Challenging Assumptions: The Savage She-Hulk and Me

Okay, so on Ragnell's recommendation I've been reading She-Hulk. And of course, it's fantastic. I expected nothing less. Now I'm a bit compulsive, so after I read as much of the current series as I could get my hands on, I decided to hunt down issues of the earlier series. So far I've been able to read the beginning of Savage She-Hulk.

I wasn't expecting to like it much. I mean, I like Stan Lee, but I've never thought much of his handling of female characters. They come out a bit...wooden, sometimes. So I rather assumed I wouldn't like Savage She-Hulk at all.

And I was wrong. I'm liking it, a lot. Sure the dialogue's clunky and the exposition's very...Silver Age, but I'm getting a lot out of the series. Many elements haven't changed much from series to series: Jennifer is still sweet and fun, and the She Hulk is strong and fierce, but no less a thinking rational being.

So far as I've read, I've been noticing a theme of false assumptions. The mobster Trask assumes that Jennifer Walters has evidence against him and shoots her in the back. Bruce Banner assumes his blood can save her, without thinking of any side effects. The assassins who enter Jen's hospital room assume she's helpless, which they quickly discover is not the case. Jen faces many sexist assumptions from colleagues that believe she can't be as successful as them in a "man's world."

The She-Hulk is believed to be savage and monstrous like the Hulk, and thus a poorly disguised robot is more than enough reason for the town to fear her. Her own father assumes that She-Hulk is guilty and a murderer. When Iron Man, called in to stop this dreaded being in issue 6, fights her, he's actually shocked that she can speak coherent English unlike the Hulk.



I don't know why, but for me this moment pretty much exemplifies the entire series thus far for me. Jen's constantly proving herself to be smarter, stronger and more capable than anyone is ready to give her credit for. As a human or as the She-Hulk.

She's taken her cousin's curse and turned it into an advantage and while she doesn't like the uncontrollability of her transformations, she seems to enjoy being She-Hulk rather than seeing it as the curse her cousin does.

There's a feminist allegory here, I think. As of the time of the comic, professional career women were still finding their feet. They were (and sometimes still are) assumed to be too emotional and not intelligent or rational or educated enough to serve in the same capacity as a man does. A woman has to do twice the work to get the same accolades as a man.

She-Hulk is stronger and tougher than Jennifer, but she's more feared. Where Jennifer looks like a gentle, fragile young thing that would get eaten up by the man's world, the She-Hulk is the amazon of legend, primal and terrifying. However, at the same time, she's a savage. A brute. A barbarian. In both forms, Jennifer is too emotional, and not intelligent or rational.

The idea challenged here is the notion that women are small, fragile things that need protecting AND that strong self-sufficient women are monstrous. The idea being challenged is that a woman is somehow inherently less intelligent and rational than a man.

And the idea challenged here is that Stan Lee can't write fascinating women or a strong feminist allegory.

The Savage She-Hulk proves these ideas wrong. All of them. I'm hoping to be able to find and read more.