Incredible Hulks #635 – Review

Heart of the Monster by: Greg Pak (writer), Paul Pelletier (art), Danny Miki (inks), Morry Hollowell (colors) & Simon Bowland (letters)

Conclusion by: Pak (writer), Tom Grummett (art), Cory Hamscher & Scott Hanna (inks), Jesus Aburtov (colors) & Bowland (letters)

Jake Thomas (assistant editor) & Mark Paniccia (editor)

The Story: Greg Pak wraps up the Heart of the Monster story AND his ~6 year run on Incredible Hulk.

What’s Good: Hulk is one of those characters that can be great in the hands of a writer who knows how to use him, but Hulk can also be really dismal with a mediocre writer.  So, let’s give Greg Pak an huge round of applause for 6 years of (mostly) really good Hulk stories AND a special gold star for giving us Planet Hulk which is the best Hulk story ever written (go read it if you haven’t).

This issue wraps up the really cool Heart of the Monster storyline.  The essence of this story is that a Wishing Well has been created and Hulk and Betty and all other sorts of characters have been making wishes that have led to things like Kirby-monsters stampeding in Vegas and the Hulk getting sent to Hell (although it is unclear who wished for this).  Sounds grim until you consider that for Hulk, hell is probably heaven: He has lots of things to fight and doesn’t have to worry about going too far and destroying the world by accident.  It’s serious Hulk smashing action at its best.

Naturally, there is great sentiment by the heroes to let Hulk stay there since he’s finally at peace (as he’s ripping demons apart) and not threatening Earth anymore, but what would that mean for Banner?  Does Banner die if Hulk is allowed to cut loose for an extended period of time?  And could there be anything back on Earth sufficient to justify dragging an enraged Hulk back to Earth?  Obviously there is, but the way that Pak takes us from point A to point B is really cool.

Herc #6 – Review

By: Greg Pak & Fred Van Lente (writers), Neil Edwards (penciller), Cory Hamscher (inker), Jesus Aburtov (colorist)

The Story: Brother, do you know the Truth about Herc?  Oh, ye of little faith…

The Review: For the last couple issues, I’ve concluded that even with the Fear Itself brand and obligatory tie-in issues, this title hasn’t really been affected all that much by the Event.  Pak-Van Lente have managed to execute a story arc that seems in keeping with their original agenda: let Herc savor the mortal life; give him a new residence, mission statement, and outfit; have him experience the ups of a loving crowd and the downs of a popular backlash.

As well as Pak-Van Lente have carried these points to fruition, there’s a rushed quality to it all that suggests Fear Itself actually has affected the title in a subtle fashion.  I noted last issue that since Herc has been mortal for only a short while (even shorter in context of the story), Hermes’ invitation to return to Olympus feels very premature.  The same feeling lingers through this issue’s major moments; they’re all good, appropriate scenes, but seem a couple arcs too early.

Kingpin prophetically commented that people love to build up an idol and tear him down, and while Herc now has firsthand experience of that, it doesn’t feel entirely genuine considering the Brooklynites’ behavior dances to the three magical tunes: the Norse serpent, witch-goddess Hecate, and son of Ares Kyknos.  Even so, that Herc’s unyielding courage proves affecting enough to sway the New Yorkers out of their panic-induced violence is heartwarming indeed.

Similarly, the big turning point in the issue involves Rhea drastically redefining her relationship with Herc, but since they’ve only known each other for about two days, their relationship hadn’t much of a definition at all beyond possibly “friends with benefits.”  The scene where she finally gives up her revolutionary ideals in favor of simple faith in our hero definitely builds well on her initial view of Herc merely as a useful symbol, but lacks the impact it’d have had we seen more interaction between the two or more of her rationalist behavior at work.

Herc #5 – Review

By: Greg Pak & Fred Van Lente (writers), Neil Edwards (penciller), Cory Hamscher (inker), Jesus Aburtov (colorist)

The Story: And here I thought New York City couldn’t get any weirder.

The Review: Even though in both his mythic and comic book incarnations Hercules technically gets counted as a god (of heroes, no less), it’s hard to think of him as such.  We are far more familiar with his exploits as an adventurer on Earth than those he ever had as a divinity, and especially in the comic books, his brash, gung-ho personality hardly lends itself to the lofty purposes of his fellow immortals.

Small wonder then that the cries of his “worshippers” for help serve to merely annoy him to distraction (“And if you left me in peace for five seconds perhaps they’d be answered!”) more than please him.  Still, even though he’s no god any longer, Herc is ever the mensch, vowing to do right by those that remain his faithful.  On an interesting note, one I’m rather ashamed to not have noticed before, does anyone find it odd how as a mortal, he can still hear “prayers” to him?

Considering Herc has been mortal for—what?—four days in-story, his meeting with Hermes, who bears a possible offer of godhood from Zeus, seems rather premature.  If anything, the speech and command for our favorite hero to return to Olympus and stand by while the world passes into its twilight hour is merely a contrived way for Pak-Van Lente to incorporate elements from Fear Itself, which has only tangentially affected this title despite the brand on the cover.

