World War Hulk: Gamma Corps

Collects World War Hulk: Gamma Corps #1-4 written by Frank Tieri and drawn by Carlos Ferreira.

I'll try to make this short and sweet, as I don't want to spend too much time on this sorry excuse for a comic book. The evil general Stryker brings together a strike force of super guys and gals that all have two things in common: they each have a grudge with the Hulk, and they are each the result of experiments involving DNA from classic Hulk villains, and, in one case, the big guy himself. Oh, and one more thing, they're all pretty lame. All Stryker wants is for them to take out the Hulk, because he himself has a grudge with the Hulk. And that's about it. Not much story here as you can see. In fact, most of the book is dedicated to telling the origin of each of the characters, pretty boring stuff... The sad thing about this book is that it was obviously meant as a build up to something more, but as far as I know these characters have not been heard of ever since. And I have a feeling things will stay that way...

The art is not good. Adjectives such as 'plain', 'boring', 'inconsistent' etc. come to mind. The only exception is the first dozen or so pages, which are actually pretty good. But it looks like deadlines have been sneaking up on the artist, because the art gets steadily worse until some of the pages are taken care of by a fill-in artist, at which point the artistic level of the book plummets to the bottom of the sea.

Marvel's editors must have known this book was a bad idea, so I can only assume they put it out so they could slap the WWH logo on it, and they knew it would at least bring home the production value. There's a lot of idiots out there who will buy a book just because it has a certain logo on the cover. So I guess that makes me an idiot... I strongly advice anyone to not buy this book. Save the money or donate it to charity or whatever. You will regret spending it on this book.

2/10

Old Articles for New Trades, August 2008

This is the headline under which I will be presenting links to old articles about some of the tpb's that come out each month. I will pick out articles about the trades that I personally find interesting, so if you disagree, try Google instead...

This time out I'm a bit delayed, but I'm planning on writing these kinds of posts around the 1st of each month, and then provide links for all the interesting books coming out that month. The books I've picked out for August are Thor 1, Mighty Avengers 1: The Ultron Initiative, X-Men: Divided We Stand and Immortal Iron Fist 2: The Seven Capital Cities of Heaven. You're more than welcome to add links to more articles in the comments, if you happen to know of any.

Here come the links:

Fallen Odinson: JMS talks "Thor"
Bendis talks "Mighty Avengers" & "Civil War: The Confession"
X-POSITION: Divided We Stand Book One
Fists of Legend: Fraction Talks "The Immortal Iron Fist"

Happy reading!

World War Hulk: Front Line

Collects World War Hulk Prologue: World Breaker written by Peter David with art by Al Rio, Lee Weeks and Sean Phillips and World War Hulk: Front Line #1-6 written by Paul Jenkins with art by Ramon Bachs, Shawn Martinbrough and Chris Moreno.

Before sitting down and reading this book I thought it was a little bit weird that they didn't put the prologue in the main WWH book. After reading this book I realized that it was because the prologue book is a crappily drawn mess of a comic book, that would just have pulled the overall impression of the main book further down. I usually love anything drawn by Sean Phillips, but in this book I can't even recognize the pages he's drawn! Don't buy this trade because of the prologue!!!

The Front Line stories are a continuation of the Civil War: Front Line book, which I remember as one of the highlights of Civil War. They are comprised of two stories and one series of comical two-pagers.

The first story is about Ben Urich and Sally Floyd, the main people behind the alternative news paper Front Line. The news paper has been given a big bag of money from a secret benefactor. Although they do find out who this is in the end, you couldn't really accuse this story from having much of a plot. Instead, focus is on portraying reactions and emotions of people on the street level during a super hero mash-up like WWH. The main characters have their own problems to deal with, but seeing their world go to hell with people running around in panic sets this in perspective. In this respect, Front Line continues to deliver on good character driven stories. The roots of this series was actually planted in Marvels by Kurt Busiek and Alex Ross, and I guess it should be read as a continuation of this.

The other story has a somewhat more comical tinge to it. It's basically a noir crime story with a twist. Sally's boyfriend, detective Danny Granville, NY Costume Division, is put on a murder case of some urgency. He must solve the murder of one of Hulk's Warbound, the robot Arch-E-5912, or else the Warbound will be even angrier than they already are. And the mayor of NY don't want that. So Danny starts unravelling the mystery accompanied by Korg, the rock guy of the Warbound. It's a good little story, but the main sell is definitely the interaction between Danny and Korg, which is hilarious at times.

The comical sketches, 'War is Heck', are mostly good fun and serve as good extras.

The art is overall pretty good. None of the artists are of the dynamic superhero drawing kind you might be used to from reading Marvel, but their styles serve the stories well.

