Avengers and Philosophy: Earth's Mightiest Thinkers, The Read Online Free PDF Page A

understand these conventional aspects of comic book storytelling, the better we will be able to appreciate and understand the comics we are reading. The study of metacomics promises to be an extremely valuable tool in this endeavor. After all, what better way to understand how these storytelling conventions function than to see what happens when they are bent, broken, or subverted by the Sensational She-Hulk!
     
    Your Cover Is Blown, Jen
     
    The metafictional madness of John Byrne’s run on The Sensational She-Hulk begins on the cover of issue #1 (May 1989), which depicts Jen holding a handful of X-Men comics and saying to the comic-shop customer, “Okay, now. This is your second chance. If you don’t buy my book this time I’m gonna come to your house and rip up all of your X-Men.” 6 Jen is aware that she is the main character of this comic, and is breaking the fourth wall to convince the hesitant buyer to purchase her book. She is also, however, cleverly referring to well-known facts about the comic book industry within the real—that is, our —world. She is somehow aware that her previous series, The Savage She-Hulk , did not sell well while at the same time X-Men-related comics sold in record numbers. This shows that Jen is not only aware of what happens in her world, but is also quite aware of what happens in ours!
     
    Covers often stray from the literal contents of the comic they enclose, however. Thus if this cover were the only instance of metafictional content in The Sensational She-Hulk , it would perhaps not be all that noteworthy. But we don’t have to wait long for metafictional content to appear within the comic itself. For example, near the end of issue #1, Jen discovers that the Ringmaster and his Circus of Crime were hired to test the limits of her powers. She then complains, “Some anonymous bad guy is ready to spend three million bucks to find out how tough I am . . . and I know how these things work! It’ll be at least my third issue before I find out who it is! Although you readers will probably find out on the next page.” And of course we do!
     
    The next two issues also contain metafictional content. On the cover of issue #2 (June 1989), Jen catches up on her cousin Bruce Banner’s life by reading issues of The Incredible Hulk , playing with the idea that within the Marvel Universe, comic books are historical records of actual events. More interesting, however, is an episode in issue #3 (July 1989), in which Jen regains consciousness after being attacked at the end of issue #2. She initially worries that she has been knocked out for a month, the normal length of time between issues of a monthly comic such as hers. Jen eventually reassures herself that this is not necessarily the case, however, based on the difference between the way time works within a comic (only days or even hours pass between issues) and the way it works in the real world. This knowledge, combined with the fact that her guest star Spider-Man has already appeared (which means that we are halfway into the present issue), allows her to conclude that less than a day has passed since she was knocked out. In short, Jen uses her knowledge of how time is portrayed within comics in order to draw conclusions about what happened while she was unconscious.
     
    “There’s a Reader Out There Now!”
     
    This is strange enough, but things get much weirder in issue #4 (August 1989). On page six, Jen has a job interview with the dreamy District Attorney Towers. After the interview, Jen mentions that she wasn’t expecting to meet her romantic interest so soon. At this point Towers’s assistant, Louise “Weezie” Mason, informs Jen that Towers is married. In the first panel of the next page, Jen asks, “Since when is he married??” and Weezie replies, “Since now I suppose. This is the first time it’s been mentioned.” Weezie’s response demonstrates that she, like Jen, is aware that she is a character in a comic, but it