Hulk #41 – Review

By: Jeff Parker (writer), Gabriel Hardman (artist), Bettie Breitweiser (colorist), Ed Dukeshire (letterer), Jake Thomas (assistant editor) & Mark Paniccia (editor)

The Story: The big battle between Rulk and Omegex is upon us, plus a look back at Thunderbolt Ross’ life.

What’s Good: Let’s start with what a nice issue this is to look at. It seems especially appropriate to start with the art since this is Gaberiel Hardman’s last issue on Hulk and is off to do Planet of the Apes comics at Boom! (which should be great since he can actually draw apes very nicely). This issue really shows what a diverse artist Hardman is. You’ve got scenes of families around the Christmas tree, women with 40’s era haircuts, old cars and planes, babies, young boys who actually look like children, naked women, Hulk & Omegex fighting, female Watchers, etc. and it all looks great. Working with an artist like Hardman must be great because Parker can probably put anything in his script and it’ll turn out fabulous.

Another great thing that Hardman does in this issue is function seamlessly with colorist Bettie Breitweiser. I don’t know the technical term for this, but most of Hardman’s work is what I’d call fully rendered. By that, I mean he’s already inked in a lot of the surface texture, musculature and shading. And, that gives Breitweiser a nice canvas where she doesn’t have to waste her talents on making sure that Rulk’s pectoral muscles have the appropriate sheen on them. She can work with Hardman’s inking to make a beautiful finished product. But, what they do on the Zero/One villain is wholly different. She is colored in this two-tone gray in a circular pattern that looks kinda like a bullseye pattern is being projected onto a nude woman. Here Hardman adds almost no surface details to the character at all and allows Breitweiser do her thing. It’s a shame to see these two broken up, because they have a wonderful partnership.

WCBR’s Picks Of The Week

Best of the Past Week: Amazing Spider-Man #669 – It’s just nuts how much fun this Spider-Island “event” is, especially when you compare it to the abject failure that Fear Itself has turned into.  With Spider-Island, the main story running through the pages of Amazing Spider-Man is electric with Slott and Ramos doing their thing and that momentum is carrying over to the tie-in series (which have all been very good).  Everything that Dan Slott has done on ASM since taking over last winter has been very good, but this series goes to another level whenever Humberto Ramos is drawing it.  The combination of Slott’s fun ideas and Ramos’ energetic art is wonderful.  Runners-up: Criminal: Last of the Innocent #4 & American Vampire: Survival of the Fittest #4

Most Anticipated This Week: Batman #1 – There are some other comics I’m looking forward to, but when you combine a writer (Scott Snyder) who I love with an incredible artist like Greg Capullo, I expect really big things.  I mean….Snyder is fresh off an epic Batman story and Capullo is one of the most underappreciated artists in the biz.  Most mainstream fans think of him as “that Spawn guy”.  Well….they’re going to learn what a beast Capullo is.  I can’t wait!  I’ll be sitting there with my iPad at 2:00 waiting for this one to go live on the DC app.

Other picks: Avengers: The Children’s Crusade #7, Hulk #41, Spider-Island: Cloak & Dagger #2, Thunderbolts #163.1, X-Men #18, X-Men: Schism $4, Game of Thrones #1, Treehouse of Horror #17