Sensational She-Hulk #14: Gerber and Howard Reunited

Sensational She-Hulk #14
“A Baloney Place of Dying”
Writer: Steve Gerber
Penciler: Bryan Hitch
Inker: Jim Sanders III
Letterer: Jim Novak
Colorist: Glynis Oliver
Editor: Bobbie Chase
Editor-in-Chief: Tom DeFalco
Released: Feb. 6, 1990

A random sampling of the She-Hulk relaunch that began in 1989 made me aware of the series' comedic content, but it wasn't until revisiting issue 12 in conjunction with the character's Disney+ debut that I realized John Byrne was followed as the regular writer by none other than Steve Gerber. This likely would not have impressed me in 1990, because I had yet to discover Howard the Duck beyond the ill-fated 1986 movie.*

It was well into college and/or alleged adulthood when I finally read the original Gerber-penned Howard stories in one of Marvel's terrific Essential editions. It was amazing, incredible, fantastic and other Marvel-ous adjectives. I found Gerber runs on two of my favorite series – “Defenders” and “Marvel Two-in-One” – in other Essential volumes and thoroughly enjoyed them as well.

Of course, part of Gerber's story involves his clashes with Marvel over ownership of Howard. As near as I can tell, “Sensational She-Hulk” # 14 was the first time Gerber officially wrote Howard since his departure from the original series in 1978.

Labeled part 1 of “The Cosmic Squish Principle,” the story opens with a bald observer in space waxing on about how his race took a vow to observe but never interfere after a disastrous interaction with a less advanced society. They, of course, became the Watchers, but our narrator joined a splinter sect that offers commentary on what they observe: the Critics.

This Critic was watching matter being pulled into a black hole about 10 years prior when a giant plunger struck the event horizon, reversing its flow to create a... trans-dimensional blowhole.

I'd like to pause and remind everyone this is Marvel canon. And I, for one, approve.

Naturally, this segues into She-Hulk and her assistant Weezie (the Golden Age heroine known as the Blonde Phantom) investigating a mysterious phenomenon in Mt. Pressure, Vermont. She-Hulk has dug up what appears to be a pitch black cowbell, but is actually some sort of high-gravity container for... something. That something promptly escapes as a coil of energy and dumps She-Hulk in a nearby frozen pond. Noticing the container is now white, she reaches in and her hand emerges in Cleveland, specifically the refrigerator of one Howard the Duck.

The scene shifts to a prison in New York, where a convict named Floyd Mangles, who battled Howard under the alias Dr. Angst, has forgotten to hide his box of mundane items – including a plunger – beneath his Drop Cloth of Invisibility. After assuring the warden and guard they pose no threat, Floyd mentally gloats that “the Big Squish is coming – and it can't be stopped.”

Returning to New York, She-Hulk is weakened and ill, feeling like she did when her cousin Bruce gave her a lifesaving transfusion of his gamma-irradiated blood many years ago. With Reed Richards unavailable, She-Hulk contacts the only other theoretical physicist she knows, an old college boyfriend named Brent Wilcox. His current theory is that if he helps her solve this mystery, he can get a date out of it.

Wilcox theorizes the container holds an entire universe inside it, and further investigation shows its whose building blocks are... made of cold cuts and other sandwich ingredients. As he and She-Hulk ponder this mystery, Howard is delivered to the office by the Critic. He plucked the duck out of Cleveland, deciding his “non-Terran” instincts were needed to avert a crisis linked to the mysterious container and the reversed black hole. Brent gets knocked into the container, and She-Hulk follows, dragging Howard along until she can figure out how he's connected to all this strangeness. They land in the Baloneyverse, but before they can start searching for Brent, they have to contend with the fact that She-Hulk has reverted back to her human form.

This issue has plenty of Gerber's sardonic sense of humor, with Howard caught up in some cosmic chaos and wanting no part in it. It was nice to see Howard's friend/sidekick/maybe love interest Beverly Switzler, who at this point was working as a ninja for hire, despite the duck's warnings that the school where she trained was just a scheme by out-of-work ninjas to make a buck. Steve Gerber, ladies and gentlemen.

I've had a fondness for the Watcher since my introduction to What If, and while sometimes the riffs on his vocation and vow can be run into the ground, this one has plenty of comedic promise. I'd hate to Criticize it prematurely.

Wilcox's theory about the container being a storage mechanism for inconvenient universes within the multiverse, to prevent encroachment, sounds reminiscent of the incursions that formed the basis of Jonathan Hickman's 2015 “Secret Wars” series. Until I find out otherwise, I'm going to assume this She-Hulk story inspired that crossover. Howard should have been in the Illuminati.

* - I may not have even watched the entire movie by that point, because I bailed out while watching it on video when the diner crowd tried to eat Howard.