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

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

World War Hulk: Incredible Herc

Collects Incredible Hulk #106-111 written by Greg Pak with art by Gary Frank, Leonard Kirk and Carlo Pagulayan.

This book rolls along in pretty much exactly the same time frame as the main WWH book, and, although it does have a story of it's own, it serves as more of a complimentary story to that book. Super genius and annoying teenager, Amadeus Cho, wants to repay the Hulk for saving him a while back by helping him in his battle against everyone else in the MU. Joining him in his quest are the new selfproclaimed Defenders, consisting of Hercules, Angel and Namorra, and standing in their way is the evermore ubiquitous post-Civil War Shield. She-Hulk, Doc Samson and Rick Jones also have minor appearances, and, as expected, the Green Goliath himself shows up a couple of times! Many of the events of WWH are portrayed from a different view in this book, and in some cases, e.g. the ending, some minor details are also added. None of this, however, is so interesting or radical as to make the book a must-buy...

The book is written with more humor than the WWH main book, and this does feel refreshing, considering WWH's dark tone. Considering the characters banding together here, this book would probably have read pretty strangely had it not been spiced up with high doses of humor.

I have to say that the Amadeus Cho character does not work for me. Ok, he may be super smart, so much so that he can quickly calculate the trajectory required to throw a small piece of adamantium shrapnel so that it will take out an incoming missile. But that shouldn't give him the ability to actually throw the piece of shrapnel with the required precision. I know, it's nitpicking but still, people pay good money for this, godammit! The part where he hacks Iron Man's armor with a Game Boy is kind of a nice touch, however...

The art is pretty good in some places, but having three artists over six issues does leave a negative impact on the overall impression. Gary Frank delivers the best art here, but the book would have been better had the art been more consistent.

I recommend this book as a decent companion piece to those who haven't had enough of WWH yet. If you're not into WWH, you should probably avoid it. The story doesn't read very well on it's own, and the characters are, well, really not that interesting. I know that Hulk was restarted after WWH, so if you want to read Hulk, wait for that.

5/10

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

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

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