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