Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: She-Hulk (Vol. 3), Issue #4 – “The Zealous Advocate”! In the previous installment, Jennifer Walters takes Kristoff Vernard’s case to be granted political asylum from Latveria and his oppressive ruler father Victor Von Doom. All sorts of robots are sent from Doom to keep Vernard from going to the courthouse, but justice prevails! The judge grants Vernard asylum roughly 56 microseconds before Victor Von Doom crashes through the fucking roof of the courtroom to whisk his son away back to Latveria.
Jennifer Walker vows to get him back, but I think that’s a horrible waste of time. Move on. Find some heroin addict on the street who wants to sue his landlord for throwing away his one pair of pants or something.
She-Hulk (Vol. 3), Issue #4 [July, 2014]
Written by: Charles Soule
“The Zealous Advocate”
Walters, preoccupied, taps aggressively on the Vernard file with her pen. Angie Huang offers to file it away considering, you know, the case is over? Vernard is gone? Kaputt? Back to Latveria to rule on the Doom Throne. By the way, Huang tried to cash in that bag of Latveria Francs that Vernard used to pay for Walters’ time, but the bank was like THIS MONEY AIN’T REAL and threw it all in the garbage.
Huang mentions the irony. She technically won the case. She was able to grant Vernard asylum, and he doesn’t have it. Pity.
Walters punches the pen right through the file – and the table. “I’m going out of town for a couple days, Angie. Even attorneys need legal advice occasionally, you know – see things from a new perspective.”
Well, I’ll tell you who won’t be SEEING things from a new perspective! Fucking Matt Murdock, Attorney at Law. Daredevil by night. Blind as a brain-damaged bat. In San Francisco, of all places. Not sure why he’s not in Hell’s Kitchen where he belongs, but the two of them are hanging out on top of a tower of the Golden Gate Bridge. Walters admires the view! Murdock admires the endless blackness.
Murdock spends a couple panels discussing his ability to “see” differently than other people, which I’ve already read about a couple of times, so screw it for now.
Murdock doesn’t miss New York, so something happened to move him to sunny San Francisco and it must have been the clams from Fisherman’s Wharf. Oh yeah, it was getting disbarred. lol
But how about I just accidentally commit suicide on the most famous suicide spot in the country instead?
“My client was Kristoff Vernard. You know, Doom’s son?”
Murdock does a flip onto a suspension cable. “Sure. What did he need?”
“Asylum. He was trying to defect from Latveria.”
“Oof. Tricky.”
“Yup. But I won.”
“Wow. Good work.”
A thrilling conversation to say the least. Once Walters tells him that Doom stole his son from the courtroom, Murdock asks her if she’s thinking about going after him. “…maaaaaybe?” she replies.
This is a sticky situation. As lawyers, they need to be zealous advocates. They need to go to any lengths to represent their clients’ interests. But, as superheroes, “any lengths” means a lot more than what would come from Joe Schmoe Trailer Park Face from Knob Lick, Kentucky. “Let me tell you a story,” Murdock begins boringly.
“A little while back I was representing Felicia Hardy in a murder trial…” The District Attorney wanted a life sentence, but Murdock thought, as Hardy’s representative, that he would rather not have his client face a life sentence, please. Murdock spoke to Spider-Man, who was investigating the case on his own, and came to find out that Hardy was actually innocent! So they fucking busted her out of the joint illegally! The moral of the story is: do whatever.
“But just because we can do those things, doesn’t mean we always should,” Murdock says, like he’s one to be all righteous. Fuck him.
Anyway, if Walters wants to chase Vernard down, Murdock knows a fake passport guy! More crimes from the crime-stopping guy. Very nice.
They spend the evening partying, and Walters leaves the next morning to Latveria where she is no longer green and already has the fake passport, somehow. She hops around the country and ends up at Doomstadt, the country’s capital. A castle looms on a hill, the residence of Doom Von Kubenhausen himself! Mr. Schnitzel!
She busts into the place…
Watch it, there’s glass everywhere! Our durable metal exteriors might get compromised!
Long story short, She-Hulk neutralizes the guards and commandeers something that looks like a giant goddamned death ray to shoot down flying robots as if she were playing Galaga. She’s having a whale of a time until an enormous metal fist grabs her puny body. “ACK!” she yells like Cathy.
“TINY GREEN WOMAN, YOU HAVE BEGUN TO IRRITATE DOOM,” the enormous robot – as tall as the castle – says. “WHY HAVE YOU COME HERE, SMALL WOMAN? DO YOU CARE FOR MY SON SO MUCH? DO YOU LOVE HIM?”
“Do you?” she asks back.
“YOU DARE?”
“Sure do.”
Walters does the Hulk-Out thing and busts up the giant robot hand into a pile of scrap metal and loose wires. She tells Doom, of whom this giant robot is merely an avatar, that she came to talk to him, not to rescue Vernard. “I don’t really think he wants to leave Latveria. He just wants a chance to be his own person. But you’ve got him beaten down, so controlled, that he doesn’t know who that is. And you aren’t turning him into a ruler, Doom. You’re raising someone who only knows how to bow.”
VERY INTERESTING ANALYSIS, LADY. Doom will be sure to go home and really mull that shit over for a while over a cup of Earl Grey tea.
Vernard rides up on some sort of hovering Space Motorcycle. Doom demands that he speaks up about this. “YOUR PATHETIC ATTEMPT TO DEFECT WAS NOT SIMPLY ANOTHER PLEA FOR ATTENTION?” Doom asks all-capsly. “YOU WOULD RATHER GIVE UP THE THRONE THAN RULE AS I INSTRUCT?”
Vernard is like “yeah.”
Doom is like “ok.”
Let’s all suck each other off to celebrate. Me first.
Walters jumps into Vernard’s sidecar and they drive off into the sunset. Walters asks if she can be paid in something other than Latverian Francs. Vernard says no! And we all laugh.
Back in Walters’ law office, Patsy Walker wants to talk about getting paid for her services, which amount to a) not really coming in to work all that often, and b) reading Archie comics in the breakroom when she SHOULD be working. Unfortunately, Angie Huang almost went to prison for trafficking in illegal money, so things have been a little rocky with money and stuff lately.
Walters tells Walker to cork it and sit down for a meeting. Walters shows Walker and Huang a “blue file”. The one active case they currently have. Walters has been avoiding it, but now’s not the time for more avoidance. Now’s the time for action! Unfortunately, the blue file doesn’t make a lick of sense. It names Jennifer Walters as the defendant, as well as a slew of other known superheroes (but none that I know – Wyatt Wingfoot, Greer Grant Nelson, Herman Schultz… you know, serial killer names). Why would a man named George Saywitz want to sue this lot? Walters doesn’t remember, and she doesn’t know what any of this is about.
There was a file to approve change of venue to North Dakota for the trial, which means Walters must have been served. But she doesn’t remember shit. And nothing comes up in North Dakota’s records, besides. Very interesting! (not really)
She calls upon her staff to do a little digging into this. You know, so she doesn’t have to! Maybe it’s a filing error. Maybe it’s not!
And we’ll see next time. I guess.
Final Thoughts
“Oh shit, we wrapped up the Kristoff Vernard storyline too early so we have to shoehorn something else in here for the last two issues.” – Charles Soule
I’m going to do a Google Image Search of Charles Soule.
…
lol
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