Review: Indestructible Hulk Vol. 1: Agent of SHIELD hardcover/paperback (Marvel Comics)

[Review by Doug Glassman, who Tumblrs at Hell Yeah '80s Marvel!]

Writing a Hulk comic book can be difficult because he is one of the rare heroes where his heroic identity and secret identity are truly two different people. Even though they share a body, Bruce Banner often does not remember what he did as the Hulk, which is a scary proposition considering what his alter ego is capable of.

Some writers combine Banner’s intelligence with the Hulk’s body; Peter David did this during his seminal run with both Grey Hulk and the “Professor” persona, and Greg Pak did it later in Planet Hulk and World War Hulk. All of those are excellent stories, but Mark Waid’s take in Indestructible Hulk: Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. perhaps approaches the Banner/Hulk dynamic best of all.

Waid positions Indestructible Hulk as a book about Bruce Banner first and foremost; while the Hulk certainly does appear and has a number of great action scenes, he barely has any speech. Some might see this as undoing David and Pak’s work in creating a smart but angry Hulk, but most of the damage had already been done in Jeph Loeb’s Red Hulk stories and Jason Aaron’s bizarre misstep in splitting the Hulk in two and making Banner a supervillain. The “dumbing down” of the Hulk also has to do with the film portrayal; it’s simply too difficult right now to create a seamless, talking Hulk in convincing CGI, and most viewers know the Hulk mainly in his “savage” persona.

To make this new concept work, Waid takes away one of the driving themes of many Hulk stories in the past: Banner’s desire to get rid of his other half. Now he considers the Hulk a part of him rather than just a disease; instead of wasting resources on getting rid of it, he’s going to make the best use of his time as a monster. This is done, as the title of the trade implies, by working for S.H.I.E.L.D. as both a researcher and a weapon. Most of the time, he and his handpicked team discover new energy sources and create life-saving inventions. Should he turn into the Hulk in the process, S.H.I.E.L.D. can airlift him out and drop him onto an AIM base to wreak some havoc. The motif of a ticking clock is present throughout the first issue to drive the time-management concept home.

This new arrangement of more Banner and less Hulk also ties into Secret Avengers, Avengers Assemble: Science Bros and other Avengers stories. As I mentioned in that review, the “Science Bros” concept is a wonderful way to inject new life into Iron Man and the Hulk, and the second issue of Indestructible Hulk takes the concept further. The jealousy at the heart of their friendship is finally exposed, and considering all the crap Bruce Banner has been through during the last fifty years, you can understand why he wants to start over. It also reminds me of Waid’s Daredevil and Matt Murdock’s quest to change his life, and the connection is strengthened in the next volume with a team-up between Daredevil and the Hulk.

Even while Waid changes the Hulk’s characterization and status quo, he keeps up strong ties to the character’s past with the use of certain villains. The first issue pits the Hulk against the Mad Thinker, whose science-backed arrogance is his undoing, as usual. This fight takes place in Manchester, Alabama -- a name familiar for readers of Waid’s Impulse series. In the third issue, the Hulk takes on the Quintronic Man, which is easily one of the strangest versions of a piloted robot ever put on the page. Waid gets around resurrecting its pilots by having a new villain route his thought pattern through the pilots’ corpses in order to take over the robot. This is the first fight of the new Hulk against AIM, and it sets up the Hulk’s participation in Secret Avengers.

Issues four and five pit Hulk against a teammate of a sort, Attuma, who served alongside him as one of the Fearless in Fear Itself. This connection isn’t played up or even mentioned, but along with the overall swift pace of the story, I think the two-parter was cut down from a three-parter. A bit too much takes place off-panel and the Hulk’s Chinese and Lemurian allies never really get established. I think what happened is that the Hulk/Thor story starting in issue six, drawn by Walt Simonson, needed more space ... and if you’re going to get Simonson to draw Thor, you should give him as much room as he needs.

The art for Indestructible Hulk is provided by Leinil Francis Yu, with stylistic inks from Gerry Alanguilan and impressive colors from Sunny Gho. They’re so key to the look of the book that both are listed on the covers for issues four and five; it’s not often that the inker and colorist make the cover these days. Chris Eliopoulos devised a clever font for the book which grows in size when Banner Hulks out. There are moments when the book looks a bit blurry due to the computer-assisted art techniques, but that gets worked out quickly.

It’s rare for a thorough reinvention of a major Marvel character to be so impressive, but Mark Waid did the necessary work in Indestructible Hulk: Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. to keep the Hulk relevant for years to come. Working for S.H.I.E.L.D. removes the common “indigent Banner” trope while opening up new opportunities for storytelling. Only the addition of Banner’s hovering robot assistant R.O.B. seems out of place, but I think even Waid dislikes the concept, as R.O.B. is barely present.

