World War Hulk Event

This is a review of the WWH event as a whole, not just the main WWH book. For a review of the book go here. This is also the final review of my World War Hulk Review Marathon, and I must say I've been looking forward to getting here. The event hasn't been all shiny pearls and now I'm looking forward to reading some non-Hulk books!

The quality of an event like WWH is naturally very dependent on the quality of the main book, and although this is certainly a decent read, it is by no means top of the pops. My main fault with this book is that although it constantly attempts to convince the reader that this is pretty much the greatest crisis to ever happen in the MU, I was far from convinced that this was really the case. I read about Galactus in FF. I read about Dark Phoenix. And I read about a thousand other Marvel stories where the fate of the world was hanging by a thread. And this story just does not give me the same feeling of impending doom that many of those other stories did. In essence, the main book fails to set the atmosphere for the event as a whole.

The spin-off titles of the event are a varied bunch. The best ones are the Marvel event mainstays: Front Line and Damage Control, but the WWH: X-Men book also has some pretty good stories in it, specifically Avengers: The Initiative and Iron Man. I would recommend people to not buy the Gamma Corps and Warbound books. They are both of outrageously low quality and actually detract from the overall enjoyment of the event. The rest of the books I recommend to those who actually want to read the whole thing.

Except for Front Line and Damage Control and maybe Inredible Herc, however, the spin-offs don't really add a lot to the event. It's as if there's been little or no editorial work done here to give the stories a sense of unity, and this is a shame because that could potentially have made reading the whole event that much more rewarding.

I also find it strange that there are stories with characters that are completely unrelated to the main story, such as the X-Men and Ghost Rider, but no stories with some of the characters that are most affected by it, such as the Inhumans, the Fantastic Four and Dr. Strange. These are of course touched upon in the main book, but wouldn't it be obvious to go deeper with each character in their own series?

World War Hulk should probably be thought of as a fill-in event between Civil War and Secret Invasion. You won't see the MU in a different light after reading this, and the staus quo is pretty much the same as before. If anything, it does tell a story where major Marvel characters do questionable things, although the whole sending the Hulk into outer space thing actually happened before WWH...

I recommend getting the main book to those who like to read major Marvel events, just don't expect to be rolling around on the floor with joy. If you get the main book, I also recommend getting the Front Line and Damage Control books. The other books I recommend to those who get the main book, and who also have an interest in the characters featured or who want to get a glimpse of some Marvel books they otherwise wouldn't read. Just stay away from the Gamma Corps and Warbound books!

5/10