What Happens Off-Panel: Why Marvel Should Stop Trying with She-Hulk.
Before I start I should preface this by saying that She-Hulk is actually one of my favorite characters. I find that in comparison to her cousin i've always more enjoyed her personality and the smaller aspects of her character that made her different from him. The problem is because of her cousins popularity she can't elevate passed the level of a supporting cast character.
What I liked about John Byrne's run on She-Hulk was that the stories were so cartoony and over the top that her comics were set apart from all the other mainstream books, but now that lane has been covered by the more popular Deadpool. The question now is where do you go from here? How can she remove herself from the shadow of more popular heroes when whatever she offers is already present in the mainstream?
As you may know, alot of female characters fail to match the relevance of many of Marvel's male superheroes and with that in mind and with them apparently trying to put more of their heroines in the forefront how do make a character more popular when their very creation takes so much from a source material that is already successful? I don't think it's possible. Any way that the character can advance seems to be tied up.
The issue I see here, isn't just sharing aspects of her character with others but also the Marvel Universe itself. The stories are alot more unified then they used to be. Back when I first started reading comics, the supernatural heroes had their own lane, the mutants had their own lane, street level heroes & crime fighters had their own lane and so on an so forth but everything seems to tie-in to Avengers or X-Men and everything outside of it has to try to find relevance outside of that, which is really hard.
What do you think? Do you think there is a ceiling on how far She-Hulk can go? Do you think Marvel should keep trying with her? Do you think Hulk stands in her way or is there another way that Marvel can generate interest for the character? Do you think that Deadpool stands her way in the lane of an over the top 4th wall breaking, comic relief character or is that a lane unto itself that they can share?
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