Add in the art from Yu, Alanguilan and Gho and you have a solid opening. The hardcover is, like all of the Marvel NOW hardcovers, far too overpriced for a five-issue collection, but definitely get the paperback or digital trade, especially because the next volume is even better. Meanwhile, next week we’ll look in on the Hulk and his new S.H.I.E.L.D. friends in Secret Avengers: Reverie.

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Review: Hulk Vol. 6: World War Hulks hardcover/paperback (Marvel Comics)

[The final of our trio of Marvel guest reviews this week comes from Zach King, concluding his look at Jeph Loeb's Hulk. Zach blogs about movies as The Cinema King]

With World War Hulks, Jeph Loeb's six-volume run with the Gamma Green Giant and his Crimson Counterpart comes to a close, and it accomplishes everything a conclusion should in an ongoing title. It isn't perfect, and it's far from Loeb's best work (for my money, The Long Halloween), but there's enough here for comics fans -- myself included -- to enjoy.

[Spoilers ahead -- it's impossible to discuss this volume without assessing the revelations behind Red Hulk and Red She-Hulk's identities. Then again, maybe everyone already knows those secrets.]

World War Hulks wraps up Loeb's Red Hulk plotline but opens with the moment we've all been waiting for -- Red Hulk stands revealed as Thunderbolt Ross, and Red She-Hulk admits she can't kill him because she's his daughter Betty. It's as unambiguous a resolution to that mystery as Loeb could deliver, but it's not the central plot. Red Hulk still has to face the Hulked-Out Heroes of the Marvel Universe (including Thor, Storm, Captain America, and The Thing), The Intelligencia and their attempt at a hulked-out military coup to overthrow the U.S. government, and the return of Hulk himself. Green and Red collide in a final battle to determine which Hulk is the "strongest there is," but as we've been reminded throughout this is a conflict about who's smarter, not who's stronger.

Loeb wisely doesn't break any of the toys he's created but leaves open the possibility for future Red Hulk stories, doing so with a nice callback to the story's first issue. In the back matter, we get a very interesting interview with Loeb on his collaboration with all the artists from the final volume, as well as three more of Audrey Loeb's Lil' Hulks tales about sharing blankets, shopping lists, and chemistry.

As I've said before, I had the ending spoiled for me and it was difficult to read this volume not knowing that Thunderbolt Ross was the Red Hulk; fortunately, I didn't have the Red She-Hulk bit ruined, and so I took more pleasure in that reveal -- especially in the way Loeb pulled back the curtain on both reveals in the same splash page. But having this information in my pocket let me step back and notice how well Loeb was running this mystery. Despite red herring after red herring, Loeb clearly knew what he was doing; as the interview points out, it would have been impossible to write the story without the ending in mind, and I had a great deal of fun tracing the clues (i.e., Red Hulk's constant references to military policy and his long-standing hatred for the Hulk).

But those are all general comments. I really enjoyed this last volume as a single entity because it effectively concludes the story with enough action that I could almost overlook the slim page count. (Almost.) Picking right up from Fall of the Hulks, World War Hulks opens with a classic slugfest and never really lets up. Even the middle chapter, a retrospective look at Thunderbolt Ross's life from his own perspective, doesn't feel like filler, in part because of the "jam session" artistic rotation of major Hulk pencillers past. No, this volume is all adrenaline.

As before, though, my principal complaint isn't with the story collected but the manner in which it's been collected. At three issues, this is once again another very small trade. (Ironic for a Hulk book to be too small, eh?) Collecting the Red Hulk chapters of Fall of the Hulks and World War Hulks might have made for a more enjoyable reading experience, giving a more totalizing sense of the story without the unnecessary division -- the same complaint, for example, I've made of Tarantino's Kill Bill.

Also as before, there's a bit of a sense that important parts of the story are happening in other trades -- a cheat that could have been mollified by, at the very least, a prose page of exposition. While I'm perfectly content to have the "Hulked-Out Heroes" spinoffs in their own collection, I'm miffed by the fact that Green Hulk returns to the action without any explanation as to how he regained his powers; when last we saw, Red Hulk drained Bruce Banner of his gamma energy and effectively killed Green Hulk. But here he is again, in prime clobberin' mode. While the story only takes a moment to reintroduce Hulk, it's a moment that distanced me from the story I was reading.

Quickly, though, World War Hulks throws itself back into action mode without ever feeling like it's merely filling pages (a complaint I've had about previous trades). In the end, I can say that I enjoyed Loeb's run on Hulk, for all its inconsistencies and collection problems (brevity being chief among them). A few "deluxe edition" volumes or even a single "Omnibus" might have mitigated those complaints; while not Loeb's finest work it's still a smashing good read.

Zach pleased.

[Thanks to Zach, and also to Doug and Damien for their contributions. Coming up next week, it's the Collected Editions review of Judd Winick's Catwoman: The Game (get ready, I kind of liked it) and Geoff Johns's Batman: Earth One. There's sure to be lots to talk about -- don't miss it!]

