Meaningless Awards of the Week- 8/1/07
I just spent the last three days tiling my parent’s basement, so I’m not really feeling up to a long Meaningless Awards this week. Thankfully, not a whole lot of spectacular comics came out this week. There were a few things that deserve recognition, though.
Book of the Week- She-Hulk #20
Dan Slott’s She-Hulk has been one of the comics I most look forward to over the past few years. Slott’s been able to mix humor with superheroics and practicing law into a truly unique comic book. She-Hulk #20 was a fitting end to that unique experience.
Slott has a lot of dangling plotlines in She-Hulk that I’m sure he would have eventually gotten to addressing if he hasn’t been giving that gig on Amazing Spider-Man. But instead of leaving those threads for the next writer (which I’m sure incoming writer Peter David could have picked up and ran with), he decided to wrap up almost everything in one issue. This issue wraps up the Artie Zix mystery, the fate of Stu Cicero, the She-Hulk-is-a-space-lawyer saga, the She-Hulk-gave-Hawkeye-a-note-so-he-wouldn’t-get-killed-by-the-Scarlet-Witch paradox, the She-Hulk/John Jameson marriage, the “whatever happened to Awesome Andy?” question, and the mystery of where Southpaw has been for the whole of the second volume. There’s even a few bonus stories, including Stu in Duckworld, the Two-Gun Kid and Hawkeye going for a ride post-House of M, and She-Hulk convincing the Living Tribunal to not replace the 616 universe with a “cleaner, simpler, and more elegant” universe, “the cosmic equivalent of a hot trophy wife,” aka the Ultimate Universe. And it’s all delivered with Slott’s trademark wit.
Much like Gail Simone’s final Birds of Prey from a few weeks ago, She-Hulk #20 was a very satisfying end to a very satisfying creative run. It’s a shame to see Dan Slott leave a title that would have never lasted this long without him, but much like Simone leaving to take on Wonder Woman, Slott’s heading for bigger and hopefully even better things on Amazing Spider-Man.
Splash Page of the Week- Asgard, Thor #2 by Olivier Copiel
Old/Sad News of the Week- Irredeemable Ant-Man has been cancelled
Apparently people have been hearing about it for a while now on these wacky internets, but I didn’t realize until reading the letters page in Irredeemable Ant-Man #11 this week that the series will be ending with the twelfth issue. I’ve really been enjoying the series, because there just aren’t enough series out there were the lead character is an irredeemable prick (outside of Iron man, of course), and Robert Kirkman’s sense of humor has worked really well in that situation. Irredeemable Ant-Man will be missed.