It’s all fun and games until you pull John Byrne from the book. That’s the case with Sensational She-Hulk in the 1990s. After six issues in 1989, Byrne left the book due to disagreements with plot elements involving She-Hulk and Wyatt Wingfoot. Taking his place was Steve Gerber the man best known for creating Howard the Duck.

Gerber would write most issues of from Sensational She-Hulk #10 through 23, and dear god is it painful to read. The problem with Gerber’s work is that the social commentary becomes dated very quickly, the jokes are the type of hack bullshit that would get rejected by Mad Magazine. Case in point, issues #10 and 11, Gerber tried to wrap up a plot point that was started by John Byrne. It quickly went to a ham-fisted Superman parody that is largely forgettable.

Issue #12, titled “She-Hulk the Movie”, is a story about a low-budget movie being made about She-Hulk. It reads like a childish condemnation of low-budget super-hero movies — particularly Howard the Duck, a box office flop based on his creation. This story would have been mildly amusing in 1990 when most superhero movies were low budget crap, but in this day and age of billion-dollar superhero movie franchises, it’s more bitter than funny.

Issue 14 through 17 was a four-part arc titled “The Cosmic Squish Principle” it is Steve Gerber at his worst. It is supposed to be a sweeping parody of big events that happen in comics (particularly DC Comics Crisis on Infinite Earths). However, it dives into a level of absurdity that is pointless to read. It’s got Howard the Duck shoehorned in because this was the typical stuff that Gerber did with the character when he first created him. However, whereas past Howard the Duck parodies had some measurable level of restraint, this one goes overboard to the point where it is practically unreadable. Issue #18 features She-Hulk battling Doctor Doom’s fifth cousin who just happens to be a dentist because fuck you, the reader. It’s 20 odd pages of hacky dentist jokes surrounded a flimsy plot that a five-year-old would write.

Oh and if you hadn’t had enough of the bland DC Comics parodies, don’t worry, Steve ran that idea into the ground with his next two-part story in issues #19 and 20. Which featured such transparent parodies of Batman and the Joker that I’m surprised Steve didn’t sue himself for copyright infringement. I get the parody is fair use, but this as funny as a parody as Weird Al Yankovic’s parents dying of carbon monoxide poisoning a parody of breathing oxygen. Issues #21 to 23 was a three-parter titled “The Return of the Blonde Phantom” which had Louise Mason’s daughter becoming the new Blonde Phantom. It’s got time travel, nuclear bombs, and a “family values” villain with his own “politically correct” superheroes. It’s fucking terrible.

Look, I respect Steve Gerber for his stance on creator’s rights and his earlier work on Howard the Duck, but his work on Sensational She-Hulk is some of his worst work.

By issue #24, Gerber was replaced with writer Simon Furman. Furman is best known for his lengthy body of work on the Transformers franchise. He can be funny, but putting him on a book that is measured by the style and humor of John Byrne was destined to fail just as much as Steve Gerber’s run on the book. Still, his short run on She-Hulk was a little better. Still, it’s overrun with guest stars with his own creation, Death’s Head, appearing in issue #24, Hercules in issue #25, and Excalibur in issue #26. There’s not really much to comment on here as these stories are by-and-large forgettable as well. Louise Simonson came on and did a two-parter that was crammed with an absurd amount of popular guest stars in issues #29 and 30, because apparently not a single writer thought that She-Hulk could sustain the title on her own.

By issue #31, due to overwhelming demand, John Byrne was put back on the book and he picked things up where he left off — sort of. By this point, Marvel told John that he could do whatever he wants. Unfortunately, an unrestrained John Byrne makes some really bad moves. Byrne is a great artist and a decent writer, but I think he works best when there is someone in editorial pulling on his reigns a little bit. From issues #32 to 49 he wrote some stories that were a little too offbeat. They involved Spragg the Living Hill, the ridiculous Mahkizmo, the Mole Man (who gets turned into an actual mole!), the Living Eraser, and lastly an overly long plotline that had She-Hulk and Louise Mason trade body types. However, by issue #50, he ended his run on the book passing the torch over to others.

Michael Eury did a six-part story that had She-Hulk go to Los Angeles and cheat death. The villain in the story is her old boyfriend Zapper Ridges. While it was nice that they were trying to reintroduce characters that were last seen in Savage She-Hulk, trying to match the style of comedy that John Byrne brought to the book fell flat. Needless to say, the series was canceled 10 years later.

The fact of the matter was that Sensational She-Hulk was marred by the fact that the only person who was able to do it justice was John Byrne until not even John himself could pull it off anymore either. Other writers on this book made quickly realized they couldn’t really imitate Byrne’s storytelling. The only thing they tried to continue was some light fourth-wall-breaking and any time they attempted that it failed miserably. A smart writer didn’t try to imitate Byrne. Unfortunately, these writers couldn’t come up with any compelling stories for the character. The main failing is here is that nobody had the confidence that She-Hulk could carry a book on her own and tried to shove all manner of guest stars to try and boost the book’s profile. The reality is that all of the Spider-Man and X-Men making guest appearances does not make a good book.

The other thing writers missed was the fact that She-Hulk wasn’t really a superhero book. It was a comedy book about a lawyer who also happens to be a Hulk. Any notion that she had an actual law career was typically ignored by writers. Even Byrne when he was back on the book. In fact of this entire run only issue #59 had She-Hulk involved in an actual court case. Written by Len Kaminski and Scott Benson it had some of an understanding on what works with She-Hulk. Making jokes on the absurdity of a world of superheroes from a legal perspective without being a condescending dick about it (like Gerber).

It’s something that Dan Slott understood when he took the reigns of a new She-Hulk book in the 2000s. He didn’t try to imitate Byrne. Instead, he found his own voice and found that proper balance of superheroes, humor, and the fact that She-Hulk was a lawyer. Most importantly, Slott knew that She-Hulk was a strong enough character to support her own book which is why his run with the character is so well regarded today, but more on that some other time.

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