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Review: Hulk Vol. 5: Fall of the Hulks hardcover/paperback (Marvel Comics)

[Guest reviewer Zach King blogs about movies as The Cinema King]

I should begin by saying that there isn't technically anything wrong with Fall of the Hulks, the fifth and penultimate volume of Jeph Loeb's run on Hulk. The action is compelling, the super-villain team-up tantalizing, and the promise of the next volume enticing. Unfortunately this volume feels a bit too much like a prologue -- a brief and slightly repetitive one, at that.

Fall of the Hulks opens with a bang -- Thunderbolt Ross is dead, killed in combat with the Red Hulk and (more surprisingly) at the behest of Bruce Banner. There are more surprises in store for the world of the Hulk: Betty Ross is back from the dead, as is one-time beau Glenn Talbot.

But the Hulk alliance has bigger problems on the horizon. The Intelligencia (a collection of second-string but super-intelligent villains like MODOK, the Wizard, the Leader, Mad Thinker, and Red Ghost) is kidnapping the world's smartest heroes -- Reed Richards and Doctor Doom disappear first, but Black Panther, Hank McCoy, and even Bruce Banner are all on the list. It falls on the Red Hulk, who designed this scheme in the first place, to prevent his former allies from executing their master plan, with a good bit of personal vengeance for the betrayal from Hulk vs. X-Force.

And in the back matter, the Lil' Hulks jump in puddles, catch a cold, make snowmen, go camping, and house-sit a cat. All incredibly delightful, still courtesy of Audrey Loeb, with Blue Hulk always getting the last, non sequitur word.

With Fall of the Hulks you really get the sense that Jeph Loeb has been telling one long story all along (a la Grant Morrison on Batman), with callbacks and flashbacks to indicate the scope of the Red Hulk story, and with this volume it starts to come to fruition. But the problem is that it merely starts. We already know that a team of super-villains has betrayed the Red Hulk, and by the end of this volume we know who the players are and what their goal is -- something that might have been accomplished in half the issues it takes here. Again we have a small set -- only four issues -- compounding the prologue problem.

And it's not that these are bad issues, per se. The chapter on Thunderbolt Ross's funeral is stellar, especially for a Marvel newbie like myself. John Romita Jr. is a pleasant change-up from Ed McGuinness, who takes over the rest of the volume; Romita's pencils are much softer and look just like his work on Kick-Ass, although his rendition of The Thing looks a bit too cuddly for my tastes (maybe it's the tailored suit). And the two chapters where The Intelligencia kidnaps their prey play out very well, but they're extremely repetitive: attack as distraction, enter Red Hulk, kidnapping, head-scratching. It seems like a last chance for McGuinness to play in the Marvel sandbox with characters he hadn't gotten to, like Storm, Black Panther, and the Fantastic Four, but the story doesn't go anywhere.

Fortunately the last chapter closes strong and sets the stage for the next and final volume. Here McGuinness shines as the entire Marvel Universe descends on the Intelligencia as their master stroke is delivered, leaving Red Hulk alone to fight off the hulked-out Avengers and Co. If the last two chapters stalled a bit, Loeb revs up here and does a first-rate job getting me excited for the final volume of the series.

More good news: although this volume collects only a small portion of the "Fall of the Hulks" storyline (a full hardcover collection is coming), the story doesn't feel like it's missing anything. Near the end, there's one panel which shows Bruce Banner in the clutches of the Intelligencia, but that's the only moment when it seems the story is happening somewhere else. I'll be curious to know if the same is true of the three-issue World War Hulks, which makes me curious about Marvel's collecting strategy here (something I'll detail at greater length in the final review).

While I can't say that Fall of the Hulks is a bad volume -- indeed, there's much to love in this trade -- it's not enough for me. Maybe I've been spoiled on DC's six-issue trades, but Fall of the Hulks isn't big enough to justify its $15 price point.

Zach hungry for more.

In my next review, Red Hulk revealed! Green Hulk return! HULKS SMASH! [And be here tomorrow as we kick off the DC New 52 Collected Editions-style with our review of Justice League: Origin. See you then!]

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Review: Hulk Vol. 4: Hulk vs. X-Force hardcover/paperback (Marvel Comics)

[Guest reviewer Zach King blogs about movies as The Cinema King]

Now this is what I'm talking about. I can say with great confidence that Hulk vs. X-Force is my favorite of Jeph Loeb's run on Hulk thus far. This volume has a clear focus, a tight setting around an intriguing plot, and the "ambiguous mystery" angle Jeph Loeb fans know and love. All this set in a Marvel Universe which is not difficult for a newcomer to navigate.

