Awesome / She-Hulk (2004)

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Volume 1

Issue #1

• After a really crappy day, Jennifer goes to a bar to drown her sorrows. Enter Blizzard, who is pissed at Jennifer for ruining his recent attempt to become a big name villain and freezes her in a block of ice. Jen breaks out of it easily, but instead of beating up Blizzard, offers him a drink. Soon, Blizzard drinks himself unconscious and Jen tells the bartender to call the police to pick him up. Holden Holliway then walks in and congratulates She-Hulk on exploiting her immunity to getting drunk to defuse a violent situation without needing to throw a punch.

Issue #4

• Augustus "Pug" Pugliese is an entire CMoA himself throughout this issue.
  • From the moment he suggests Spider-Man sue Jameson for defamation to the case itself, where he present witness after witness, evidence upon evidence, of Jameson's lies.
  • Jameson has been called to the stand by his lawyer to give his own account of how he sees Spider-Man. When it is Pug's turn to cross-examine him, he argues that Spider-Man regularly helps people by fighting supervillains. Jameson fires back that supervillains weren't a problem until Spider-Man showed up...only for Pug to remind Jameson and the court of the many supervillains Jameson has funded and the numerous Daily Bugle employees who have either been exposed as criminals or were linked to them in some way. Even Jameson's own lawyer realized that was a stupid thing to say.
  • Really, the only reason Pug didn't win is because Spider-Man chose to settle the suit when Pug calls Peter Parker to the stand. Pug was basically too good.
• The Scorpion hears of Spider-Man's lawsuit against Jameson and makes his way to the courthouse with the intent of killing them both. Spider-Man and She-Hulk get wind of this and intercept him. While She-Hulk is the stronger of the three, Scorpion is much faster and can get to the courthouse before she can. So Jennifer tries another tactic: she tells Scorpion that if he tries to kill Jameson, all that will do is result in a mistrial and make Jameson look like a martyr. But if he simply lets the suit play out, Jameson will lose a great deal of money and be proven wrong in the eyes of the public, a far more painful blow to a miser like him. The Scorpion is convinced.

Issue #5

• The Mad Thinker's escape from the Big House, a prison designed to keep supervillains imprisoned by shrinking them down is deviously brilliant. It involves taking advantage of a commotion caused by the prison cook freaking out over a rat. While the guards are distracted, the prisoners escape from right under their noses using a combination of Silencer's noise cancelling abilities and Figment's illusion powers. After reaching the room containing the prison's reserve of Pym Particle gas, the villains shrink down the guards and use the gas to make themselves even smaller. Using Mandrill's pheromone powers to take control of a female guard, they use her to transfer themselves onto She-Hulk's hand where they hide as she unknowingly carries them away from the prison.

Issue #6

• The villains make their move and burst out of She-Hulk's hand after Hank Pym is tricked into unshrinking them. Holden Holliway reveals that they have contingencies for these things and activates a force field that seals everyone inside the building. When Mallory laments that this means they are trapped in the building with the villains, She-Hulk tears off her civilian outerwear to reveal her superhero outfit underneath and goes after the villains.
• The first villain to attack She-Hulk is the Absorbing Man. Even though he is still the size of a doll, he brags that She-Hulk can't do anything to him while he is made of solid steel. She-Hulk bends him like a pretzel and leaves him writhing in pain on the floor.
• She-Hulk throws Tiger Shark into a fish tank and the water boosts his strength. She-Hulk takes care of that problem by throwing Electro into the tank with Tiger Shark still inside which shorts out the former and knocks out the latter.
• Awesome Andy (the Awesome Android) refuses to obey the orders of the Mad Thinker, his creator, and punches him out when he orders Andy to destroy the others. If the Thinker weren't revealed to be an android duplicate, that would have been the end of the Mad Thinker.
• Even when the villains return to full size, She-Hulk still makes short work of them. Special mention goes to grabbing 8-Ball while he's in the midst of growing back to normal and throwing him at several other villains, knocking them out.

Issue #7

• She-Hulk shows Southpaw just how out of her league the inexperienced wannabe supervillain is by bending breaking the giant hand Southpaw projects to grab She-Hulk.

Issue #8

• She-Hulk's rematch against Tryoc Slatterus, the Champion of the Universe:
  • More impressive than the fight itself is Jen's "Eureka!" Moment when she recalls a conversation with Pug about working out as Jennifer Walters rather than She-Hulk. This causes to Jen to realize that any strength she gain in human form is increased exponentially in her gamma form.
  • Jen remembers the rules that neither combatant can use weapons. She takes advantage of this by stopping Tryoc from using the Power Gem, which played a big factor in how he defeated her and his previous opponents.

Issue #9

• Hercules is being sued by Constrictor whom he grievously injured while foiling a robbery. What's Jennifer's advice to him?
  Pay up. Pay the full amount. Every. Last. Penny. When you stopped those crooks from robbing that armored car, you did so because stealing is against the laws of land. Those same laws hold you accountable for your actions. If you disrespect those laws, if you twist them to skate away from your responsibilities...you'd be no better than the bad guys. Pay up, Herc. It's the right thing, the honorable thing, the heroic thing to do.
• This works and Hercules pays up.

Issue #12

• Awesome Andy gets severely damaged by Titania. Holden Holliway both shows just how much he cares for his employees and his willingness to be utterly ruthless by telling Reed Richards to save Andy or be sued for everything he owns.
• Jennifer Walters and Stu Cicero head to a comic shop to find a comic containing a weakness to the Power Gem, which Titania is using to kick everyone's ass. When Jen gets harassed by a bunch of continuity-nitpicking nerds, Stu gives them a speech about how longtime readers can try making sense of inconsistencies instead of complaining about them. This gets the nerds to help Jen and Stu figure out the Power Gem's weakness.
• The above then leads to the defeat of Titania. Thanks to the comic book nerds, the heroes realize that the Infinity Gems are drawn to people with very strong desires they have held for a long time. In Titania's case it is her desire to kill She-Hulk and prove her superiority to the Jade Giantess. The heroes then trick Titania into thinking she has achieved her goal by making her "kill" Ditto who is impersonating She-Hulk. Titania's feelings of And Then What? cause the Power Gem to detach from her and Jen uses the gem to knock her out.

Volume 2

Issue 1

• Jen sees a woman being attacked by two men. Despite not being able to transform into She-Hulk, Jen uses the fighting techniques Gamora taught her and defeats the thugs, saving the woman and showing you don't need powers to help people.

Issue 15

• She-Hulk vs the Abomination. Despite being stronger than her and being one of her cousin's toughest enemies, Jen is able to match him thanks to superior fighting tactics.
  • The manner in which Jen enters the field of battle is awesome in itself. She leaps off the Helicarrier and rams into the Abomination fists first.
  • Jen rips out a lamp post to use as a weapon. The Abomination responds by tossing cars at her, all of which Jen deflects with skill and ease. The Abomination can only stare in shock.
  • When the Abomination's brute strength starts to overwhelm her, Jen contacts Dr. Samson for advice. Samson reminds her that a gamma mutate's form is usually an expression of their inner self, in Blonky's case an expression of how he views himself as ugly on the inside. With this in mind, Jen attacks the Abomination's insecurities and is finally able to prevail.

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