World War Hulk

[Zetleft]

Yeah seems like it woulda been alot better storyline.  PLANT HULK SMASH

[HaemishM]

Yeah seems like it woulda been alot better storyline.  PLANT HULK SMASH

In other words, the shit they SHOULD be doing with the storyline, instead of the massive pussing out you know they are going to do by not having the Hulk kill Iron Man, Reed Richards, Black Bolt and Dr. Strange.

[stu]

There's no point in having Hulk kill them. That would just result in four more Remembering Fallen Heroes issues and then things would be back to the same old shenanigans after a month or so as Dr. Strange returns them all from the ether, with the help of Wolverine who also happens to die in a separate storyline. Together they will defeat the Angel of Death, return, then hit the stripclubs.

[Zetleft]

Yeah pretty much.  That is one thing I loved about What If comics, they are allowed to actually change the world in a drastic way, since it's only an issue.  Thinking about it now its kind of a bad move even making them as it's showing how cool the Marvel universe could be if they grew some balls.  Imagine makes reading the actual storyline they are going with all the more depressing. 

[Margalis]

I hear that Hulk beat the shit of the X-Men. Surely that must be worth reading?

[Velorath]

I hear that Hulk beat the shit of the X-Men. Surely that must be worth reading?

Not especially.  It was a three part mini that only existed because Marvel felt that they had to have some sort of X-men tie-in with WWH.  It's not horrible or anything, but given that the main WWH book alone is 5 issues of the Hulk fighting people, 3 issues of him fighting the X-men wasn't especially necessary.

Speaking of which, WWH just finished up today, and as expected, the Sentry/Hulk fight was about as compelling as the average Dragonball Z fight (DBZ being the kind of thing that you have to give me the Clockwork Orange treatment in order to get me to watch, and even then by sheer force of will I'd somehow manage to dislodge my eyeballs from my skull). 

Even beyond all that, o be honest, the conclusion of this story is a bit of a mess.  With Civil War, we had a story where Marvel claimed that there wasn't a good side or a bad side, and then proceeded to have the pro-reg side unleashing murderous clones of Thor, sending super-villains after their former friends, etc..., and any moral grey area vanished as readers wondered what twisted sense of morality Quesada must have in order to be so blind to that fact that, yes, one side was acting really fucking bad.  In WWH, we have another attempt at one of those morally grey stories, and while it was by no means perfect in that respect from the start, the surprise betrayal that comes out of nowhere near the end establishes one character as the mustache-twirling bad guy.

On the bright side, the book advertises two new Hulk spin-off books, and while one is the abysmal looking Jeph Loeb book with the Red Hulk, the other (which I won't give away here), looks to be something a lot closer in tone with Planet Hulk, which is nice, although a creative team hasn't been announced yet.  Also, the Incredible Hulk book is being turned into the Incredible Herc, with Hercules and Amadeus Cho starring.  Of course I assume this is temporary.

[Margalis]

I just like people owning the X-Men. That was the best part of Secret Wars, when Spider-Man singlehandedly beat them down.

[LK]

So it looked like the comic ended strongly.

[HaemishM]

Speaking of which, WWH just finished up today ...

Even beyond all that, o be honest, the conclusion of this story is a bit of a mess. 

That's a bit of an understatement. What a fucking waste of a book. Multiple books, whatever it was.

SPOILER ALERT!






Green Hulk is shot into space, Red Hulk/Bruce Banner is locked in a bunker in the desert, Rick Jones and most of the Warbound is dead. Sentry looks to be exhausted and maybe doesn't have any power anymore? Which can't be right unless Mighty Avengers takes place before this, and that may be true because the crappy Illuminati book takes place after.

But the worst part of the book was that they reveal one of the Warbound set Hulk up the bomb. That seriously weakens the whole impact of the betrayal that the 4 Illuminati members pulled off which caused the Hulk world to be destroyed in the first place. Marvel pussed out again. Either make these guys into the shitheels that they've shown they are, or just forget the whole goddamn Civil War mess existed.

[Thrawn]

Read the last book finaly.

Ugh is all I really have to say about it.

[Velorath]

Here's a shock, the Hulk doesn't actually make an appearance in Hulk #1.  We have Bruce Banner and Rick Jones, but no actually glimpse of either a red or a green Hulk.  Hasn't Marvel moved past this sort of decompressed storytelling yet?  This story might possible work if they hadn't relaunched the book (while giving Hercules the Hulk's old book), but presumably the reason behind relaunching a series is that it's supposed to be a good jumping on point for new readers.  This issue reads more like coming in to the middle of a story. 

The story is building off the end of Planet Hulk, but there is zero recap for new readers to catch up with.  Instead we've got Thunderbolt Ross, Doc Samson, She-Hulk, Iron Man, and Maria Hill investigating the murder of the Abomination.  The Hulk seems like a likely suspect due to the footprints, gamma radiation, and the severe beating the Abomination took, but he was finished off by some sort of gun, which doesn't really fit Hulk's M.O..  While the characters are puzzling through this, the Winter Guard shows up and a fight breaks out.  It almost seems as if all the characters become irrationally angry, especially Doc Samson who throws the first blow with little provocation, so I'm speculating that either there's something about the red Hulk, or the kid Ross finds nearby that causes others to become angry.  Either that or everyone was being written out of character, which sadly I can't discount given the current state of Marvel.

The issue isn't bad really, especially compared to most of Loeb's recent work.  As a relaunch though, it isn't going to attract any readers that haven't been following the Hulk recently, and it's going to shed readers fairly quickly if it tries to drag out the mystery of who or what the new Hulk is.

[HaemishM]

I tried reading the last Hulk issue (which was really a Hercules issue) and I don't think I even finished it. It was just not interesting in any way. How is it that Marvel has made most of the characters I liked and was interested in... just not interesting?