Chaos War #5 – Review

By: Greg Pak & Fred Van Lente (writers), Khoi Pham (pencils), Thomas Palmer & Bob McLeod (inks), Sunny Gho (colors), Simon Bowland (letters) & Mark Paniccia (editor)

The Story: Time for the final throwdown battle between Herc and the Chaos King!

What’s Good: This Herc storyline wrapped up in a really nice and fun way.  As one would expect, the supporting cast gets relegated to… well… supporting roles to make way for Herc and his buddy Cho to save the day.  In the end, it is a combination of Cho’s genius and Herc taking a heroic turn that defeat the Chaos King.

Van Lente and Pak have come up with some neat ideas in their time as collaborators, but the resolution that Cho comes up with the beat the Chaos King is one of their best.  There is really no way to discuss it without SPOILING it, so you’ve been warned…  As the issue unfolds, things look pretty bleak for the heroes, but just as things look their darkest, Cho and Galactus collaborate to form a pocket universe into which the humans of Earth can be evacuated.  Only there isn’t going to be anywhere near enough time to get everyone out (since even a powered-up Herc is able to do little more than delay Chaos King).  Suddenly it dawns on Cho to just toss the Chaos King into the pocket universe.  There he can be happy with his entropy and life can return to normal in the Marvel U.  The end!  How cool is that?

This story also has some fallout.  Herc powered up greatly during the course of this story, but let’s just say that he is NOT the same at the end.  Oh, and a certain team of superheroes made famous by John Bryne seems to still be alive at the end of the issue.  Cool!

The art in this issue does a solid job with the story telling and that is what art really needs to do in a comic.  Good story telling is preferable to the occasional artistic flourish that sacrifices the story.  The layouts are impeccable and Pham does a great job of conveying the epic scale of a battle between Gods.

Chaos War #4 – Review

By: Greg Pak & Fred Van Lente (writer), Khoi Pham (pencils), Thomas Palmer (inks), Sunny Gho (colors), Simon Bowland (letters) & Mark Paniccia (editor)

The Story: Now that the Chaos King has given the beat-down to just about the entire Marvel U., how is anyone going to stand up to him?

What’s Good: This issue becomes much more of a Hercules story than a Marvel U. story.  If you’re a Herc fan, you’ll love it because all of the other Marvel characters who have played roles in Chaos War thus far kinda fade to the side.

The central problem is that Herc’s God Squad and all other forces standing against the Chaos King have been pretty thoroughly trounced and they’ll either have to flee (which leads to a neat Galactus/Cho moment) OR someone is going to have to seriously level-up.  I’ll let you guess what is probably going to happen as the issue ends on a note that makes me excited for issue #5.

Pham, Palmer and Gho continue to do a nice job on the art.  A special kudos needs to go to colorist Sunny Gho.  Colors are really important to making cosmic or godly events seem…well…cosmic and godly.  And he does a very nice job.  Also, I usually don’t care about cover art at all, but Dan Panosian’s cover is really nice.  Note, I’m giving the kudos based on the art being a pin-up and I’ll discuss the dictated content below.

Chaos War #3 – Review

By: Fred Van Lente & Greg Pak (writers), Khoi Pham (art), Sunny Gho (colors) & Simon Bowland (letters)

The Story: The Chaos King ramps up his attack on the godly realms.

What’s Good: If you were not a religious Hercules reader (and perhaps even if you were), Chaos War #1 was pretty uneven.  After reading it, you couldn’t help but think that Marvel had screwed the pooch by having FOURTEEN tie-in issues (one-shots & minis) associated with this event.  “Those aren’t going to sell at ALL”, thought this reviewer.  But then Chaos War #2 was quite good and now Chaos War #3 is seriously excellent.  Those tie-ins are looking very purchasable right now!

This comic is everything you could want in a big event comic: the stakes feel very large and it has big action.  And I mean BIG action…..like Zeus punching Galactus in the face!

Catching up on the story, the Chaos King, in the form of Amatsu-Mikaboshi (Wiki it if you’re confused) has laid waste to the planes of Hell and now is turning his attention on the various realms of “heaven” leaving nothing but Herc and his God Squad to save the universe.  It is very good and has lots of big, “hell yeah” or “Oh no!” scenes as well has some trademark Van Lente humor (Amadeus and Thor getting a little friendly when Venus sings a love song).

This was Pham’s strongest issue of the series thus far and there are a few really spectacular splash pages (i.e. you don’t feel ripped off that you sacrificed an entire page of story for that).  He and Palmer give this comic an almost throw-backy feel with all the cross-hatching as contrasted with the heavy shadow we see in so many Marvel books these days. But, it is throw-back with modern sensibilities in terms of panel construction, perspective and coloring.  It is very nice.

Chaos War #2 – Review

By: Greg Pak & Fred Van Lente (writers), Khoi Pham (pencils), Thomas Palmer (inks), Sunny Gho (colors) & Simon Bowland (letters)

The Story: The Chaos King continues his assault, taking on underworld as Herc tries to raise a squad of immortals to defend the universe.

What’s Good: There was just something wrong with Chaos War #1.  If you were not following the overall Hercules story for the last couple of years, you felt a little like being at a cocktail party where you don’t know anyone and no one is really making an effort to include you in the conversation.  BUT, after reading through this issue #2, you feel like you know everyone and that this is a party that you won’t mind hanging out at too much.

It was just a lot of fun seeing Herc trying to raise a team of gods to do battle with the Chaos King.  Of course, he’s going to get Thor and that’s kinda fun because neither of them is the sharpest tool in the shed (moreso Herc).  And there is a fun little scene of Venus trying to revive the fallen mortals by singing Bob Marley (“Get up, stand up…” it must be a LOT of fun to pick these slightly inappropriate songs for Venus).  But from there the fun really begins as Herc starts using his new supergod powers to summon a raft of big-time powerful folks to help in his battle against the Chaos King and they’ll need it because the Chaos King has some serious firepower on his side too (as if he needs it).  This issue just clicked in a way that the first one did not, so if you were really down on the first issue understand that you might want to give it another chance.