Incredible Hercules #136 – Review

By Greg Pak & Fred Van Lente (writers), Reilly Brown (artist), Nelson DeCastro (inker), Guillem Mari & Ulises Areola (colorists)

The Story: As Queen Alfyse prepares to lead her kingdom to war against Asgard, the epic saga of Thorcules and Hercuthor ends the only way it can, with the bad boys of polytheism throwing down and giving each other the gift of battle!

The Good: This latest storyline is easily one of the finest crafted by Pak and Van Lente, and that’s high praise for a book that is telling consistently good stories month after month.  Part of what makes this comic, and this storyline in particular; so successful is that for the time being at least both Hercules and Thor have the benefit of being kept at a relatively safe distance from the mainstream Marvel universe.  Since neither character is currently mired in continuity they are both free to enjoy a certain degree of latitude, which the creative team takes full advantage of to great effect.  This issue sees the delightfully absurd premise of Hercules pretending to be Thor taken to its logical extreme as Thor does unto Herc what’s already been done to him.  Presumably this is done in order to somehow stem the tide of Queen Alfyse’s impending war, but we know the real reason is simply to give the guys a chance to beat on each other while wearing each other’s clothes, and oddly enough I am so okay with that.  The battle royal between Herc and Thor is as much a raucous comedy as it is an epic, glorious brawl, and you’ll find it hard not to chuckle as each champion resorts to a string of dirty tricks to best the other.  The best part is that you can still pick up this issue without having read the previous ones and still follow along just fine, and in my opinion that is one of the hallmarks of some great storytelling.  I would of course be remiss if I didn’t compliment Brown and the art team for brilliant rendering this tale of balderdash and bravura, as their efforts made every page a pleasure to take in and enjoy.

The Not So Good:  You’ll notice soon that the brawl between Hercules and Thor devolves into a series of progressively infantile jokes and will either find them to be thoroughly amusing or just a tad too juvenile and out of character.  You wouldn’t be wrong either way though, just be forewarned that this is not your typical superhero battle.  Then again, maybe that’s a good thing.

Conclusion:  Wow, what a damn good comic!  You can’t go wrong with picking up Incredible Hercules 136 this week.  Not to be missed!

Grade:  A

-Tony Rakittke

Incredible Hercules #134 – Review

By Greg Pak & Fred Van Lente (writers), Reilly Brown (artist), Nelson DeCastro (inker), Guillem Mari (colors)

The Story: The Mighty Thorcules and his child-father Zeus continue their excellent adventure through the realms of Asgard, stopping along the way to give the gift of battle to a band of trolls, share double entendres with the queen of the dark elves, and find yet more ridiculously amusing ways to ruin their best laid plans.

The Good: Everything, I kid you not, but especially the fine folks making this comic.  With the addition of the art team of Brown, DeCastro, and Mari, I feel like Incredible Hercules has finally found the quality of talent it needs to bring to life the light-hearted kinds of stories Pak and Van Lente are knocking out of the ballpark month after month.  If every single person producing this book hasn’t yet been offered an exclusive contract, then Marvel is making a huge mistake, since they have the right people for this book. I’d love to see them all stay on it for as long as possible. That said, this continues to be a very funny comic, and while the rest of the Marvel Universe seems to be drowning in a sea of grim melodrama, I really appreciate that I can turn to this book to escape all the bleakness and simply have some fun.

The Not So Good: The only thing that slightly annoyed me with this issue was DeCastro’s heavy-handed inks, especially the way he seemed to outline characters thick, black lines.  This approach often made pages look like they were animation cels, which in turn made the overall story a little too cute and a little light-hearted at times.  If DeCastro would ease up a little on the ink, this would easily be corrected.  Even if he doesn’t though, I didn’t find it to be a big enough problem to detract from the story.

Conclusion: Incredible Hercules is a great book made even better with a  stellar creative team now firmly in place.  Longtime fans of the character, and anyone familiar with his rivalry with Thor, will surely bust a gut laughing throughout storyline. And judging from the last page, I’d say things are about to become funnier than ever.

Grade:  B+

-Tony Rakittke