"Code Red" begins when X-Force member Domino accidentally sees Red Hulk transform from his secret identity into the crimson giant. Domino quickly escapes, and Doc Samson and Thunderbolt Ross provide Red Hulk with a team to track her down before she can blow the lid off Red Hulk's identity. The Punisher, the Crimson Dynamo, Thundra (recruited at the end of Red and Green), Elektra, and merc-with-a-mouth Deadpool team up against Domino, Wolverine, and the rest of X-Force over the secret of Red Hulk.

When the Red Hulk is temporarily blinded by Wolverine, however, the new Red She-Hulk intercedes on her predecessor's behalf -- although her allegiances are far from clear, and the rest of Red Hulk's team may betray him as well before the night is up.

The book concludes with a chapter detailing Doc Samson's mental deterioration, closing on the intimation that MODOK is about to rally pieces on the board for a major strike against as many Hulks as he can target. But the focal point of the book's ending is, of course, the "Lil Hulks" one-pagers by Audrey Loeb; as important as the Doc Samson chapter is for pointing toward the next trade, "Lil Hulks go to the dentist" is the plotline I never expected but now can't imagine life without.

I've criticized the series for a lack of focus in the volumes following Red Hulk, but now that Bruce Banner is out of the equation, the book is clearly Red Hulk's -- and it's the better for it. Having to keep one eye on Green and one eye on Red was a little like watching a 2-D movie with 3-D glasses, somewhat less than the sum of its parts and more than a bit distracting. Overall, Hulk vs. X-Force is a much tighter trade than its predecessors, with a clear narrative thread revolving around a legitimate (and in-continuity) reason for some of Marvel's most recognizable characters to clobber each other.

Additionally, as someone who came to these trades as a Jeph Loeb fan who knows almost nothing about the Hulk (the disconnect between movies didn't help, either), Hulk vs. X-Force introduces an important mystery -- not one grounded in continuity -- around which the story revolves.

Or perhaps I should say "re-introduces." After a few collections, it seemed like the mystery of the Red Hulk's identity was just a MacGuffin, a way to get readers hooked on something that didn't ultimately matter (a bit like how, in Loeb's The Long Halloween, the identity of the Holiday Killer wasn't the most important narrative thread, nor was it ever fully resolved). But here Loeb reminds us very clearly that the character of the Red Hulk is one wrapped in mystery, a mystery which is not impenetrable but is nevertheless highly important to the character. It's actually a brilliant narrative move, resurrecting the mystery by wrapping a story around the mystery.

Of course, we don't learn the identity of the Red Hulk. What we do learn is that Loeb is weaving a much larger tapestry of Hulk stories here. By the end of the volume, much as in the last one, the plot changes. Having already lost Bruce Banner, the series shifts from focusing on Red Hulk as a villain and repositions him as an antihero, betrayed by his accomplices and seeking revenge. The premise of this plotline is an engaging one, and with an unhinged Doc Samson apparently being manipulated by MODOK against Red, I can't wait to see what Loeb has up his sleeve.

I haven't said anything about the art in this volume, although that's not meant as a slight to Ian Churchill and Whilce Portacio, who finishes the volume with the Doc Samson-centric chapter "Delilah." My only exposure to Churchill had been his Supergirl with Jeph Loeb, as well as a series of DC covers which always struck me as "Ed Benes lite." Churchill's style here is distinctly different from that "cut and rendered" work, dropping realism for cartoonish exaggeration a la Ed McGuinness.

It's not a matter of aping the previous Hulk artist; Churchill is tweaking his own style to fit more appropriately what a good Hulk story looks like. There's nothing realistic about grotesquely giant men clobbering each other, and Churchill's style reflects that. Portacio's line's are more sketchy, but aside from a delightfully creepy MODOK and a beautiful poster-like double-page spread of Hulk fighting Doc Samson, the chapter is mostly forgettable.

Overall, though, Hulk vs. X-Force is a satisfying collection, with a central storyline which represents a return to greatness for Jeph Loeb's run on Hulk. It's engaging, well-illustrated, and organized beyond what we've seen in the series thus far -- and we get several more wonderful installments of "Lil Hulks."

Zach delighted!

In my next edition, the death of a major Red Hulk suspect kicks off a plot to overthrow the U.S. government, and with the world's smartest heroes missing in action, only the Hulks can stop it!

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Review: Hulk Vol. 3: Hulk No More hardcover/paperback (Marvel Comics)

[Guest reviewer Zach King blogs about movies as The Cinema King]

Halfway through Jeph Loeb's run on Hulk, I'm finding this whole thing to be a bit of a mixed bag. Maybe it's a case of parts being more than their sum, but for every high point I'm finding I have to wade through a few chapters that just don't hit it for me. Volume 3, Hulk No More, has a fantastic ending, but it's a rebound after a problematic and ultimately lackluster opener.

