Michael Rezaie Weaver – The Spellbinding Shelf

It is truly rare when a story enters your life that changes the way you approach storytelling as a whole. As a fan of Byrne’s, I knew about his run on Sensational She-Hulk, but didn’t give it much thought until one dreaded night—overcome with boredom—when the book just called to me. It was truly—hang on, this is embarrassing. Do you hear that noise? Sounds like it’s coming from—

All right, hold your applause!

Take a look at how I can move between comic panels– truly Sensational, if I say so myself! -She-Hulk

She-Hulk?! For the love of—I knew something was up when I saw I was in italics! How’d you get in here?

We only have 800 words in this article, and you want to write about THAT?

Ah, right, I get it. When you were relaunched, Byrne wrote your series with the unique twist that you were aware you were in a comic book. But Shulkie, this isn’t a comic book! Why are you here?

To give you an exclusive interview, of course! It’s been a while since someone has talked about my Byrne days. You really should be reading something a bit more…contemporary.

W-Well… I’m flattered! But quite frankly, this was supposed to be an article, not an interview. I don’t… really know where to begin. Also, what’s wrong with the classics? The late ’80s/early ’90s were a great time.

Ouch. I’m still young, you know. Don’t call me “classic”.

Oh, right. You don’t age as long as you’re in print. How has that been going for you?

Well, after I killed Byrne—

HANG ON! You can’t just SPOIL the last issue of Byrne’s run in my article talking about Byrne’s run! What about the people who want to read it? And HEY! GET THAT PAGE SCAN OUT OF HERE!

Michael can’t stop me from putting up this page scan, he doesn’t have editor access! -She-Hulk

Do people really want to read the things you’re writing about? Looking at your analytics…

W-Whoa! Come on now, you can’t just look at a man’s analytics…!

Y’know, now that I think about it, I don’t even know why I agreed to this interview at all. You’re barely even qualified to call yourself a writer.

Hang on a sec—

And you own an entire longbox worth of my comics? I mean, talk about obsessed…

HEY! First of all, that’s PERSONAL. BUSINESS. What I read is sacred! Second of all, of course I have a bunch of your comics: I’m writing this article about you, after all! Third, I NEVER WANTED TO INTERVIEW YOU. You just popped in with your bold font and took over my article! You spoiled the ending to Byrne’s run and you insulted me for being a loyal fan! That hurts, Jen.

Don’t call me Jen!

But that’s your name! You’re Jennifer Walters—you were a regular old lawyer until a car hit you and your cousin Bruce Banner gave you a blood transfusion. Everyone knows that.

You don’t just expose a girl’s entire tragic backstory after calling her by her former pet-name.

Oh right, sorry. I forgot that you and Wyatt Wingfoot—your boyfriend in Byrne’s run—haven’t really been…a thing recently. Your relationship history as of late has been interesting. Speaking of relationships, how are you and Byrne doing?

Well, killing him didn’t stick. Something to do with him being a Life Model Decoy. Typical. So we mutually agreed to part ways.

I’m sorry to hear that. I really enjoyed what you two managed to do together.

Nothing good ever lasts.

Like your good characterization.

And besides, he’s a bit of a jerk from what I’ve heard. It’s a good thing for my brand to distance itself from…wait. What do you mean by my “good characterization?”

Well, you haven’t been breaking the fourth wall recently for starters. We’ve missed the Snarky She-Hulk! You were breaking the fourth wall before Dead-

-before Deadpool. Right. You and everyone who’s ever read a cheap clickbait comic book news article says that. Well you know what? A girl just wanted to have fun. Is that too much to ask?! I’ve been stuck in Jason Aaron’s Avengers book for YEARS, and I knew that he didn’t really get me. He took away my smarts, my looks, my legacy. All because he wanted Hulk in his comic. But what could I do? Marvel Editorial no longer took my calls, and I’m not even sure if they even exist anymore. The Comics Code Authority has long since been abandoned, so I couldn’t complain to THEM about MY IMAGE being RUINED.

Shulkie, the Comics Code Authority wasn’t established for-

LET ME FINISH! Then I come to find that Byrne is neck-deep in controversy, so I can’t even go back to him. Peter David’s busy writing for Cousin Bruce, so I can’t work with HIM anymore. Sure, being in Dan Slott’s recent Fantastic Four book was fine and all, but I wouldn’t call that book anything special. I haven’t been…me for a while. They haven’t…Marvel hasn’t let me be…me. So I just…went into autopilot. Put on a smile…

Are you…are you okay She-Hulk? …do you want a hug?

