Sensational She-Hulk #31
Sensational She-Hulk #31
Title: “Interrupted Melody”
Writer: John Byrne
Penciller: John Byrne
Inker: Keith Williams
Colors: Glynis Oliver
Editor:
Renee Witterstaetter
She-Hulk wakes up, shocked at her very weird dream. She sees what time it is,
and rushes to get showered and dressed to pick up Wheezi.
Once
she is ready, she hops in her car and flies over to Wheezi's apartment. Wheezi
gets in and they fly off to start their vacation.
Elsewhere, the private airplane of rock singer Milo Vinyl is caught in a storm.
The pilot radios in for a course to follow, but the path leads right into a
mountain! The pilot attempts to navigate around it, but the mountain keeps
moving to stay in their path, and the plane crashes!
She-Hulk and Wheezi are not far away when they hear a news report about the
crash on their car radio. After hearing the report of a "moving mountain" Jen
decides this is something they should look into.
They soon arrive at the crash site, and are surprised to see that it is
perfectly flat; no sign of mountains anywhere. She-Hulk approaches the officer
on the scene and says she is here to offer her help. The officer doubts that it
is needed; he figures the pilot must have been drunk. However a man loaded with
scientific equipment barges in and says that he warned them that this was going
to happen. He says that his electro-flux variance plotter pinpointed this area
as the next most likely target. Jen asks the man who he is, and he introduces
himself as Professor Bob Robertson. He tells them that he has been tracking
this phenomenon across the world for almost thirty years, and that he warned the
authorities that this was going to happen here.
Wheezi asks the police captain why he didn't listen to the warning. The captain
didn't take the warning seriously due to the professor's claim that this is the
work of Spragg, the Living Hill! The two women just look at Robertson like he's
insane.
Robertson explains how he first encountered Spragg years ago in Transylvania.
He was investigating a strange earthquake, but when he got there the villagers
told him there was no quake and told him to leave. He discovered the village now
had a new, hastily constructed wall, so late that night he decided to scale it
and investigate. However, the wall was electrically charged. He tried flying
over it with a plane, but crashed into a force field. So, he went under it,
using an abandoned mine shaft.
When he got to the other side, he found the villagers working, late at night,
constructing something around the base of a large hill. They all appeared to be
in some kind of trance. They kept muttering about obeying the will of Spragg.
Suddenly, the hill opened its eyes, and revealed that it was a living being…
Spragg! Spragg recounted his origin story, telling how he started out as part of
a cloud of harmless spores drifting through space until Earth's gravity well
pulled them down into the blazing, molten core. There they developed
intelligence, learned the art of telekinesis, and were able to generate
earthquakes with their minds! Spragg was accidentally caught in one of those,
and was thrust to the surface. Once there, he decided to use his mental powers
to enslave all of upper Earth. However, he learned that he had been injured in
the quake, and that his mental powers were now limited to electric hypnotism.
He took control of the villagers, and had them construct a dynamo which he would
use to extend his powers.
Robertson's metal mining helmet protected him from the hypnotic field, so he
pretended to work on the dynamo platform, but actually made alterations to it,
turning it into a huge rocket, that launched Spragg into space! Robertson hoped
that would end the menace of Spragg.
Wheezi interrupts his story to ask how a geologist was able to convert an
electric generator into a rocket. She-Hulk says not to worry about it; he's a
comic book scientist.
Robertson continues his story, telling how nearly 20 years later he found a
familiar electric resonance in some seismic readings. The readings confirmed
his fears that Spragg had returned! Jen points out that Spragg should have burnt
up re-entering the atmosphere. Robertson says he thinks that is exactly what
happened to Spragg's physical form, but that his electrical energy reached the
surface and infused itself with the native rock. Robertson says that he has
spent the last 20 years tracking manifestations of the Spragg force across the
United States.
Jen asks if he has any proof to back up his theory. Robertson he has all the
proof she needs. He sets up his counter frequency generator, which will
generate an electric current the exact opposite of Spragg's frequency. This
provokes a violent response from Spragg… a massive ridge of rock erupts from the
ground and continues forming straight towards a nearby town, at 100 miles per
hour! She-Hulk demands to know if Robertson has a back-up plan!
Soon, She-Hulk and Wheezi are flying in the car to overtake the ridge. Once in
position, She-Hulk jumps out, and lands on the crest of the ridge, where she
plants one of Robertson's devices, which sets up a counter harmonic to shatter
the rock. It works a little too well… the ridge collapses and a giant hole in
the earth opens up, and She-Hulk falls into it!
Site for Sore Eyes rating: 5 out of 10
At long last, Byrne is back...but he doesn't exactly start off with a bang.
While Spragg certainly fits the lame-villain-policy of the series, he is also so
obscure that Byrne had to spend a large chunk of the issue doing flashbacks and
providing exposition. Not exactly a very exciting start for his return to the
series.
The opening sequence, where Byrne retcons everything since issue #8 as a dream,
is somewhat egotistical, and could be seen as insulting to the other writers. On
the other hand, given how poor some of those issues were, it could also be seen
as damage control. Oddly enough, even though Byrne writes this as if he is
picking up right where he left off, he never goes back and resolves the subplots
he had left hanging.
Review by Dermie
Pictures by The Leader