You’ll have the strong suspicion that, had it not been for the obligatory Event tie-in, the writers would’ve really preferred to devote more time to Herc’s struggles against the entire borough of Brooklyn gone wild magic.  Herc’s attempts to confront his challenges head-on, only to fall back thanks to new ones constantly popping up behind him, should be more enjoyable, but feels too truncated to develop beyond a passable energy.

Chaos War: Dead Avengers #3 – Review

By: Fred Van Lente (writer), Tom Grummett (pencils), Cory Hamscher & Terry Pallot (inks), Andy Troy & Matt Milla (colors), Ed Dukeshire (letters) & Mark Paniccia (editor)

The Story: Will the Dead Avengers be able to withstand the final assault by the Grim Reaper and save the Comatose Avengers.

What’s Good: This has been the best of the Chaos War tie-ins by a long way.  It has felt very connected with the main Chaos War story and it also just makes sense as a story.  The credit for that (I assume) goes to writer, Fred Van Lente.  Mr. Van Lente is also writing Chaos War proper (thus the congruence with the main event) and generally hasn’t written a bad story in quite a while.  I’m always impressed by his ability to make just about any comic scenario interesting.

This issue has a high degree of difficulty too.  The general premise is that since “death” has been destroyed by the Chaos King (and all mortal humans have been tossed into a coma), some Dead Avengers are back and take it upon themselves to make sure that some Dead Villains (notably The Grim Reaper) don’t kill Spidey, Bucky Cap, Spiderwoman, et al while they’re flopped out on the floor.  The trouble for Van Lente is that he needs to have most of his toys put away by the end of this issue because you just know that the end result of Chaos War isn’t going to be that all the Dead Avengers are alive again.  Maybe one or two, but not all.  So, Van Lente sets about writing an entertaining and well-paced story under this constraint.  Most of the toys are put away by the end of the issue and a few others look to have roles to play in the finale of Chaos War proper.

Inkers make a big difference.  I should know better since I collect original comic art, but I often gloss over inkers in doing reviews because it is just hard to distinguish (at least for me) how much is inker and how much is penciler.  What we get in this issue is still some very classic Tom Grummett super-heroes, but the fact that we have two inkers on this issue allows me to appreciate inker Cory Hamscher too.  A lot of that classic goodness in the past couple issues of Dead Avengers was his work.  Let me also take a minute to talk about an artistic subject that has been bugging me recently: Noses!  There is a current trend with some of our younger artists (many of whom I LOVE) to shade noses such that it looks like they have a Breathe-Right Nasal Strip on their snout.  I think that some of these younger artists (who have worked largely in the B&W world previously) are used to letting colorist highlight that nose for you.  I draw your attention to how Grummett and Hamscher draw noses on the Vision in this book.  Perfect!  No weird shading!  Young artists should take note of this!

Chaos War: Dead Avengers #2 – Review

By: Fred Van Lente (writer), Tom Grummett (pencils), Cory Hamscher (inks), Andy Troy & Sotocolor (colors), Ed Dukeshire (letters) & Mark Paniccia (editor)

The Story: The Dead Avengers continue in an attempt to protect the current/living/comatose Avengers from a “back from the dead” Grim Reaper.

What’s Good: This is a great little tie-in series to the Chaos War event for a few reasons, a) it makes sense with the overall story and doesn’t seem forced, b) it is not essential to your enjoyment of Chaos War proper, c) it adds to your enjoyment of the overall event if you read it and d) it is not causing any continuity problems.

The basic story is that the Chaos King has put all mortal humans on Earth into a coma and brought all of the dead back to life.  Only, they aren’t ghoulish zombies…. they’re just who they were before they died, with all their memories, motives, etc. intact.  Oh, and the bad guys seem to be really powered up.  So, when a group of Dead Avengers is revived and finds current Avengers flopped around comatose with a revived Grim Reaper trying to kill them, they leap into action.

What is great is that writer Van Lente is spending a little bit of time showing the back story of each of the Dead Avengers.  That’s appreciated because some of these characters have been out of comics for a long time.  He also gives each of them a unique voice and motivation for wanting to help out.  And, in true Van Lente fashion, there are a couple of “panels of the week candidates” that make you snicker as you read (loved the Swordsman coming on to Yellowjacket and explaining that he can’t help it because he is French).  Van Lente is one of the real stars at Marvel and why they haven’t locked him up with an “exclusive” deal is beyond me.  His comics are always entertaining and even when I don’t think I’ll enjoy the subject matter (i.e. Dead Avengers) I find myself having a great time reading.  I think his secret is that he’s using just the right about of continuity to “matter” but not so much that the story is bogged down.

