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By Jason Bourgeois
Welcome back to Grey Matters. Before diving into the matters of the month, I wanted to give a big reminder that when next this space updates, I will be in beautiful Atlanta, Georgia, traipsing around the huge (So huge it's in three different hotels, and taking over the streets!) science fiction, fantasy, comic, television, movie convention, Dragon*Con. I'm there all weekend, snapping photos, chatting to redh...er, people, hanging out, and generally having a great time. If any of my three readers are down there, keep an eye out for the press badges, find me, and say hello. I wholly expect to have as much fun this year as I did last time, if not more, now that I've got the lay of the land, won't get lost in the maze of corridors, and can squeeze through the crowds. If you're going, be sure to swing by Dragoncon.com to see what's on tap so far for this year, and check out our coverage and photos from last year to get a taste, if you've never gone!
With that out of the way, let's get down to business.
I recently covered the topic of event fatigue, which seems to have yet to set in, as the current raft of events, aside from Countdown, seem to be selling like hotcakes. I'm hoping that we get a break soon, and my wallet concurs. Once in awhile, Marvel does things right, and knocks an event simply out of the park.
And this event was knocked out by a batter with an emerald complexion, and gamma-enhanced strength. No one is seeing that ball for a good long while.
World War Hulk has been an amazingly fun ride, so far. This is built on the backbone of the year-long Planet Hulk event, where several so called heroes of the Marvel Universe tricked their friend the Hulk onto a spaceship, blasted him off into the deep blackness, and rather than landing on a simple, empty planet, the big green machine instead crashes on the planet Sakaar, a war torn planet with a caste system, gladitorial games, and an opressive ruler.
In due course, the Hulk shakes things up, kills the king, takes over, and finds happiness for the first time in a very long time. He's respected, has a woman, and a child on the way. So of course, things have to go very, very wrong. The ship he was sent in, is tampered with and they discover that Reed Richards rigged it to explode. The resultant catastrophe lays waste to Sakaar, with Hulk and his comrades, minus his pregant queen who dies in the explosion, barely escaping. They vow vengeance, and set course for Earth.
World War Hulk kicks off there, and is the equivalent of a summer blockbuster. Hulk wants revenge upon those who sent him out and destroyed his adopted world, and so far, he is well on his way to getting it, with Iron Man already taking a huge beating.
Continuing the comparison to action movies, this takes its cue from the best of the bunch, and is using current events, and incredibly strong characterisation that actually makes you care about the conflict, and every punch thrown is built upon the characters, and is not gratutitous in any way. Over the top, sure. Considering we're talking about a giant engine of destruction powered by gamma radiation, fighting a guy in atomic armour, what more do you expect?
Greg Pak has kicked off his second arc in the three-act Hulk story with a literal bang, and continued his spot on writing of the characters, showing what an amazing creator he is. He's contributed a huge new chunk to the Hulk mythology, taking him to places he's not been very often, and crafting interesting, touching stories that really make you care about the emerald behemoth.
Tapped to draw the spectacle is John Romita, Jr. His art can be iffy, but he is doing an incredible job on this book. His figures can often look weird with his more angular style, but when it comes to strength and action, there may be no one better than conveying such devastation in the business right now than him. As amazing as Greg's writing is, it is perfectly complimented by Romita's artwork, finishing up the necessary components and making for quite a read.
Each book being so thick and still feeling too small to contain the epicness of this event is a testament to the story they've created. I sit reading each issue, eagerly devouring each one, and a first in a long time, long for the next issue to come out. This is the best event I've read from Marvel in a long time. The scale, and style of it is spot on, and even the crossover books only add to it, instead of detracting from it. It's all well-coordinated by the editors, and seems to fit together as well as something like this could be.
Now, there's still a few issues to go, and things could certainly go completely off the rails, but from other works I've read from Pak, and how solid Planet Hulk was, I highly doubt that will be the case, but am bracing myself for the possibility.
Anyone who is a fan of action movies, and want to read something that delivers that same feel on the comic page, could do a lot worse than this book. Any Marvel fan would also be remiss if they skipped this book, as it ties into so many other things going on right now, and will surely affect the landscape for a long time to come.
If every event was of this quality, event fatigue would never be a problem.
Jason M. Bourgeois
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