Hulk #3

Previously in Hulk #2

While the police investigate the death of slumlord Tick, Jennifer questions her connection to her client Maise Brewn, who’s not answering her calls.

This issue further explores Jennifer’s struggle to return to living. It hasn’t been easy with constant reminders of Bruce’s death all around her; this issue it comes in the form of a citizen on the news expressing her anger at all the trouble and death superheroes have contributed to communities.

Her best friend, Patsy Walker a.k.a. Hellcat, finally connects with her, but Jennifer brushes her off. She doesn’t want to admit that anything is wrong; she wants to be normal. It’s harder to pretend everything is normal if your best friend is trying to cheer you up. This encounter did provide the issue’s funniest moment when a bystander fangirls over seeing Hellcat in person. However, things are brought back down when the woman asks Jennifer if she’s a superhero too and Jennifer simply replies, “No.”

Jennifer finds herself drawn to one client in particular, Maise Brewn. In researching her past, Jennifer learns she has more in common with Maise than she realized. She was once happy and vibrant, successful at something she loved. Then her business partner paid two men to kill her and left her dead in an alley. What she has become since - the frightened shut-in who rarely leaves the house - is like a ghost of her former self. Jennifer can relate that. They both came close to death and are now expected to navigate the world whether they’re ready or not. So many of Jennifer’s coping mechanisms remind me of what it’s like to grieve; and this makes sense because Jennifer is also dealing with the loss of her cousin, Bruce Banner.

On the pages in which the detectives investigating Tick’s death pay Maise a visit, artist Nico Leon creates some of his more interesting work on the series thus far; the apartment building is as dark and bizarre in the hallways as it is inside Maise’s apartment. One page in particular is a patchwork of weird with children playing with weird puppets and writing on the walls. It would seem Tick specialized in providing housing to the city’s weirdest citizens.

Things in Maise’s cases get deadlier when the same being hidden in the shadows that killed Tick also attacks the cops as they prepare to leave. This is going to make it even harder for Maise to trust Jennifer now that the being has fulfilled its promise to take of her and eliminates anyone who might cause Maise to leave the apartment. Is that its main goal? Does it somehow require her to remain there in order to survive? Hopefully, we’ll get a few answers in part four.