A Fact-Check for the Four-Color World

Wednesday, May 31, 2006

She-Hulk #5 (Year 2)

This is Sandy Hausler, a new addition to this blog. Loren asked me to start with my thoughts on She-Hulk #5. First off, I should say that I am a big fan of this rendition of She-Hulk. I love the idea of lawyers practicing superhero law. (I'm also a big fan of Batton Lash's Supernatural Law, a comic about lawyers representing monsters -- If you've never seen it. check it out.) But I'm also a lawyer, so it bugs me when Dan Slott makes mistakes in the law, which he could have avoided with a little research. (I don't think Dan is too pleasedwith me. We've had an ongoing discussion of these errors at the Comic Book Resources website.)

Now to She-Hulk #5. Shulkie has just finished an adventure concerning the Time
Variance Authority (I'm not going to talk about that. It's off topic. But I'm sure the first four issues in the series are easily found.) The TVA has asked Jennifer to take a former Avenger back with her -- The Two Gun Kid. All right. I'm in heaven. Two Gun is a great favorite of mine, and the chance to see him on a regular basis is a fanboy's dream come true. And let's not forget. Mat is a lawyer, and he's soon finding a place at Goodman, Lieber, Kurtzberg & Holliway. But not as a lawyer. And he may never practice law again. He's a bit behind on the law.

I'm intrigued by the possible relationship between the Kid and Mallory Book. We'll see how that develops.

And the law . . . Well, Reed Richards can control the harvesting of unstable molecules if he has a patent. But does he? That would mean revealing the secret of their creation by filing the application. And after a period of years, anybody could do it with impunity. Reed cannot get an injunction without a patent. And since the Court denied the injunction, it appears the action was not based on a patent, which makes me wonder why Shulky's firm even took the case. It's a dead loser. And, wasn't there a story in FF recently where Johnny granted a license to unstable molecules, indicating that the process is patented? Well, don't expect to find out by learning this issue. But since Reed loses, I guess Dan got it right (as long as there is no patent).

I really liked this issue. Hope you did.

I expect to be chiming in more regularly, so I'll see you all soon.