World War Hulk Author: Visit Amazon's Greg Pak Page | Language: English | ISBN:
0785126708 | Format: EPUB
World War Hulk Description
- Series: Incredible Hulk
- Hardcover: 304 pages
- Publisher: Marvel; First Printing edition (May 2009)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0785126708
- ISBN-13: 978-0785126706
- Product Dimensions: 11.1 x 7.6 x 0.7 inches
- Shipping Weight: 2.1 pounds
World War Hulk is the comic book equivalent of a summer action movie: long on action and fun, but short on plot. If that appeals to you, then grab your popcorn, sit back, and enjoy! Pretty much the same thing happens in all 5 issues: a succession of Marvel's heroes all line up to stop the Hulk, who's madder than he's ever been -- and one by one, they all fail. Up until the last issue, which seemed a little cliched (see spoiler alert below).
The Hulk has always been one of my favorite characters, and it was nice to see him in a big "event" comic which affects other Marvel characters. Then again, it doesn't really affect other characters much, because, by the end, lots of people have been beat up, and lots of property damage has occurred, but nothing else really changes. Nobody dies, nobody's life is changed, and the status quo is pretty much the same at the end as the beginning.
The fact that the Hulk is prepared to wipe out the entire eastern seaboard makes it a little hard to root for him. And the fact that no heroes have any success at stopping him makes the storyline seem a little repetitive -- like it doesn't really matter what anybody tries next, because the result is only going to be the same as with the last hero who tried. That is, until the last issue, when ...[SPOILER ALERT]... the Sentry fights Hulk to a standstill, and the Hulk finally calms down. Sentry is referred to all throughout the book as one of the Hulk's closest friends, and the one character who could always calm Hulk down, which does build up anticipation for the final battle, but to me it also raised another question: Who in the world is the Sentry?
Hulk was sent away from Earth in a spaceship by Reed Richards, Tony Stark, Dr Strange, and Black Bolt, because he's too dangerous/unstable. He winds up on an alien planet where he goes from being a gladiator to their king, falling in love and becoming a father (all of these events take place in "Planet Hulk"). That is until the spaceship he arrived in blows up killing a million of his alien chums along with his pregnant wife. Oh Hulk is maaaaaaaaaaaaad. So here he goes, on a new spaceship headed straight for Earth to begin... World War Hulk!
Whenever I meet people who snort and turn their noses up when I mention that I'm a grown man who enjoys reading comics, I make the argument that comics are more than simply men in tights flying around the place doing impossible things (though a Superman book here and there is great fun); comics are a more sophisticated, complex, and infinitely artistic medium than to be dismissed outright as serious literature. Superhero comics too have come a long way since the Golden Age and are more than just toy figures fighting one another - just look at the work of Alan Moore, Grant Morrison, Warren Ellis, Garth Ennis, and so on.
But books like "World War Hulk" undermine my argument because in this book Hulk batters one hero after another until it becomes representative of the worst excesses the medium offers. It is the stereotype that people who don't read comics think of when you mention comics. Hulks fights Black Bolt and wins; he fights Iron Man and wins; he fights the Fantastic Four and wins; it's just so tedious to read. Hulk smash, blah blah blah, who thought this was a good idea? Is the Hulk literally invulnerable? It seems so.
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