Maximum Rock and Roll
The Super Hero Squad Show #3
And here’s the latest issue of the comic based on the “Marvel Super Hero Squad” TV show. And you’ve got all these “fractals” — fragments of the shattered Infinity Sword — and anything that comes into possession of one of them gets massively hyper-powered. Well, one of the fractal shards accidentally gets stuck into a jellyfish in the ocean, leading to it turning into a giant blob monster and attacking the city. Unfortunately, it’s much too tough for the Super Hero Squad to hurt, and it just ate the Hulk. Reptil and the Falcon, assuming the attack of a giant monster must mean the Mole Man is behind the plot, put on a lot of silly disguises to try to capture him. Meanwhile, Iron Man realizes there’s a fractal inside the monster and has Hulk swim through the jellyfish to grab it. And what’s the result of the awesomely powerful fractal on the already awesomely powerful Hulk?
PIRATE HULK.
Soooo awesome.
And on top of all that, we also get Thor reliving his glory days in high school, which were completely goofy.
Verdict: Thumbs up, both for Pirate Hulk and Thor playing in a garage rock band with the Warriors Three.
Marvel Adventures: Super Heroes #21
After Nova pops off with a line about how easy it’d be to divide the Avengers into various strike teams, Captain America and Invisible Woman call his bluff and ask how he’d really do it. This eventually ends with Nova in the role of reluctant kinda-sorta-pseudo team leader when a couple of mythological figures go to war with each other in Hawaii. Soon after the strike team leaves, Nova, Black Widow, and Invisible Woman run into a 1940s-era superheroine named Sun Girl, who tells them that a fellow Golden Age hero named Gary Gaunt is in trouble. Gary periodically turns into a Hulk-like wild man, but he’s had his problem beat for decades, thanks to a special serum that keeps his monster-side under control. But some burglars have stolen his serum from the rest home, and Gary is afraid he’ll turn into a monster again. Sue Storm and Black Widow go to track the thieves, leaving Nova babysitting a senior citizen, listening to old war stories, and worrying that Gary may turn into a monster again.
Verdict: Nominally, a thumbs up. The entire story is lightweight — I mean, more than is usual, even for an all-ages book. And it’s got an irritating punch-line moral, too. But I love the characters of Gary Gaunt and Sun Girl. That alone made me enjoy reading the story.