I feel sorry for the Front Line stories that they were forced to share book with the WWH Prologue story, because they are pretty good and it isn't. The Front Line series has so far been a great addition to the big MU events, I wonder if a monthly book wouldn't be interesting? The stories in this book are a good read, and if you've already read or are planning to read WWH, I would definitely recommend it.

6/10

Marvel, will you stop publishing tpb's in the wrong order!

Marvel has gone and done it again! I was looking through my weekly ComicList mail, and to my joy I noticed a new X-Men tpb, X-Men: Divided We Stand, that will be hitting the stands August 20th. Yea, this sounds great, finally I will know what happens after Messiah Complex, the X-Men event that...hey, waitaminnut! I haven't heard of any solicitations regarding any Messiah Complex tpb's, so I look it up and it turns out that a trade will be out October 29th.

[Thinking hard while staring at the screen...]

But, October comes after August. But, Messiah Complex comes before Divided We Stand. This doesn't make sense, I must be mistaken. Surely Marvel wouldn't publish their books in the wrong order! That would be stoopid!!!

But they will. And not for the first time either. The exact same thing happened with X-Men: Supernovas (collecting X-Men #188-199, published February 27th) and X-Men: Blinded by the Light (collecting X-Men #200-204, published January 16th).

What the hell are they thinking?!? Is this some new weird business plan? Not only are they published more than a year from the original date of publication, the trade paperbacks are published in the wrong order! WTF!!! Is Marvel deliberately pissing on that part of their readership which likes to read their comic books in collected soft cover formats? But they're so nice! Aren't they?

Marvel seriously need to take a look at their tpb publishing strategy and tighten it up. Maybe they're afraid they'll be losing money, if they start publishing the tpb's sooner. This is understandable, since they're probably rather dependent on their monthly revenue as it is now.

But Marvel, you should not piss off those of us who prefer the tpb format. Because in the future this will be _the_ main physical format of your books, and you will need a lot more of us than there is now, to make the big move. So start treating us better, and we will steadily increase in numbers, until we reach that day where there are more people reading tpb's than there are people reading the magazines. The books are pretty good as it is, they look nice and the content is good, but you need to publish them sooner! And in the right order!!!

Ok, that's enough ranting for now...

World War Hulk

Collects World War Hulk #1-5 written by Greg Pak and drawn by John Romita Jr.

Let me start this review off by airing a complaint which, as a non-American, I think is pretty important. The title of this event is misleading. The story takes place on the Moon and in New York. For a war to be a world war, it has to involve several continents on earth, although I'm not sure about any formal definitions regarding that. To make a long story short, New York and the Moon does not a world war make. That's it, I got it off my chest, I feel better now. The title is prettty catchy though...

World War Hulk kicks off exactly where Planet Hulk ended, with Hulk and his Warbound on a space ship, on their way back to Earth, with the stated mission of getting back on the people that sent the Hulk into space in the first place, namely Black Bolt, Iron Man, Mr. Fantastic and Dr. Strange. And how is the Hulk planning on getting back on them? Well, the only way he knows of course - by kicking the shit out of them and stomping on it. Over and over again. While displaying it for all the world to see. Hehe, funny guy, that Hulk fella.

This event is basically one long fight scene between the Hulk and the people he's after. They've all fought him before, but this time he's tougher, stronger and smarter. The Hulk's been tougher and stronger before, but this time around his new found tactical capabilities give him plenty of edge to conquer his enemies and force them to fight among themselves in his home made arena, very much like the arena where the Hulk was forced to fight in Planet Hulk. Not suprisingly, the story ends in a huge bang, as the Hulk goes toe to toe with the MU's newest deus ex machina while the smashed-to-pulp heroes scramble together to put an end to the shenanigans. A logical conclusion to what is a very long and very destructive fight.

Greg Pak is hailed as The Great New Hulk writer, although I have to admit I fail to see what's so great about these stories. Maybe it's just that I wasn't so much of a Hulk fan to begin with, but I just don't see the appeal. I find them to be rather simple, and I don't really think Pak manages to write established characters in a believable way, i.e. close to what readers are used to. This goes for some of the members of the Warbound (why would a member of the Brood hang out with the Hulk?) and it especially goes for Dr. Strange in WWH. The main fault of the story, however, is that the reader, in the course of just five issues, is never really convinced that the Hulk is the huge threat that he's blown up to be, and it seems a little implausible that he could take down he strongest heroes in the MU so easily, even with his improved tactical intelligence.

The overall theme of Planet Hulk/WWH, however, is interesting. In Planet Hulk, Hulk is the Saviour, very much a Jesus-figure. In WWH he is the World Breaker, the Destroyer. Together they form a complete story, a cycle reminiscent of the classical myths. Pak obviously has some ideas with what he's doing, but this just doesn't save the story from a mediocre implementation.

