World War Hulk: X-Men

Collects World War Hulk: X-Men #1-3 (Christos Gage/Andrea Divito), Avengers: The Iniative #4-5 (Dan Slott/Stefano Castelli), The Irredeemable Ant-Man #10 (Robert Kirkman/Phil Hester), Ghost Rider #12-13 (Daniel Way/Javier Saltares) and Iron Man #19-20 (Christos Gage/Butch Guice).

This is a potpourri of stories from various series that is connected to WWH in smaller or larger degree. None of the stories are related except that they all concern WWH somehow, so it reads pretty much like a collection of short stories.

Let's start with the main event, the X-Men story. It sucks. In fact, calling it a story is a bit of a stretch, as it's pretty much just a drawn out slugfest going through all three issues and featuring different X-teams getting beaten silly by the Hulk, until he finally realizes that his fight is not really with the X-Men, and then walks away. This is obviously just a bad excuse for slapping the X-logo on a cover knowing that it'll sell.

The Avengers Initiative story is this books nice surprise. I didn't expect much from this, as I tend to prefer stories involving classic Marvel characters (I'm pretty conservative on that point...), but this story was both well written and well drawn, so I'll definitely be trying out the tpb's for this series. The story works very well within the greater context of WWH, without feeling tagged on or unnecessary, which is the case with some of the other tie-ins.

The Irredeemable Ant-Man is a fun little story. It's nice to see a Marvel series with a focus on comedy for a change. Phil Hester's art is excellent, so I might try out the digests of this series.

The Iron Man story is also pretty good. I quite like the direction Iron Man has taken after Civil War, and this story focuses heavily on his Shield responsibilities. The atmosphere of the story is moody, and the art augments this perfectly. This story also features the fight between Iron Man and the Hulk, which is a pivotal scene in the main WWH book, from a different view, namely that of Iron Man.

The Ghost Rider story manages to beat out the X-Men story in the 'The Story of this Book that Sucks the Most'-competition by a fair margin. There's just no reason for this story.

So as is usually the case with this kind of book, it's a mixed bag of hits and misses. It works pretty well as a collection of samples of various series, giving the reader interest in trying out books he otherwise would not and warning him about books he should stay miles away from. There really is no excuse for WWH: X-Men, however. As a limited series featuring a major team and tying in to a major event, it should have been better.

5/10