Hulk No More, like its predecessor Red and Green, is divided roughly in half, although the division isn't as neat. Hulk No More begins with a three-parter in which Hulk and Red Hulk are pitted against each other in a cosmic game of "who's tougher," sponsored by The Grandmaster and The Collector. The stakes? Hulk, Silver Surfer, Doctor Strange, and Namor have all been ripped from the most tragic times in their histories to fight for the lives of the women they love, while Red Hulk and his team of baddies (Terrax, Baron Mordo, and Tiger Shark) stand in their way, apparently just for the hell of it. Then Hulk and Red Hulk square off once more, this time in MODOK's secret government laboratory. It's here that Red Hulk drains Hulk of his gamma energy, stranding him as Bruce Banner and seemingly ending the Hulk's career -- for good.

Ed McGuinness rejoins Jeph Loeb for this volume, and while Art Adams and Frank Cho weren't terrible fill-ins, the return of McGuinness feels like stepping into familiar and inviting territory. McGuinness's bold pencils make the Grandmaster/Collector chapters feel appropriately larger than life, a return to the smackdown style of Red Hulk with every flying fist and bulging bicep rendered in double-page spreads and exhilarating action. When inkers Mark Farmer and Tom Palmer step in on the latter chapters, they bring a softer edge to McGuinness than his usual collaborator Dexter Vines, but the change-up (especially with Palmer's inks) is a welcome and intriguing one.

There's nothing terribly original about the Grandmaster/Collector storyline, nothing we haven't seen before -- two characters forced to do battle with a team of A-listers behind them, cosmic stakes afoot, cameos by plenty of heavy-hitters (i.e., Galactus, Dormammu) -- and even the ending is fairly standard. At the risk of spoiling it, nothing comes of this storyline. The Grandmaster and the Collector leave, restore any damage done to the characters, and wipe the memory of all involved. DC readers would look at this as an experiment in Elseworlds, a deus ex machina that whitewashes over any continuity problems the story might create.

If this were a Hulk miniseries I'd be fine with that, but it's not. As part of the main story, this battle royale ends up taking space away from the main narrative. It's exciting to see Red Hulk dueling Silver Surfer and absorbing his cosmic energy (especially as illustrated by Ed McGuinness), but Loeb has a great thing going here with the mystery of the Red Hulk and his apparently long reach within the Marvel Universe; unfortunately, this plot (like the Wendigo plot from the last volume) is simply a distraction, one that erases itself from continuity, at that.

This self-contradiction is exacerbated by the opening pages of the story proper in Hulk No More, in which the reader plays catch-up with Ben Urich, who's writing a story about the government's cover-up on the existence of the Red Hulk. It's an effective technique, but it's highlighted by the fact that we've spent three chapters/issues away from our main storyline. Fortunately, this second half of the book is more relevant and therefore a greater payoff. When Red Hulk drains Hulk and there's no Collector to reset continuity, it portends greater things to come. And with Spider-Man and Norman Osborn both conscious of this change in the Hulk's fate, there's a kind of ripple effect that lets us know Loeb isn't messing around anymore. With confirmation that Hulk is out of the picture, I'm excited to see where this is all going.

The book seems to have set aside the mystery of Red Hulk's identity for now, but I'm not so sure that's a bad thing. Ben Urich hangs a lantern when he asks She-Hulk, "Who is the Red Hulk?" and there might be a red herring that Norman Osborn is the Red Hulk (or maybe I'm just reading too much into the close-up of Osborn's enormous hands), but for the most part Loeb seems to be prioritizing momentum over mystery. Keep the action coming, keep the giants clobbering, keep the plot advancing. After a stumble with the cosmic battle royale, the volume quickly rebounds.

Is Hulk No More a great book overall? Not really, considering half of the book is a well-drawn waste of time. But am I going to keep reading? You bet your gamma ray shorts I am. Especially if it means I'm going to get more of Audrey Loeb's Lil' Hulks.

Zach intrigued.

Up next, Red Hulk takes center stage as he meets up with The Punisher, Deadpool, Wolverine, and the rest of X-Force -- and a certain lady in Red ...

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Review: Hulk Vol. 2: Red and Green hardcover/paperback (Marvel Comics)

[Guest reviewer Zach King blogs about movies as The Cinema King]

Continuing my romp through Jeph Loeb's Hulk collections, I found the second volume, Red and Green, to be somewhat less entertaining than Red Hulk but still with enough to enjoy in this fairly brief (three issues) installment of the ongoing saga of the Red Hulk.

In Red and Green, Hulk fans get two doses of gamma-ray action in two separate stories which originally ran as co-features but are presented here as united halves of this volume. The first, "What Happens in Vegas," is essentially the "Green" half of the book, in which Bruce Banner roadtrips to Las Vegas in search of the cannibal werewolf Wendigo creatures. Vegas unleashes Gray Hulk "Joe Fixit" as Batman Moon Knight, Ms. Marvel, and others join in.