John Romita Jr. is usually a guarantee for some pretty decent art, but in this book it's as if he never really gets into the game. You just know he can do better. I can't really think of a better artist to illustrate a long drawn out battle between Hulk and various members of the MU, so editorially I agree with the decision, but the end result could have been better. There are some good sequences, I liked the ending for instance, but the overall impression is below par.

This is the main book of the great Marvel event of the summer 2007, and as such, the reader should have high expectations. I felt my expectations, although not monumentally high, were not met. As a stand alone book World War Hulk is disappointing, but maybe when read with the other books in the event, it will give a better impression? Stay tuned for more WWH reviews to come!

5/10

World War Hulk review marathon!

It is true, I will be reviewing all of Marvel's big summer crossover of 2007, which was collected in tpb's a little while ago. I know a lot of people have been dying to read this one, so I will go through each book in the crossover in a semi-logical order, analyzing each punch thrown and dissecting each broken rib.

The crossover is pretty much the direct continuation of Planet Hulk, which seems to be fairly popular, although I didn't really like it. I don't buy into the whole Hulk-as-Jesus thing, and the group of weird aliens that become his disciples didn't really tickle my fancy either. In World War Hulk, however, Hulk is back on earth and he's brought his alien friends with him. And all he wants to do is kick the butt of the heroes who shot him into space.

I will be reviewing the books in the following order:

• World War Hulk
• WWH: Front Line
• WWH: Gamma Corps
  
• WWH: Incredible Herc
• WWH: Warbound
• WWH: X-Men
• WWH: Damage Control

Finally I will be doing a review of the whole crossover.

Phew, that's a lot of Hulk, and frankly, I don't think it's going to be all top of the pops. But hey, sometimes you have to take the good with the bad (and sometimes with the outright shitty...). So stay tuned!

As an added service I have collected some links to CBR articles that was published around the time World War Hulk came out on the magazine stands, so the tpb readers can enjoy reading them as well:

REFLECTIONS: "World War Hulk's" Greg Pak
TALE OF THE TAPE: Pak talks Hulk vs. Sentry (with links to other WWH Take of the Tape interviews)
Joining the Green Party: Romita Talks "World War Hulk"
If it Bleeds They Can Kill It: "World War Hulk: Gamma Corps"
Drawing on Myth: Pham Talks "Incredible Herc"
WAR PARTY: Pak Talks "World War Hulk: Warbound"
BACK IN BUSINESS: McDuffie talks "WWH Aftersmash: Damage Control
THE COMMENTARY TRACK: "Aftersmash" #1 with Greg Pak

I am planning on digging up more articles like this in the future to coincide with the publication of the collected editions of various series and crossovers. Hopefully, this will, to some degree, make up for the total lack of media concern regarding these books.

New tpb-only crime imprint from DC/Vertigo

Interesting news came out of San Diego Con this year. Next year the DC imprint Vertigo will launch a sub-imprint called Vertigo Crime. As the name implies the books published will be crime books, but what is really interesting to tpb aficionados is that they will be published as graphic novels, which is really just a fancy word for trade paper back.

The more direct-to-tpb books we see, the closer we get to a market where most tpb's won't be featuring content that's been yesterdays news for more than a year. I don't think that direct-to-tpb alone will do it, the publishers have to think hard about how to incorporate Internet publishing as a way of securing a monthly revenue, but tpb's will be the main format of the books that collectors will be putting on their shelves in the future.

The article only mentions hard cover editions, but I'd be surprised if they're not followed by soft cover editions as well. Let's hope it doesn't take a lifetime to get those editions out as well...

The two first books will be Filthy Rich written by Brian Azzarello (100 Bullets) with art by Victor Santos and Dark Entries written by Scottish crime athor Ian Rankin with art by Wether Dell'edera.

Read the whole article on Newsarama.com here.

X-Men: Supernovas

X-Men: Supernovas collects X-Men #188-199 and Annual #1 written by Mike Carey with art by Chris Bachalo, Umberto Ramos, Clayton Henry and Mark Brooks.

This book collects three story arcs and one annual, which taken together works as one long storyline. All in all this book contains almost one year worth of X-Men, and it functions as a pretty good jumping on point with a completely new artistic team and new team members.

