Tuesday, September 16, 2014

Case Study No. 1576: Stu Cicero

Librarians in Comic Books... Stu Cicero!
0:28
From: She-Hulk (2004) #2
Tags: librarians comic books she hulk stu cicero marvel comics fantastic four
Added: 6 months ago
From: ComixLibrary
Views: 10

[the first panel shows Jessica Walters (in her non-She Hulk form) walking down a stairwell into a room filled with comic book racks (her though balloon reads "The 'long boxes'? What did he mean by that?"), as a young man (short brown hair, suit and tie) sits in a corner on the floor reading and eating a sandwich]
JESSICA: Hello? Is anybody down here?
STU: Blue blazes! It's you! It's really you! I mean, I knew you were coming to work here ... but wow! Jennifer Walters, a.k.a. the Sensational She-Hulk!
[the second panel shows Stu shaking her hand]
JESSICA: That's me.
STU: I'm Stu Cicero. Been a big fan. Ever since you joined the FF.
JESSICA: All right. Um ... Look. I was told you had legal documents down here. Case files. But all I see are comic books.
STU: Well, yeah. Marvel comics. Admissible in any court of law.
JESSICA: What?!
[the third panel shows Stu holding up a copy of "Fantastic Four"]
STU: Yeah. Most Marvel books are licensed from the real heroes. And any issue published before 2002 ...
[the fourth panel shows Jessica leafing through some of the comics, as Stu stands behind him]
STU: Bears the seal of the Comics Code of America.
JESSICA: I get it! Since they're a federal agency, that makes all of these legal documents.
STU: Yup. And in the burgeoning field of superhuman law, that makes them invaluable.

---

From wikipedia.org:

Goodman, Lieber, Kurtzberg & Holliway is a fictional law firm featured in the pages of the She-Hulk comic books - named after Marvel Founders Martin Goodman, Stan Lee, under his birth name Stanley Lieber, and Jack Kirby, using his birth name Jacob Kurtzberg - published by Marvel Comics. Created by Dan Slott, senior GLK&H law partner Holden Holliway first appeared in She-Hulk #1 (May 2004), where he hired the titular heroine to be a lawyer for his law firm, but as Jennifer Walters.

The main offices of the firm are in Timely Plaza (a reference to Timely Comics) in New York City, which, according to Dan Slott, is near the New York Supreme Court.

As a law firm specializing in superhuman law, they represent superhumans whenever they need any sort of legal help. These cases can run from libel lawsuits (such as the one launched by Spider-Man against J. Jonah Jameson in She-Hulk #4) to defending superheroes from damages (such as in She-Hulk #10, where The Constrictor sued Hercules for $168,000,000). Their legal cases also run into the outer-worldly territory, such as across time, space, and the mortal plane.

To help with legal precedents, actual Marvel Comics (especially those published with the approval of the Comics Code Authority) are routinely cited as legal documents. As a result, their library basement consists entirely of comic books, although they were forced to change over to trade paperbacks when the law offices were destroyed in She-Hulk #11 (March 2005).

[...]

Stu Cicero works in the law library basement. He was almost killed by Boomerang, but because of the shift from comics to trade paperbacks, they were thick enough to prevent a weaponized boomerang from stabbing him. He is also in possession of an official No-Prize from Marvel Comics. He was shot and appeared to be disintegrated by Arthur Zix in She-Hulk #10 (October 2006) upon discovering Zix' true identity. However, he had been merely teleported to Duckworld, pseudo-homeworld of Howard the Duck (She-Hulk v.2 #19).

---

From comicvine.com:

Stu Cicero is a huge comic book fan, and has even won Marvel's prestigious No-Prize. Stu is an employee of Goodman, Lieber, Kurtzberg & Holliway and enjoys archiving the long boxes of vintage comics in the law firm's "Basement." He took a particular liking to She-Hulk and her comics, although they were never a couple, except being good friends. Stu was once trapped on Duckworld by Artie Zix (secretly the Recorder Zeta-9), but thanks to his extensive knowledge of Marvel comics along with the help of Duktor Strange, he was able to find his way back to Earth-616. Landing in the Florida Everglades (similar to Howard the Duck), Stu briefly had to deal with the Man-Thing before he was "saved" by Manny's friend, Richard Rory. Taking his jeep, he drove back to his firm to let his co-workers know that they were about to be attacked by an "evil robot", however he was too late, as they had already known Zix's secret, and him effectively leaving into the cosmos.

---

From comicbookdb.com:

Powers: None

First Appearance: She-Hulk (2004) #2

Stu Cicero is a dedicated comics enthusiastic and was one of the comic book archivists working in "the Basement", the comic book reference library of Goodman, Lieber, Kurtzberg, & Holliway. GLK&H is the most prestigious law firm on the American east coast and has its own and fairly new superhuman law division. The Basement and its "Long Boxes" are located in their office building, Timely Plaza. GLK&H's extensive comics collection is invaluable to the firm, since most of the Marvel books they have there have been licensed by the heroes whose activities the comics depict, or the books bear the seal of the Comics Code of America, a federal agency, and thus are admissible in any court of law. Stu spent his days helping GLK&H's lawyers find reference material and reading comic books. One of his super-hero idols, She-Hulk, even came to work at GLK&H.

Eventually one of She-Hulk's enemies, Titania, attacked Timely Plaza, destroying the Long Boxes along with the rest of the building. She-Hulk took Stu in the local shop where, with the help of other comic book fans, they came up with a plan to defeat Titania.

Timely Plaza was rebuilt but most Long Boxes were switched over to trade paperback collections, which angered Stu. He had also lost a lot of weight during the rebuilding of Timely Plaza.

Stu eventually concluded the true identity of the mysterious Artie Zix, the new General Manager of GLK&H. Zix was truly a Rigellian Recorder robot RT-Z9, who Stu confronted in his office before revealing the secret to anyone else. Stu was suddenly shot with an advanced ray gun, leaving behind nothing but a smoking carpet.

Artie Zix then told the shape-shifter Ditto to impose as the missing head of the comic book reference library. Ditto was eventually uncovered by the Basement's Chas and Lewis, and Mr. Zix revealed he had only teleported Stu to another dimension known as Duckworld. RT-Z9 was unaware of a way out of Duckworld that Stu had learned from Marvel's black and white magazines. Stu looked Ducktor Strange in his hands and the mallard of myshtic artsh opened Stu a magic portal back to Earth. Stu appeared in the Nexus of All Realities in Florida and hurried back to New York to warn the others about RT-Z9. By the time Stu reached Timely Plaza, the robot posed no threat anymore and left.

Soon afterwards, Mallory Book replaced Holliway as the firm's senior partner and the firm likewise changed its name. After his time in Duckworld, his old work felt like more of the same to Stu. Luckily GLK&B's other senior partners, Mr. Lieber and Mr. Kurtzberg, used their connections to get Stu a writing job at Marvel Comics.

No comments:

Post a Comment