Then comes "Hell Hath No Fury," in which She-Hulk and her Lady Liberators take on the Red Hulk. This "Red" half has much more in common with Red Hulk, with Red Hulk taking hits on all sides from the likes of the Invisible Woman, Storm, Valkyrie, and S.H.I.E.L.D.'s deputy director Maria Hill.

The division of this volume very neatly in half is a bit jarring compared to the previous volume's single unified storyline, but it reads a lot better than I assume it did in single issues. Rather than bounce back and forth between Green and Red, the book ties up Green before picking up with Red. Unfortunately, Green's storyline -- even with the inclusion of Mr. Fixit -- is nowhere near as compelling as Red Hulk's. It's strange that this new character is stealing the spotlight so blatantly from the titular hero, a little like giving Doomsday the spotlight instead of Superman.

Maybe it's a matter of personal taste; I've never found the angsty Bruce Banner too appealing, running away from his powers in every incarnation I've seen, and on top of all that the Green story here isn't terribly compelling. Hulk chases Wendigo to Vegas, Hulk fights Wendigo, Hulk becomes Wendihulk, and other heroes join in for no apparent reason. And unfortunately the more sinewy pencils of Arthur Adams aren't as much to my liking as Ed McGuinness's work in the previous volume.

On the whole "What Happens in Vegas" feels a bit like filler; it's probably a fine Hulk story, but being thrown into the middle of a larger story accentuates the story's own irrelevance. Conversely, "Hell Hath No Fury" is exactly the kind of story arc the larger narrative needs, continuing from the events of Red Hulk and moving forward without losing sight of the main storyline. And it's more entertaining, feeling a lot like the Marvel team-up Gail Simone never got to write with enough action handled deftly by Frank Cho (whose "tough girls" work looks like a blend between Adam Hughes and McGuinness).

This volume, unlike its predecessor, features the use of Jeph Loeb's trademark "narration boxes" which step inside the head of a character and provide internal monologues for important characters. Here we're treated to the reflections of Bruce Banner and She-Hulk Jen Walters, but the narration is inconsistently deployed, often receding altogether to give the main focus to the action on the page. This is a wise choice but a distracting one; for such a stylistic mainstay, Loeb's irregular use of the narration is more puzzling than anything else. Ultimately the narration doesn't do anything for the story and so it isn't missed in its absences, but because Loeb is so well-known for it (Superman for All Seasons and the precedent set by his Superman/Batman), it simultaneously seems like more is both expected and needed.

But Red and Green's biggest shortcoming is quite literally its brevity. The trade collects three issues, a throwaway back-up biography of the late Abomination, a few variant covers, and more delightful "Mini Marvels" by Audrey Loeb (here the Lil' Hulks tussle with Spider-Man, Iceman, and airport baggage checks). At a list price of $15.99, this is a steal -- on Marvel's part. At six dollars an issue, Red and Green simply isn't worth it. While the lightness of Red Hulk was mitigated by six issues full of action, Red and Green just isn't enough. It's good, but I can't help but wonder about the collection practices at play here.

Zach torn.

In my next Hulk review, coming up in a few weeks, the return of Ed McGuinness as Hulk and Red Hulk duke it out in a cosmic game before a game-changer takes one Hulk out of the equation -- for good.

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Review: Hulk, Vol. 1: Red Hulk hardcover/paperback (Marvel Comics)

[Guest reviewer Zach King blogs about movies as The Cinema King]

In the midst of a universe-wide reboot over at the Distinguished Competition, I wanted to check in with Marvel and see if I ought to jump on board any of their titles, too (as if I'm not not already spending too much on comics every week). I won't deny that the advent of the Marvel Cinematic Universe has led me to dive into Marvel comics, and the appearance of a few creators I recognize from my life with DC made Red Hulk seem as good a place as any to begin.

There are only two things you need to know about the first volume of Jeph Loeb's collaboration with Ed McGuinness on Hulk: there's a new Red Hulk in town, and he's about to fight with as many Marvel characters as he can in the six issues collected in Red Hulk. After Abomination is murdered, apparently by a gun-toting Incredible Hulk, General Thunderbolt Ross and Leonard "Doc" Samson discover that Bruce Banner hasn't escaped captivity since his rampage in World War Hulk.

Enter the Red Hulk, Abomination's true murderer and the Marvel Universe's "Most Wanted" for a six-issue slugfest with Iron Man, Thor, The Thing, and even Uatu the Watcher -- before Bruce Banner "hulks out" and takes on his new nemesis.

I came to this title with Jeph Loeb as a favorite writer but the Hulk as one of my least favorite Marvel characters (blame two lackluster feature films in the last decade). In fairness, I've never read a Hulk comic book beyond the six Loeb volumes and Loeb's collaboration with Tim Sale on Hulk: Grey, not even the original Stan Lee/Jack Kirby issues. The good news about Red Hulk is that I didn't need to. Loeb starts a new storyline with a new status quo (and a new #1 -- there's a bit of that going around on my comics reading list) and doesn't get bogged down in story-stopping continuity.

