Hulk #32 – Review

By: Jeff Parker (writer), Gabriel Hardman (art), Elizabeth Breitweiser (colors), Ed Dukeshire (letters), Jake Thomas (assistant editor), Mark Paniccia (editor)

The Story: Red Hulk continues to be on the run from Gen. Ross’ former second-in-command, while unbeknownst to him…. a new enemy is emerging.

What’s Good: Jeff Parker is really making this a fun series to read.  Maybe it’s because Red Hulk is a relatively new character and we’re still learning about his capabilities and motivations, but everything about him seems new and fresh.  This current plotline where Gen. Ross’ former #2 has infected Red Hulk’s brain with nano-robots that will explode and kill him if he sleeps or reverts to human form is really compelling.  One of the neat things about Red Hulk under Parker is that he has this “old warrior” vibe to him: He’s old and achey (even as a Hulk), but he’ll still get up and go the jobs that need to be done.  So, putting Red Hulk in a situation where he can’t go to sleep just accentuates the great “world weary” feel that Parker has cultivated.

Of course, it wouldn’t be a Red Hulk comic without some good Hulk-action and we get that as Red Hulk saves a small town from a tornado.  I like that: Hulks taking on forces of nature!

Meanwhile, Parker is continuing to cultivate his B-story with the new villain, Zero/One who is a scientist melded with some smart alloy that has turned her into some kinda super-powered, emotionless automaton.  For some reason (see below), she wants to kill Red Hulk and goes about enlisting a new army of bad guys to that end.  There’s nothing necessarily remarkable about her (or her cohorts as villains), but I applaud Parker for bringing in some new bad guys.  Just as Red Hulk is himself fresh because we don’t know everything about him, these new villains should be pretty cool and unpredictable.  I honestly have no idea what a Red Hulk – Zero/One fight would look like and that’s a great thing.

I’m just going to rig up an autotext for the art from Gabriel Hardman and Elizabeth Breitweiser because it’s great again.  Every month I think Hardman’s work is even better than the month before.  His storytelling is impeccable and everything about the work just screams: Professional.  The whole comic is very well done and it has a few of those “Wow!” panels (Hulk pressing a pickup truck over his head).  I think he is also getting better at understanding how Breitweiser is going to color a panel because in some panels, he’s letting her do all the cool stuff with her colors instead of trying to draw those details in himself.  This is really a beautiful comic and a large part of that are Breitweiser’s muted and unique colors.

Weekly Comic Book Review’s Top Picks

Dean’s Top Picks

Best From The Past Week: Uncanny X-Men #535 – I should go back through my notes to see if I’ve ever let Uncanny X-Men wear the Big Sombrero and get to strut around as Best of the Week, but I don’t think I have before.  This comic made me so happy.  As a child of the 1980’s, Uncanny X-Men was the comic book for me and when I got back into comics as an adult, it really pained me that it often wasn’t a very good title.  Sure, there were often other X-books that were pretty good, but I wanted Uncanny to be good dammit!  So, I was extremely tickled to see Kieron Gillen knock his first issue out of the park with a fun and fast paced story that takes a small group (thank you) of X-Men off on a cool mission to mop-up some Break World leftovers from Whedon’s Astonishing X-Men run.  Great art by the Dodson’s too!  Runner-up: The Unwritten #24

Most Anticipated: Dark Horse Presents #1 – I LOVE me some anthologies and not many anthologies have a stronger pedigree than Dark Horse Presents.  Dark Horse properties such as Concrete, NextMen and Sin City are just a few of the properties that were first printed in earlier iterations of DHP.  This issue promises the first Concrete story in awhile, a Star Wars story and a sneak-peak at Xerxes (Frank Miller’s follow-up to 300).  Chances are there will be at least one awesome story in this issue.

Other picks: 68 #1, Hack Slash #3, Super Dinosaur #1, 28 Days Later #22, Thunderbolts #156, Hulk #32

Alex’s Top Picks

Best From The Past Week: Journey into Mystery #622 – Despite it being a big week, this was an easy pick.  Journey into Mystery was possibly the best first issue of 2011.  If you are at all interested in Thor, or fantasy in general, you need to be reading this comic.  If future issues are as good as this one, this may end up being Marvel’s best book, or at the very least in the running for that title.

Most Anticipated: Uncanny X-Force #8 – Whoa, two weeks in a row of Rick Remender’s Uncanny X-Force?  That’s awesome.  More awesome still is the fact that this issue sees the return of Jerome Opena on art.  I like Esad Ribic fine enough, but Opena’s work on this series has been outstanding.  Couple that with a plot that sounds like some over-the-top, 80s/90s, goodness and I am very excited.  Even if you can’t stand X-books, I highly recommend you give this book a shot.  It’s one of the very best team-books on the market.

Other Picks: Green Lantern Corps #59, Green Lantern #65, DMZ #64, Avengers #12, Invincible Iron Man #503, Iron Man 2.0 #4, Wolverine #8, Scarlet #5