her thinking on how she wants to express her empowerment.....well, just say it then! Nothing in Aaron's Avengers run actually reflects back on her "previous" self's thoughts and oerspective, other than a couple of lawyer panels in this issue. It just comes off contrived.

[Biclopcicle]

I would've liked the issue a lot more if he had just rolled with the courtroom analogy throughout the issue. It's like, ok, you're onto something....and then it just fell flat on its face, trying to tell a WotR tie-in story

[Kurolegacy]

How is this not retconning? How is this not contradictory to the prior portrayal of the character? I just don't see how both protrayals can co-exist or that Aaron's portrayal somehow is a more in-depth exploration of said character. It sounds like a totally different character.

I don't want people to construe this as some sort of dismissal of the demeaning and objectification of women by men. This is a critique of Aaron and his character choice to deal with this topic. I will never claim to have experienced that objectification on the cultural level that women do, but on a personal level, as a man living in a large metropolitan area with a large gay population, I can certainly relate.

Exactly. When you are literally injecting things into a character’s history that simply did not happen and retroactively changing the way that a character thinks and feels, that is a retcon. The entire thing of this issue where Aaron tries to make Jen out to be a victim this whole time and that it always bothered her despite the character’s entire history saying otherwise is a retcon. Now if it had been something new that came after the trauma from Civil War II, it’d be one thing but that’s not what Aaron wrote here.

[Biclopcicle]

Exactly. When you are literally injecting things into a character’s history that simply did not happen and retroactively changing the way that a character thinks and feels, that is a retcon. The entire thing of this issue where Aaron tries to make Jen out to be a victim this whole time and that it always bothered her despite the character’s entire history saying otherwise is a retcon. Now if it had been something new that came after the trauma from Civil War II, it’d be one thing but that’s not what Aaron wrote here.

Yeah he could've said something like, ah recent events have caused me to re-examine my life and how I interact with the world, as well as how others view me etc etc. I thought maybe he was going to get into that when I saw the previews of the courtroom scene...but frankly I forgot about the courtroom scene altogether when I read the actual issue! That's how disjointed the whole thing was

[jwatson]

Nope, but then again, Aaron isn't really addressing what happened in the last series. He makes point to bring up in the second (or third issue) when Carol asks her why she is all roided out when she was getting better. And the thing is about Jen in this run is that her overhulked self is brought on by the Celestials battle if I recall correctly. So, the trauma of that run isn't really be addressed in this run since what is going on here is completely different.

Plus, as pointed out in Tamaki's run, the majority of Jen's pain and anger comes from losing Bruce. He's alive now, which Pak's run has addressed and which Aaron has not dealt with either. You cannot ignore something for the longest time and bring it in when it is convenient. You cannot have it both ways.




I am not saying that at ALL. I'm just pointing out the thematically it would have worked better if she was She-Hulk when she was harassed. I'm not saying she SHOULDN'T be bothered. I'm saying the writing isn't as strong in this point of connecting what happened in #1 and what is going on now.

This issue was Jen going on about how flawed the old her would have been. How the trolls would have made lewd jokes or comments when she was beating them up or how she would not be taken seriously. If this was a consistent plan on Aaron's part from the get-go, Jen should have dealt with such a problem early on as She-Hulk. Saving people lives while some cops or firefighters harass her, fighting a small fry villain who loves getting beaten up by her, or something. ANYTHING with her as her normal She-Hulk self. That's what I'm getting at here. The scene in the first issue of Avengers does not work well with what happens here because Aaron did not build well to here.

Personally i think the point of Tamaki's run was Jen felt alone and abandoned in the time she needed him most. After being there for him for years as he struggled with the duality between Hulk and Bruce when her time came and she really needed him he was gone because he chose to have someone take his own life. There was no one else that could handle FearHulk's rage or understand Jen's fear and pain like her cousin bruce and that's why there were so many scenes of her simply trying to lock herself away when she became she hulk. She felt completely and utterly alone because she was abandoned in her time of need not just because Bruce was dead.

[Anthony W]

Well i'm a pretty woke black man and i believe it. I believe it because he also portrayed a very strong female thor that a lot of people had the same problem with

This would be the same hero that he had Titania surrender to because...wait for it....they were both women. That doesn't make Jane look strong.

And i also believe it because as a man i see how woman are treated and everything Jenn said rang true. And i also believe it because i have 4 sisters and at different points in their lives they wanted to be seen as different things. But thats just one minority guy to go to your previous point.

I respect that, but like the Thor example I gave earlier he talks the talk but in the end undercuts himself (or in my view, gives himself away) in the end. I'm glad you like the issue.

[Anthony W]

Ah, the old "as a minority" card.

Always funny when coupled with the cries of "stop forcing your SJW agenda on me!"

Ah, the old "forcing a minority to prove their bona fides when they don't automatically agree with everything you say card"

Always funny when coupled with a quote that never happened. That took some gusto. Bravo good sir.

I'm very sure Aaron believes in the causes he feels strongly about and believes in the characterizations he is investing in.

It doesn't work that way...unless you are a telepath. Are you telepathic? Otherwise we just have to form opinions.

It might help to stop thinking of this as being a "cause" Aaron is peddling and simply about a characterization that he wants to explore.

Why not both?

[Ptrvc]

Personally i think the point of Tamaki's run was Jen felt alone and abandoned in the time she needed him most. After being there for him for years as he struggled with the duality between Hulk and Bruce when her time came and she really needed him he was gone because he chose to have someone take his own life. There was no one else that could handle FearHulk's rage or understand Jen's fear and pain like her cousin bruce and that's why there were so many scenes of her simply trying to lock herself away when she became she hulk. She felt completely and utterly alone because she was abandoned in her time of need not just because Bruce was dead.

Bruce Banner did not take his own life. He gave Hawkeye what he thought was a silver bullet point f he was ever going to lose control.

Hawkeye chose to use it because he and Carol Danvers were getting marching orders from some prophetic nonsense man.

And all they did was make it come true in the end.