Sensational She-Hulk #16: A Dude Ranch, an Origin and Some Other Stuff

Sensational She-Hulk #16
“The Lowbrow Hunters”
Writer: Steve Gerber
Penciler: Bryan Hitch
Inker: Jim Sanders III
Letterer: Jim Novak
Colorist: Glynis Oliver
Editor: Bobbie Chase
Editor-in-Chief: Tom DeFalco
Cover: Dale Keown and Ernie Colon
Released: April 3, 1990

This issue opens with a dramatic description of Jennifer Walters' transformation into a much more savage, and gray, She-Hulk. But it's quickly interrupted by a round of applause from Jen's unexpected audience, the teenagers who took shelter in Bruce Banner's old Hulk-proof bunker to hide their secret warts. Soon, She-Hulk is threatening to smash and crush the “puny humans” for putting her in there – not to mention sue them for wrongful imprisonment, confirming that her litigious alter ego is still in there somewhere and Steve Gerber is still writing this comic.

The trio escape with the combined power of the youngsters' gamma-induced warts* and She-Hulk's gamma-spawned strength. She-Hulk is particularly intent on smashing Wilcox and Louise (Howard seems to have gotten a pass), and the kids suggest they might be at the nearby Gamma Ray Dude Ranch and Spa. It's kind of like the Vista Verde town on the “Hulk and the Agents of S.M.A.S.H.” cartoon, but more cynical.

She-Hulk smashes her way through the tourist trap, only to be overcome by the steam from the natural hot spring baths. She falls into one and comes out looking and sounding more like her old self, but still gray instead of green. Wilcox theorizes the residual gamma radiation triggered this new mutation.

That's followed by a montage of Dr. Angst reuniting his Band of the Bland, giving us an update on the circa 1990 statuses of Sitting Bullseye, the Black Hole, the Spanker and Tillie the Hun.

She-Hulk and company start to recognize what readers and the Critic have been seeing for two issues straight – they aren't following the plot. Howard describes the Critic and his oath of non-interference, which gets Jen thinking (correctly) about Watchers. While her traveling companions bicker, Jen turns on the radio and a convenient news broadcast informs them about more compacted universes falling to Earth, as well as a sighting of the Critic.

The latter occurred when he jumped from a mid-flight 747 in frustration. The Critic lands next to the rest home where the Terror resurfaced last issue and uses his powers to divine the man's origin. The Terror, aka Laslo Pevely, was rescued from a near-fatal car accident by a scientist whose dog had died while saving him from a runaway gorilla. To save Laslo's life, the scientist injected him with a serum derived from the dog's brain, just as two gangsters burst in. The presence of evil triggers Laslo's transformation into the Terror, complete with a vampire cape that disappears after he slaughters the criminals, just in time for the professor to die of a heart attack.

Before we can figure out where the Terror fits into all of this, She-Hulk's flying car plows right into one of the failed universes, where an array of bizarre creatures are hurtling through the air to their self-inflicted doom. As the Baloneyverse was built on lunch meat, this reality appears to revolve around suicide.

And on that cheery note...

This was the weirdest issue yet, full of absurd humor and a little darker than I expected. But Gerber's humor often has an edge, and he's not just cavalierly tossing this material around. The concept of the government trying to cover up the dangers of gamma bomb testing by selling the land as a cheap tourist attraction feels a little like low-hanging fruit, but Gerber's writing has a touch of weary sincerity to it, along with a dash of righteous anger.

We don't get much more clarity on exactly what Dr. Angst's big plan is, but the introduction, or re-introduction, of his villainous allies is entertaining. The Spanker is the real standout, with his Punisher parody trappings, all the way down to his real name: Fred Hovel.

Howard doesn't get as much page time as in the previous issues, but he still makes the most of it, verbally sparring with Louise while taking the air out of Wilcox's poor-lonely-me moping. Other than their tendency to be in comedic stories, I never really thought of Howard and She-Hulk as an obvious pairing, but her habit of charging into absurd adventures and Howard's pattern of stumbling into them makes me think their partnership could have lasted longer than four issues, at least under Gerber's guidance. But there's only one more to go.

* Which they developed after playing with gamma-mutated lizards, which may or may not be a reference to the Outcasts from the 320s-era Hulk issues.