Grummett’s pencils are also really sweet.  He’s a veteran of comic art and for some reason his style has kinda fallen out of favor, but I don’t know why.  Perhaps it is because his characters look like they conform to more of a “house style” and artists today have to be individuals?  But, this is just flat out nice artwork in a very throwback way (i.e. is faithful to human muscle groups).  And, for this type of story, dealing with mortal danger, this sort of classic, super-hero art is more appropriate than a more cartooning style.  Also kudos to the rest of the art team.  Nice inks, pretty colors and even some creative lettering.

Chaos War: Dead Avengers #1 – Review

By: Fred Van Lente (writer), Tom Grummett (pencils), Cory Hamscher (inks), Andy Troy (colors), Ed Dukeshire (letters) & Mark Paniccia (editor)

The Story: The Chaos King has struck all living mortal heroes dead/comatose, so it falls upon a group of dead Avengers to save innocent civilians and the helpless Avengers.

What’s Good: How many truly interesting superhero characters actually stay dead for very long?  The answer is “not many”, so if you want to do a “dead heroes” issue like this one, you have a challenge as a writer because the only dead heroes are so boring that no one has tried to bring them back. This was a problem that killed the X-Necrosha event last year: Who cared about these dead mutants?  We were glad they were dead and didn’t like being reminded of them!

So Van Lente faced a big obstacle to making this an interesting book.  But the cool thing is that I would totally read an ongoing series written by Van Lente featuring these characters: Vision, Yellowjacket, Swordsman, Dr. Druid, Mar-Vell & Deathcry.  That in itself should make you appreciate what a nice job of writing this is!  Van Lente does a solid job of laying out the scenario that these “dead Avengers” face, who they are and what they can do (coupled with a few origin style flashbacks).  The storytelling is nice and tight and leaves us with a satisfying cliffhanger that makes one anticipate next month’s issue.

Incredible Hercules #127 – Review

By Fren Van Lente and Greg Pak (writers), Dietrich Smith (artist), Cory Hamscher (inker)

The Story: What the hell just happened?  It took TWO writers to come up with this!?  Aegis, a completely forgettable character from New Warriors, is apparently killed by a member of Hera’s dark pantheon to absolutely nobody’s regret.  Hera meets with Hercules, Amadeus, and Athena to talk about how much she dislikes them, and Norman “Are You Sick of Seeing Me In All Your Comics Yet?” Osborn shows up with the Dark Avengers to discuss how much he generally dislikes everybody.  There, I just saved you $2.99.  If you still want more though, read on…

The Good: I grinned at the idea of a Greek diner being used as holy ground for the gods to convene without fear of agression against themselves, and enjoyed Smith’s double page spread of the Dark Avengers, but those things aren’t nearly enough to justify buying the comic, especially when this title is usually capable of packing so much more value and entertainment into its pages.

The Not So Good: How about everything other than the previous two ideas I just mentioned?  I don’t know if this was a bizarre standalone issue, a “Dark Reign” tie-in forced upon the creative team, or the first episode of an inexplicable storyline, all I can say is that this is the first issue of Incredible Hercules that completely failed to entertain me.  Van Lente and Pak have done amazing work on this title and I’ve been singing their praises for months now, but this issue was an incredibly poor example of what they are otherwise capable of achieving.

Conclusion: A waste of the paper it was printed on.  You don’t need this.

Grade: D-

Tony Rakittke

Giant-Size Incredible Hulk #1 – Review

Roger Stern (Writer), Zach Howard & Cory Hamscher (Artists), John Byrne (Pencils), Bob Layton (Inks)

This Giant-Size Hulk is a bit of a mixed bag. We’ve got a pair of stories by Roger Stern, one new and one a reprint from 1978’s Incredible Hulk Annual #7, which, although Marvel claims it’s hard to find, seems fairly plentiful if you cared to look for it. The new tale follows a one-time Hulk sidekick, Fred Sloan, as he interviews people who have seen or encountered the Hulk in an attempt to write a biography that is fair to the misunderstood green giant. It’s a decent one-off story that reads like a throw back to an earlier era of the Hulk (in fact it reminds me of something you’d have read in the Rampaging Hulk, if you remember that magazine). This book feels completely divorced from current continuity, so if that sort of thing bugs you then this may not be the book for you.

I’ll wager a guess that Sloan and his subjects are all characters from Stern’s run on the Hulk in the late 70’s. I don’t have those books to check, but it sure feels like he’s revisiting his time on the book. The art for the story is serviceable – nothing to write home about. At times it slips into too cartoonish a style for my tastes and suffers by comparison with Byrne’s work in the reprint.

The reprint story is first rate. I don’t recall ever having read it, so it was a fresh read. It co-stars the Angel and the Ice-Man from their Champions days. They enlist the Hulk’s aid against a Sentinel, go into space, and generally sit back while the Hulk gets in his licks. This is a fun read if you like action packed, self-contained stories. It’s also a chance to enjoy John Byrne on a character with whom he’s not ordinarily associated. (Grade: B)

-Arthur Cooke