The Sensational She-Hulk 33: She-Hulk Almost Gets Hitched

In this issue, She-Hulk almost gets married to The Mole Man, but, fortunately for all the fanboys panting after her in the letters page, she breaks things off at the last minute. 

Here are some random thoughts on this issue:

*Writer/artist John Byrne appears in person to recap the story early on.  Byrne often seemed to enjoy inserting self-portraits into stories.  He even did this in The Fantastic Four a couple of times and that wasn't a metafictional title as She-Hulk was.  He draws himself well.  From his drawings of himself over the years, I recognized him walking around Mid-Ohio Con in 2002 (he had an "off-duty" sign around his neck so I didn't bother him to scrawl his autograph across Spragg The Living Hill).  Speaking of Mid-Ohio Con, it looks as if She-Hulk creator Stan Lee and former She-Hulk editor Renee Witterstaetter will be at this year's edition in Columbus, Ohio USA.  I won't be though.  Paying $40 to get in the door at a convention to pay more money for comic books gives me the hives.  Sometimes the bargains can make up for the door price, but I'm trying to unload these things, right?  That would be like an alcoholic hanging out in a bar sipping ginger ale.  The alcoholic sips the ginger ale, not the bar, by the way, unless the alcoholic is very, very drunk

*Byrne must have watched a lot of television.  In this issue, he references Cop Rock and has The Simpsons appear (they're not yellow, so you might not recognize them right away, but look carefully).

*In the last couple of issues, Byrne takes subtle potshots at Todd McFarlane and Jim Lee.  He had been usurped by newer, hotter artists.  He didn't seem to like the direction comics were heading in either as he makes fun of the grim and gritty antihero storytelling as well.

*Weezi, She-Hulk's sidekick, gets turned into a younger woman, according to the text, because of Byrne's midlife crisis.  I kind of enjoyed the senior citizen character, but I suppose Byrne knows that sales will go up with two attractive female characters.  The last page, of course, features the two women in swimsuits.  Don't worry, next issue gets even more exploitative.  As the sales drop, so do the clothes.  She-Hulk is kind of full frontal feminism.