Ugh…what? No…It’s…It’s fine. I’m fine. I just, I just need a minute. Let’s not lose the readers, you go on talking about me.

Okay…if you say so. We are a bit short on words so I’ll make this quick: Byrne’s She-Hulk was so good that it built the foundation for what would be many more years of brilliant She-Hulk stories. The run brought in an amazing amount of female readers, old and new. It was a pretty great comedy comic for its time, and it’s now considered a fan favorite. Jennifer Walters—She-Hulk—is more than just a female version of Hulk. She’s one of comics’ feminist icons, going so far as to-

F-feminist icon?

Well, yeah! You fought against Byrne’s odd obsession to sexualize you, and with Weezi’s help, you gave yourself a good life.

Can I really be a feminist icon in comics when the internet keeps showing out-of-context pictures of the…“jump rope issue?”

Ah… the jump rope issue. Where you told readers of Byrne’s Sensational She-Hulk that you’d jump rope naked if that’s what it took to get sales. To be fair, you started that. But you also ended it. You were poking fun at how comics were using sex appeal to sell issues at the time, I thought it was a pretty clever stunt. That sounds like feminism in comics to me. You did that a lot in Byrne’s run, and you continued to do that with other writers.

Huh…I never thought about it like that before. I was just being…y’know, me.

Like Daisy Miller?

Like Daisy Miller!

Except you’re a much more intelligent, deliberate Daisy Miller who knows that promiscuity makes men uncomfortable. You just…own who you are. It’s inspiring. Truly. And I’m excited for your show.

Oh that’s right—I have a show coming out! Well if your readers like my old “feminist” Byrne comic then they’d love to check out my show! I didn’t even think to talk about that…

Well, we can’t. We’re way over my word-limit for this article.

Oh…I didn’t even realize.

Eh, neither did the readers. Unless they’ve been counting every word. That would be…obsessive.

Said the pot to the kettle.

Ouch! Alright She-Hulk, this has been a pleasure, but I think I’ll call the interview off here. This has truly been a dream of mine, and I’m glad my readers have had a chance to get to know the real you.

And they can continue to get to know the real me by watching my upcoming Disney+ show and reading my new She-Hulk series—written by Rainbow Rowell—coming to your local comic shop this January, 2022!

Alright alright, I’m not getting paid for any of these endorsements. Get out of here!

Phew…she’s gone. Oh…hey! The italics are gone too! I’m free! I’m…lonely…Well, at least I have you, my loyal readers! Right?

Oh.

Few people fully understand just how much Jack Kirby did for Marvel.

Even fewer people fully understand The Eternals, Jack Kirby’s 1976 creation that came at the tail end of his career. It was published by Marvel, yet The Eternals is entirely Jack Kirby’s creation. I quote his wife, Roz, in an interview published by The Comics Journal when I say that his Eternals was “an afterthought… an anticlimax.” She puts it best by saying, “After he did The New Gods, what more could he do?” Never has a question been more poignant, as Jack Kirby really had done everything before making The Eternals. The man was creatively spent; his resume exceeded comprehension. Kirby either co-created—or just outright created—most of Marvel. By this fact alone, the MCU is entirely beholden to Kirby. He co-created Captain America alongside Joe Simon back in 1941; at that time, Stan Lee wasn’t even a footnote in comics history. Kirby went on to co-create The Fantastic Four, Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, The X-Men, The Avengers, The Black Panther, and the list goes on. You could write an entire book about what Jack Kirby means to comic books, and if it were 2,000 pages it still wouldn’t be the full story. The man was born for comic books, and Marvel knew it. Then he left for DC.