There's no question Red Hulk takes place in a larger universe, with an unfamiliar Avengers team and allusions to past storylines like Civil War, but Loeb smartly boils this Hulk story down to what every Hulk story has at its core -- large creatures brawling for pages at a time with stilted grammar.

To this end, Loeb is helped greatly by Ed McGuinness, whose exaggerated muscleman style is a natural fit for a Hulk story -- especially one with two Hulks. While his DC work (Superman/Batman, JLA Classified) was fun and cartoony, McGuinness is perfectly suited for drawing the Hulk, and now his unique style feels complementary rather than just entertaining. Not to slight colorist Jason Keith, but McGuinness does a solid job differentiating between Hulk and Red Hulk.

McGuinness's work with the other Marvel characters here isn't bad, either; his Iron Man and Thing have personality even behind their well-established looks, his Uatu channels Kirby without plagiarizing, and his Thor is as regal as he is intimidating. McGuinness is given plenty of double-page spreads to let his titanic juggernauts duke it out, and not a one of them disappoints.

Unfortunately, Red Hulk is filled with double-page spreads and wordless clobbering to the point that, despite being six issues long, the main story feels a little light. By the end, Red Hulk has smacked around everyone in sight, but even Hulk leaves the unconscious Red Hulk unattended -- a serious problem considering the whole story was about catching a murderer. The whole excursion feels like a popcorn movie, which isn't actually a bad thing. Red Hulk is a fun and entertaining read, but it's not (pardon the pun) terribly hard-hitting. This is quite clearly an opening salvo in a much larger story, and at this point the story is firing on all cylinders for excitement but remains a little light on content.

Taking a backseat to the action of Red Hulk is the ongoing mystery of the Red Hulk's true identity. At no point can the reader forget that Jeph Loeb is also the author of DC mystery mainstays The Long Halloween and Dark Victory, with red herrings and significant clues sprinkled throughout Red Hulk. Unfortunately, I had the identity of the Red Hulk spoiled for me long before I even bought this book (a spoiler I won't disclose until the sixth and final volume's review), but that made the reading experience a little more fun.

Knowing the who and not the how, I got a little more bang out of the red herrings Loeb throws in, trying to puzzle through them rather than simply scratching names off a list of potential suspects. To any reader, the identity of the Red Hulk should be fairly obvious, but when Loeb puts Red Hulk and the prime suspect in a room together, you have to wonder on what level you're being tricked. This act of "puzzling through" made Red Hulk more than just a mindless slugfest for me -- not that a mindless slugfest drawn by Ed McGuinness wouldn't be fun in and of itself.

The collection is padded out with two features of note. First, a Wolverine/Hulk story by Loeb and McGuinness that retells the infamous first meeting between the jolly green giant and Canada's own mutant. This story has no connection to Red Hulk at large and adds little to the relationship between these two characters; it's just one more opportunity to McGuinness to draw big men beating each other up, but it's done well with a curious allusion to the Ultimate Marvel Universe thrown in for good measure. The other feature is more entertaining, a few Tiny Titans-style "Mini Marvels" shorts written by Loeb's daughter Audrey, with three young Hulks (Red, Blue, and Green) in absurd but delightful comic scenarios involving zoos, finger paints, and swimming pools.

All told, Red Hulk was a good "first" experience for me, an easing into the Marvel waters with familiar creators and a new original storyline which has me hooked for the next volume.

To paraphrase our gamma-irradiated friend, "Zach satisfied!" Up next, Hulk goes to Vegas in search of the Wendigo while Red Hulk has his crimson keister handed to him by Marvel's loveliest ladies.

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Review: Hulk: Skaar - Son of Hulk trade paperback (Marvel Comics)

[Guest review by Damien Lockrow of the Damien's Omens blog]

Covers are far from the most reliable way to tell what's going to happen in a given issue. At times their purpose isn't much more than to look pretty, but sometimes they get it right. This is one of those occasions. Just from looking at the cover of Hulk: Skaar - Son of Hulk, it's hard not to think, "Holy crap, they painted Conan the Barbarian green" which would be a pretty accurate assumption. The high concept at play here is "What if the Hulk's son was Conan the Barbarian?"

Now, I don't know about you, but that's just awesome enough to grab my attention.

[Contains spoilers]

Skaar - Son of Hulk picks up not long after the events of Planet Hulk, which I have not read. The Hulk himself has already come, conquered, lost it all and gone back to Earth seeking vengeance by the time this book starts. When his wife was turned to ash in the explosion of the ship that brought him to the planet Sakaar, his sons egg survived, bouncing away, straight into a lake of fire; unbeknownst to Hulk, of course, who was so busy practicing his imitation of Ash William's "NOOOOO" that he didn't notice, despite it falling inches to the left of his knee. Some time later, the son emerges into the broken world his father left behind and, like his old man, he's usually pretty pissed off. An old mystic takes the boy -- who names himself Skaar -- under his wing and begins to guide the jade barbarian towards an ancestral power. Naturally, it's time to toss our thinly veiled Conan analogue at dragons, axemen and other foes ripe for dismemberment.

