She-Hulk (2004 series) #8

Jennifer Walters has been tapped for service as a judge in the Living Tribunal's Magistrati, and she's taken her teenage ward Southpaw with her. Meanwhile Champion and his Power Gem have won control of planet Skardon in their trail-by-combat legal system, and Adam Warlock has been recruiting superheroes to challenge him in single combat including Beta Ray Bill and the Shi'ar Gladiator last issue. That issue ended with Recorder Z9 telling She-Hulk her next case is on Skardon ...

... and now he presents her with the appropriate (Magistrati purple) boxing shorts and top and boxing gloves. And Pip The Troll teleports in to fetch her while she's changing. But she allows him to transport her, Southpaw and the Recorder to where Warlock and Gamora are waiting. Jen recalls how Champion defeated all the (male) superhero heavyweights on Earth (in Marvel Two-In-One Annual #1), and Pip describes the situation here. Tryco Slatterus is deliberately ruining the planet to attract heroes to challenge him. Adam zapped him with his Soul Gem but the Skard didn't consider that an official fight. So Warlock started his recruiting drive, including apparently his old friend Drax The Destroyer since last issue. They enter a hospital ward for the defeated, including Silver Surfer! Plus Warlock who tried his luck in the ring too last issue, and who now dies (again) and retreats into his cocoon to regenerate.

The gang including Adam's lover Gamora travel to the combat ring but chauvanist Champion refuses to fight a female. That and Southpaw's sarcasm really get Shulkie riled up. The local Magistrati reminds Champion that if he refuses a fight he forfeits the match and his kingship. Pip's all for that but Champion's not going to give up so easily. Shulk gets in the 1st blow which makes the 'king' think this might be a fight worth having. He proceeds to demolish our heroine to the sincere cheers of his oppressed people, until the Magistrati terminates the fight to save her life. Jen protests and the judge asks if she wants to file an appeal. This is talking Ms Walters' language and she asks for a 3 month's continuance so she can prepare her case. The Magistrati grants her request and angry Champion is forced to accept the prospect of a rematch.

Gamora helps her out of the ring and offers to train her in boxing, but she doesn't know if it will do any good because Champion's power is exponentially more than hers. Pip thinks the answer to that is for She-Hulk to work out. (Gamora asks him if he knows what exponential means and he guesses it indicates how much mutant power you have.) But the conversation triggers a memory in Jen of a time she was lifting weights as She-Hulk with her friend/work colleague Augustus 'Pug' Pugliese. He asked why she doesn't work out as Jen. She replied because she's stronger as Shulk, but he pointed out she was exponentially stronger. Ie any increase in Jen's strength would be multiplied when she became She-Hulk.

Talking of Pug we see him in the law offices of Goodman, Leiber, Kurtzberg & Holliway in Timely Plaza stalling 2 armoured Guardsmen from the Raft supervillain prison here to check that Holden Holliway's granddaughter Southpaw is obeying the conditions of her release - which certainly don't allow her to go off-world. Holden eventually appears and invites them into his office where they see her sitting in a chair. But when they're gone 'she' turns out to be the shape-shifting employee Ditto. We learn that She-Hulk and Southpaw have been gone 3 months ...

... which means it's time for the rematch. Warlock, Drax, Beta Ray Bill, Gladiator and Silver Surfer have all recovered. And Jennifer has been trained by Gamora and is now bulked up. Drax thinks they should all pile on Champion but Surfer says the Skard wouldn't accept that. Sasha Martin leaves them to it to wander a market where she blatantly steals a fruit. When the stallholder complains she uses the gauntlet on her left arm to generate a forcefist and smashes his stall, which he accepts as part of the 'might makes right' ethos of his people. But Champion takes the fruit off her on the grounds that it's *his* job to oppress the Skard. Southpaw tries the fist on him but he shrugs it off. She threatens to enter the ring herself and fight him but he reminds her of the 'no weapons' rule. She's still complaining about it when she returns to the training room and Jen overhears her.

When they enter the ring She-Hulk states her grounds for appeal, that in the previous match Champion used a weapon - the Infinity Gem on his brow. He should fight this bout without it. The Skard agree and he has to let them remove it. But he boasts that even without it he's still 1 of the strongest beings in the universe (he didn't have the Power Gem when he beat all the contestants in MTIO An#1) so he'll still defeat her. Jen replies by upping the ante. If she wins he'll lose control of Skardon, but he must also swear to never wear the Gem again. In return she agrees to become 1 of his wives if she loses. Then Shulk takes off her hooded robe to reveal an even more muscular body then before. And this time it's she who slaughters Champion.

After the bout the Skard throw him off the planet, and the Recorder and the local Magistrati tell her that she's released from duty and she can go home. But to the Skard her victory means that *she* is now their Queen. However Adam tells her that Pip will teleport her and Southpaw back to Earth, and he and Gamora will sort things out here. Before she goes Jen tells the people that she didn't win by strength of body but by willpower, strength of mind.

After they've gone the Skard take her words to heart. But they still fall to arguing who should rule. A man claims to have the largest head and therefore the most brains. Another says that the size of his hat indicates that he has the deepest thoughts. And they start fighting about it and all the other Skard join in. Gamora and other heroes try to pacify them while Warlock and the Recorder agree that this job may take longer than they thought.