Sensational She-Hulk #17: Squishful Thinking

Sensational She-Hulk #17
“Acts of Peevishness!”
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 Josef Rubinstein
Released: May 1, 1990

In this issue, we finally learn where “The Cosmic Squish Principle” title comes from,* and maybe get to see it demonstrated as there's a whole lot crammed into one story.

The still-gray She-Hulk's flying Dodge hurtles through the suicide-verse, prompting her to clear the falling masses with little moral debate.** Wilcox deduces they flew into another failed universe like the “cold cuts cosmos” from issues14-15, but Howard breaks into his theorizing to ask how multiple universes can exist in the same place at the same time. Wilcox's answer – they can't. They would “squish” each other, compacting like the ones that had been trapped in the strange containers.

His point is proven when they emerge in St. Louis, despite having not traveled long or far enough to reach it. They hurtle through several other 'verses, each giving Gerber a chance for some commentary brought to life by Hitch's pencils.

The 976iverse even includes a jab at DC's hotline allowing readers to determine whether Jason Todd lived or died.***

Finally, they reach London, which has been squished right up against New York. The Critic arrives, having fully given up on his Watchers/Critics creed after failing to reveal the nature of the threat to the Terror in a game of 20 Questions.

The scene shifts to an area of Manhattan that is exempt from the Squishing of the universe along with four other locations – Henderson, Nevada; El Segundo, California; most of New Jersey; and the planet Sqazzl, known for manufacturing doorstops. These places will form the building blocks of Dr. Angst's new Insipiverse, a mundane realm that he will rule and with which no higher powers will want to interfere because it's so dull.

Howard realizes his old foe is behind the plot once the Critic rattles off these locales and their unremarkable characteristics. Before they can take action, the Band of Bland arrives, flying with the aid of the Hoary Haberdashery of the Vtoli. Tillie challenges She-Hulk; Sitting Bullseye shows his bravado by targeting the elderly, untransformed Terror; the Spanker decides to discipline Louise; and the Black Hole sucks the Critic into his singularity.

But they forgot about Howard.

The duck turns the tide by shoving his cigar into Spanker's mouth, allowing Louise to dish out a little punishment of her own. Sitting Bullseye**** finds himself outmatched when the Terror transforms, and She-Hulk wrests Tillie's mace from her and literally knocks her out of the park.

Wilcox figures out the Black Hole could absorb and condense all the universes, and the gang force his singularity open wide enough for the Critic to escape. With the Critic's powers directing the vacuum, the day is saved.

Only a page is left for wrap-up, and the Critic makes everybody forget he was there. She-Hulk goes green again, and we finish with the Critic sitting atop the bloated Black Hole, reading a book entitled “Crisis Management on Infinite Earths.”

So, yeah, this issue put the pedal to the metal after the meandering first three, but it's hard to criticize that when there's a character right on the page doing the same thing. I expected a little more on Wilcox and She-Hulk's history (and maybe that's in a future issue; Marvel Unlimited jumps to #24 from here). But we got Gerber sending up comic book events and titles as well as popular culture. We got Howard cracking wise and displaying genuine emotion, with a great assist from Hitch before he was a superstar. Check out that panel on the right! We got the second, and apparently final, appearance of the Band of Bland.***** None of this disappoints me. It just makes me want to read more of Gerber's work, which I didn't sufficiently know about or appreciate when he was doing it.

But that's what back issue bins are for.

* - Maybe you already figured it out. Sometimes I can be a little slow.

** - She figures it's their universe and she shouldn't violate the prime directive by saving them.

*** - But not even a reader vote can keep a comic book character dead.

**** - For the record Sitting Bullseye is not Native American. He was a CIA agent who tried to frame an indigenous group for bootlegging and had a bullseye tattooed on his chest in retribution.

***** - But apparently Black Hole popped up in a Carnage one-shot later.