This trade is relatively simple in basic premise. The main story -- the six issues of the ongoing, not including the "Shadow Tales" backups -- is pretty straightforward, basically amounting to "there's a prophecy that this green dude is totally going to save us, so we need to get him to a place that will make him even stronger" -- not that such exactly worked the first time with Hulk himself, but then some of these guys aren't too swift, especially considering how quick they are to declare Skaar dead every time he so much as gets a hangnail.

It's more an action comic than anything else. There are no underlying themes here to pick apart or mysteries to follow along on, just a simple comic with lots of severed limbs. Whether that's the kind of thing you like or not likely depends on personal preference; if you're not down with seeing a jade giant gut a dragon, this probably isn't going to do it for you. This also isn't a trade for people who hate decompressed storytelling; the six issues of ongoing present here could probably have been cut down to three or four issues without losing anything of importance or worth.

Son of Hulk is written well enough, but it's not without its problems. For one thing, it wavers in structure quite a bit. Either the book is primarily concerned with action -- the main story is a pretty light read because of this -- or it kicks the exposition into overdrive. Many of the "Shadow Tales" backups have the latter problem. Most of the time, they are removed from the main story -- usually following this slave boy named Hiro-Kala, who I guess this book is trying to make out as important in some fashion -- and makes gratuitous use of flashbacks. The result is quite a bit of infodumping, which is a jarring pace change from the main comic; either someone is trying to convince Hiro-Kala that Hulk did more harm than good or a character is taking the time to monologue his backstory to a kid with a poisoned knife.

It's borderline ridiculous at times, especially considering the story of Hiro-Kala and Skaar intersect at no point during the course of this volume; I really think this book might have made for a smoother read had the "Shadow Tales" backups been removed from their place between issues of Skaar and spun together in the back of the book as a side story.

Another problem I had was that I came into this story cold. As I mentioned earlier, I haven't read a lick of Planet Hulk, so I wasn't exactly familiar with the trappings of the book. The first several pages are a quick recap of the important bits of the aforementioned story, so it does make a point to let you know how we got here. But for a new ongoing, it's not exactly as accessible as it should be. There are several points in the course of the story where things just went right over my head; some of the lore and events that are made reference to here are things that I assume would mean more to me had I read Planet Hulk. The story doesn't make much of an effort to explain any of it either. It's not always necessary for a new ongoing to explain everything, but when you're playing off the sort of backstory that Son of Hulk does, it's best to re-introduce a concept.

Working both for and against Son of Hulk is the art. It's generally nice to look at, but all too often there are storytelling gaffes or images that are difficult to suss out. For example, early in the first issue we get a splash page of the young Skaar attacking a dragon-esque creature. One arm has hold of its tongue, but figuring out what the other hand has done isn't quite so easy. It looks like he's ripped something out of the monster, but the blood trail leads back to it's eye, which shows no sign of damage, much less like part of it has been ripped out.

Another time, a priest has a goon stab a bug; but when Skaar gets pissed and attacks the goon, he passes the priest to get to the goon, which is kind of difficult to imagine considering we had literally just seen that the priest was standing just to the left of the poor sap. Other instances see Skaar have a sword one moment, it disappear the next, only to have it return. On top of all that, sometimes the linework just gets downright sketchy, especially on panels where we're zoomed out from the action.

Added to this is that many of the Shadow Priests and the red skinned characters look alike. This poses a problem, because they can seem to blend together at times. In fact, unless you pay close attention to the facial tattoos, you might be hard pressed to figure out that one of the figures we see in each "Shadow Tale" is the same person, as he is not named as Hiro-Kala for the first time until very late in the book.

On a positive note, one thing I do like about the art is that it's colorful. I admit I'm a sucker for comics with bright colors. Also of note is that while there are art screw-ups about, some of the fights seem to flow particularly well. Said fight scenes are generally easy to follow from panel to panel, which helps make up for the inconsistencies I mentioned earlier. The importance of this shouldn't really be understated, because if you're doing a comic with a lot of action, it's generally a good idea to have an artist who can tell a story with their art. Otherwise, what's the point?

[Contains full and variant covers, sketchbook section.]

As a whole package, there is good to be had in Skaar - Son of Hulk. I found I enjoyed it despite its flaws, but it's not exactly deep reading much less something I'd recommend over another book. If you read and loved Planet Hulk, you might get more out of it. For anyone else it's worth a look, but probably not a purchase. The premise of a barbarian Hulk, however, is still cool as hell regardless.

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