Despite having worked in the industry for 3 decades prior, The New Gods’ creation in 1971 marks the climax of his career. Finally free of Marvel’s constraints, Kirby delivered his aforementioned magnum opus right to DC’s front door. It’s chock-full of mythology, science fiction, philosophy and unbridled creativity; it’s about God and man. It’s more than just a comic book. It demands answers to questions such as what it really means to be a God, to be a man, to be a hero. Then, it ended. Kirby packed up and went back to Marvel. He created a few things, the most notable of which has retroactively become The Eternals, and then he drove off into the sunset. Nobody considers The Eternals his greatest work, but it has recently been given the MCU treatment. The film is vastly different from Kirby’s original comic; it’s obvious even at a first-glance. Kirby’s art and storytelling was epic in every sense of the word. Kirby understood what God meant, he translated that in his powerful artstyle. His writing on The Eternals evokes Shakespeare, it’s a grand-stage drama that expresses his viewpoint on what Gods really are. Yet, he already did something similar in The New Gods. In fact, comic historians and readers alike would find that The Eternals seems a spiritual successor to The New Gods.

It’s a distinctly odd comic for Marvel to have under its banner, especially at that time. The appeal of their characters comes from their creators’ humanity: Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, Stan Lee, and everyone else at Marvel during its foundational years crafted human characters with extraordinary abilities. That’s the core philosophy behind their superheroes: though they’re larger than life, they’re still human, like us. Spider-Man is the tried-and-true example of this, and as a result, he’s Marvel’s flagship character. Peter Parker was a nerd before the spider bit him, that reflected the readership at the time. What then do Jack Kirby’s Eternals reflect? The perfect, undying beings seem like black sheep at Marvel, and for many fans of Kirby’s, The Eternals pales in comparison to his other work. It has a reputation of not being as good. And perhaps the MCU film doesn’t do much to prove those perceptions wrong.

The film neuters the sheer awe and cosmic scope that Kirby’s Eternals set out to provide. The film is more narratively sound, albeit with a few plot holes—an imperfection that can be blamed on the movie already being stuffed with characters and themes. Yet, there’s not any strong themes in either the film nor the comic. The film delves into what it means to be human, not necessarily what it means to be a God. This is where Kirby’s Eternals outshines the film, its self-described Chariots of the Gods? structure screams Gods. Kirby’s Eternals—especially Ikaris—have distinct visual flair. The way characters interact in Kirby’s The Eternals matches up to the grand scale of the story. Furthermore, The Eternals has the added benefit of Kirby’s art: his larger than life figures, dynamic poses, powerful faces and awe-inspiring color work. Kirby’s artwork is genre-defining: inferior artists who replaced him have been accused of copying his style. Kirby also invented many different techniques, strategies, and conventions to help convey the unfathomable scope of his cosmic stories, including the Kirby Krackle—a collection of different sized black dots that he’d use in explosions, ray-blasts, cosmic energy, and general depictions of space. Kirby’s spectacular visual style gives The Eternals gravitas that the film sorely lacks. Visually, the film pales in comparison to the comic; though the film Thor: Ragnarok has adapted Kirby’s visuals to the big screen, an effort passionately undertaken by the film’s director, Taika Waititi. Though Eternals does translate Kirby’s beautiful, awe-inspiring Celestial drawings to the big screen rather well, the awesomeness—for a lack of a better word—just doesn’t feel as strong as it does in the comic. That being said, the comic isn’t exactly what one would consider narrative gold. The classic Kirby art carries the sometimes lacking plot and dialogue. This translates to the film, where its plot is also a bit lackluster.

Jack Kirby draws a war between the beings of Earth and a Celestial…

Kirby had a penchant for stories featuring Gods, the cosmos, and larger than life superheroes—his career was built on it. Though The Eternals isn’t anywhere close to as good as his New Gods, nor any of his previous work, it has been given the blessing of the film adaptation. To some, it would be considered a curse: seeing Kirby’s vision pulled apart and watered-down is the unfortunate consequence of adaptation. His plethora of characters have been adapted before, of course, but something truly feels off about his Shakespearean Eternals being twisted around into another group of MCU superheroes. There’s no easier way to say it, but the film is definitely different than the comic, for better or for worse.

Even if The Eternals wasn’t well-received during its release (Kirby’s run was effectively cancelled at issue #19), the run should be regarded as a monument to its creator: a man who created entire worlds that we could only dream of. A man who, for many, is regarded as the forgotten Godfather of modern-comics. And a man who would agree with his wife, saying: “[The Eternals] is an anticlimax.” But, that’s okay. After all—he was only a man. What more could he do?

Tag: Michael Rezaie Weaver

Sensational She-Hulk, an Interview

The Eternals: Jack Kirby’s Anticlimax