Hulk #17 – Review

By Jeph Loeb (writer), Ian Churchill (artist)

The Story: Red Hulk gets betrayed by his Code Red team, including Thundra.  Thundra betrays the Code Red team for Red Hulk.  Red Hulk tries to kill Red She-Hulk.  Red Hulk decides to not kill Red She-Hulk.  Red Hulk is blind.  Red Hulk is not blind.  Red Hulk is a bad guy.  Red Hulk is now not so much a bad guy.  Oh, and Red Hulk and Thundra go to a barbershop for a haircut, possibly.

What’s Good: Hmm…  Well….  Let’s see…  What’s good, what’s good…  You know, this issue had a very nice variant cover by Ed Mcguinness that makes this look a lot like an issue of X-Force and I’m a big fan of X-Force.  Although, they only show up for three pages toward the end, so it’s actually pretty misleading.  Still, nice cover…

…Okay, yeah, that’s all I’ve got.

What’s Not So Good: A lot of people criticize Jeph Loeb’s Hulk for being the comic book equivalent of a Jerry Bruckheimer or Michael Bay film: light on the plot, heavy on the action.  While it’s a fairly apt assessment, I actually don’t mind that fact.  I’m a believer that you need to have different types of stories out there to service different types of fans.  Often enough, you even must have different types of stories to service the same fan, who might just be in a different mood than the day before.  There are plenty of times when I just want to turn off the ol’ brain and put a stop to the constant solving of mathematical equations and medical breakthroughs that threaten to overwhelm me.  (Okay, what I really want to put a stop to is my constant cataloging of every superhero who’s ever been an Avenger and my inner debate over whether or not Magneto was Xorn or Xorn was Magneto or whatever.  But I digress.)  A good “popcorn comic” like Hulk is just what I need when I want to decompress.  However, this issue ends up really maxing out the dumb on the dumb fun scale.

Loeb’s script seems to be an exercise in stream of consciousness.  Allegiances switch during the course of story for no other discernible reason except that it’s been three pages and we need a twist.  The logic behind the Punisher and Deadpool betraying the Red Hulk are just lazy, and so is the sudden decision behind Rulk’s letting Red She-Hulk live.  I understand that we need to have her stick around because, well, I don’t really know why we need to have her stick around but she has big boobs and she’s red and a hulk so there are reasons.  However, Loeb just, seemingly, arbitrarily changes Rulk’s mind mid-battle.  It’s a clumsy development and, like much of the issue, seems forced and false.

Clumsy is also a great description of Loeb’s ham-handed meta-reference to the rationale behind the Red Hulk’s choice of Code Red team-members.  Just because the writer points out a glaring hole in his plot does not make the plot hole okay.  It’s almost insulting when he then follows this by trying to explain away said plot hole with the sloppiest possible justification I’ve read in a long time.  Basically, the Punisher, Deadpool and Crimson Dynamo were picked to be on the team because they’re a bunch of Yentas.  I wish I was joking.  Speaking of Yentas, when the heck did Elektra become so talkative?  Has Loeb ever read an issue of Daredevil?  I was left with the impression that he simply needed someone to speak certain dialogue and was left with Elektra.  Then again, maybe she was a Skrull.

There’s not much to say about Ian Churchill’s artwork here.  It’s certainly not bad by any stretch, but it never seems to fit the subject matter.  Where artists like Arthur Adams and Ed Mcguinness have managed to channel Loeb’s bigger-than-life characters and events into mouth-watering visuals, Churchill’s cartoony style comes off at odds with the plot. Red Hulk specifically loses much of the weight that made him appear so imposing in previous issues.  Under Churchill’s pencil, the figure almost looks silly.

Conclusion: Look, I know that no writer, no matter what we might think, ever aims to write a bad story.  I do think that a writer has a sense of responsibility to make his plots make sense and work within its established parameters.  Sadly, Hulk #17 does almost none of these things.  Nice variant cover, though…

Grade: F

-Joe Lopez