| She-Hulk #10 – Review |
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| Tuesday, 18 November 2014 21:24 |
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Jen does appear to help move events along, but true to his rank, Steve is in complete control the whole time. It's problematic that in an arc that's supposed to show off Jen as a legal superstar, her efforts are mostly beside the point. As far as this case is concerned, Steve has this one in the bag from the moment he starts testifying.
We knew that, of course. Harold Fogler's narrative was too thin to convict anyone, much less Steve freaking Rogers, and predictably, Steve segueways into his side of things by saying, "[T]hat wasn't the entire story. Not even half of it." What follows is interesting, though not worth repeating here. Soule gives Steve an engaging voice, one touched by both the period he came from and the one he lives in now, but more importantly, it's a credible one, the kind you trust immediately. Then again: Steve freaking Rogers.
The most important takeaways from Steve's testimony is Harold had hooked up with Nazis, the ringleader (one Herr Saurespritze) originally wanted all three of them—Harold, brother Sam, and Steve—dead, and ultimately, Sam would have died anyway. I could give you a legal memo on how all this obviously clears Steve of any liability, but that's really Law and the Multiverse's wheelhouse.* But even from a common sense standpoint, Steve's innocence is clear; there's nothing he could have done in the face of a foreign radical determined to see him and his friend dead. The fact that Steve lectures Saurespritze is thus inconsequential, rousing speech that it is. All it proves is even as skinny little guy, Steve was all hero.
So yeah, Matt's argument is pretty much screwed, though he gives it his semi-best shot.** There's never any doubt as to what the verdict would be, which steals much of the arc's excitement. Soule tries to maintain the suspense, acting as if the classified docs Steve sent Patsy to fetch are key to his entire defense when they in fact play no part whatsoever. Their contents only confirm Steve's already convincing story, and he won't Jen use them anyway. Classified, doncha know.
But the thing that should really piss everyone off about the whole matter is that Steve could have made this whole case go away by revealing [Spoiler alert!] that it was Dr. Faustus who engineered everything. The fact that Steve had a flipping, handwritten note from Faustus boasting
about it is already a pretty good start. Why he didn't this up earlier in the case, you have no idea. It's fine he didn't want to beat up the villain until after the trial, but that's no reason to keep out Faustus' role from the trial altogether.
In some ways, I see this as Steve screwing with everybody: Jen by withholding information through most of the trial; Patsy by making her take a risky mission that yielded of service to the case; Matt by encouraging him to take an unattractive position on a loser of a case (and I wouldn't be surprised if Matt became known, among other things, as "The Man Who Tried to Tarnish Captain America"). Steve's charm is such that you can almost look past all this, and everything does work out in the end, but all in all, it's a bit of a screwy case.
This isn't the best arc to show off Pulido's skills, unless it's to show how striking he and Muntsa can make even a long series of talking heads. Still his storytelling helps to underline the major and minor beats of the script, like the silhouette of past Steve rising from his knees to stand up against Saurespritze or Jen dryly holding out her empty hand to show a consternated Steve what he's promised her. That said, each of those splash pages of Matt and Jen standing against a white background, word balloons crawling all around them, must have been some of the easier pages he's drawn in his life.
- Minhquan Nguyen
Some Musings: * I will say briefly, however, that in a wrongful death action, the plaintiff has to prove the defendant's actions caused the decedent's death. In this case, Saurespritze is the one who shot Sam, he intended to do it from beginning to end, and Steve's actions would apparently have had no effect on the outcome. Seems pretty clear-cut to me.
** Matt would have done better to emphasize that from an evidentiary standpoint, it's only Steve's word against quite a bit of corroboration, and his desire to maintain his reputation is motive to lie. But that would have required Matt to hit harder during cross-examination, which he did not do. It probably would've also helped if Matt didn't highlight his clients' monetary incentive during closing argument.
- Also, as a matter of strategy, Matt should have saved his cross for after Steve's testimony because once Captain America starts talking, that is it.
The post She-Hulk #10 – Review appeared first on Weekly Comic Book Review. Read more: http://weeklycomicbookreview.com/2014/11/19/hulk-10-review/ |
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