The plot is pretty complex, so bear with me here. As the X-Men are assaulted by a mysterious group of very powerful bad guys, Rogue takes charge of a new group of X-Men featuring Ice Man, Mystique, Cable, Cannonball and a couple of other less knowns. Even Sabretooth gets to stick around for a while, although more as a captive than a real member. the baddies call themselves The Children of the Vault, and they're pretty badass. Also, they have a flying hangar ship, speak Spanish, and, as an added twist, want to kill all humans AND mutants. In the end the X-Men overcome their opponents, but it is strongly hinted that we have not yet seen the last of them (well, duh...). After that the X-Men go to investigate a lead discovered at a laboratory that experimented with mutants and end up fighting a guy that wants to suck the powers from other mutants. Of course, they beat him up too, but the fight leaves Rogue in a bad state so they hurry on to Providence, Cable's island kingdom, where they're attacked by a weird mind-stealing alien thingy. Also, the Beaubier twins show up as a mind-controlled strike force, new surprising romantic relationships are formed and so on and so on.

I realize now that this is a pretty bad explanation of what is going on in this book, so if you really want to know what happens, I suggest you go read it yourself. This is not X-Men for the uninitiated, this is X-Men as we're used to, with numerous subplots and references to old story arcs, and it's pretty damn difficult to keep pace at times. Especially if you read the book just before going to sleep as I do! But if you do want to read X-Men that builds on top of all the chronology that's come before, this is the book for you. On a side note, if you want to read X-Men that is a little more accessible, I suggest you try Astonishing X-Men, New X-Men by Grant Morrison or Ultimate X-Men.

All in all, the stories are solid but rather standard super hero fare, and whether you like them or not will depend on how much you care for the characters and how they're being portrayed.

The art in this book is very good. With both Bachalo and Ramos you're guaranteed some pretty decent artwork, and this book does not disappoint in that regard. Bachalo and Ramos both have very distinct visual styles, but they share some of the same characteristics, eg. they're both slightly cartoony and do very dynamic action scenes, and in that regard they complement each other well. They each handle their own story arcs, and the book does not feel disrupted due to having numerous artists. This works a lot better than having one good main artist and a bunch of fill-in artists, but I guess you can only expect an arrangement like that on major titles like X-Men. My personal favorite of the two is Bachalo who uses techniques like tone shading and overlayed paintings to great effect.

This is good super hero fare, and a good jumping on point for new readers, but you should be warned that it's a pretty complex read, and you might find yourself consulting Wikipedia a couple of times while reading it. The stories are not wildly interesting, but the action is plenty and the art is good, and you certainly will be entertained for your buck.

6/10

Loki

Collects Loki #1-4 written by Rob Rodi and painted by Esad Ribic (Silver Surfer: Requiem).

As people unfortunate enough to have read Avengers Disassembled: Thor will remember, that story arc left a number of the gods dead, Loki as the ruler of what was left of Valhalla and Thor in chains at the mercy of Loki. Pretty unusual for this corner of the MU, and also a situation which Loki has more trouble coping with than he expected. This story pivots around the father/brother relationship between Loki, Odin and Thor, but from a perspective not usually employed in the ongoing series, namely that of Loki, the Trickster god. Rodi spins a psychological drama with Loki as the main actor, presenting him as a somewhat misunderstood and sad creature, instead of the evil, spiteful character that readers are accustomed to. The genius of the plot is that the ending is written in a way that makes this story function plausibly with the ongoing series, even though the Loki presented here is so different from usual Loki.

I haven't read anything else by Rob Rodi, and looking at his biography, he hasn't really been doing any other major work for Marvel. This is a big shame, because this book is really well written. Rodi has taken a somewhat average arch villain and breathed life into him. Even though he is a god (or maybe because?), Loki certainly benefits from a better explanation of his motivations than what he's been equipped with so far. And the story of Loki presented here builds on both the original myths and the ongoing series to give us a villain that is more than just an evil god. In a universe where a hero needs a villain, Loki finds himself at the bad end of a rotten deal, and this book is his first and probably only chance of redeeming himself. In the end, fate steps in to restore the status quo, and in a world of gods, this conclusion seems inevitable and yet a little sad...

The painted art by Esad Ribic is beautiful and really fits this story of gods and goddesses well. The gods are presented pretty much as they were designed by Kirby way back when, and really come to life on the page under the brush of Ribic. This book has numerous pages worthy of the poster treatment. Hel poses dramatically and enchantingly as ever, but particularly Loki stands out from the rest. His spiny posture and wrinkled face with only a few rotten teeth left, makes him look like someone you would love to hate, a character doomed to villainy. It is a testimony to the quality of this book, that it really succeeds in making the reader care for such a wretched character.

This is without a doubt the best Thor I've read in a long time, and I heartily recommend it to all fans of that series. But more that that, I recommend it to people who like well written stories, that dare to break the rules of how archetypical characters are presented. Thor is a classic Marvel series, but it also seems to be the book most difficult to relaunch for an audience accustomed to books like Astonishing X-Men and New Avengers. I haven't read the new series yet, and somehow I doubt Loke will be presented as he is here. But I hope that the series will take a hint from this book, and try to infuse some of the deep characterisation that these great characters are blessed with here.

8/10