World War Hulk

Updated Saturday 10 May, 2008 12:19 PM | Headlines | Discussion Forum | International Edition

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World War Hulk

Hulk SMASH…well, everyone.

What a fine waste of good trees this comic was.

Hulk: Puny humans. I've come to smash.

Let’s see. A few years before, in Marvel time, the Hulk was launched into space in hopes of trapping him somewhere where no one else would ever be harmed again. As the laws of comic books dictate, Hulk ended up instead on a barbaric planet ruled by a barbaric and spoiled prince, who promptly put Hulk in the gladiators and ordered him to fight to the death. Hulk escaped, took control of an army, and ended up smashing the prince, becoming king of the new world with a wife and a child on the way…and then the entire world was destroyed. Blaming this on The Illuminati – a covert superhero group composed of Professor X, Doctor Strange, Mister Fantastic, Namor, Iron Man, and Black Bolt – Hulk sets off to Earth with the remains of his army, determined to extract a little revenge.

Actually, more than a little revenge.

Reed Richards: Tony. Bruce isn't where we sent him.

Tony Stark: That's...Bad.

Reed Richards: It's worse. Because Bruce...The Hulk, has friends and God help us if they find him before we do.

The five issues that follow (and several dozen spin-offs) are just one slugfest after another. The Hulk takes on and defeats every Marvel superhero, apart from a handful who side with him or try to stay out of the fighting, before he is finally convinced that it wasn’t the fault of the Illuminati that his world was destroyed. Umm…what? Did Marvel just pass up a chance to tell a story with a real meaning? Of course; what else would they do?

The irony is that Hulk proves that the Illuminati’s charges – he’s dangerous and that won’t ever change – are well-founded. No one, but General Ross, mentions that, when he points out that the Hulk is a hero one day, and a world-class menace the next. After watching Hulk’s rampage, it is impossible to feel any sympathy for him; Iron Man, who generally acted like a twit during Civil War, is much more of a sympathetic character in this series. Once again, all of the spin-offs are ill-coordinated at best, at worst just trying to sell comics on the World War Hulk bandwagon. What was the point of sending the Hulk to fight the X-Men? Of all of the Illuminati, only Professor X was absent from that fateful meeting…but what does that matter to the authors.

World War Hulk is drivel, plain and simple.

Don’t bother.

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