In the distant misty mists of prehistory, humanity was born with a burning thirst for both righteous violence and weekend maxxin’ and relaxxin’. But for millennia, none have known how to combine these twin desires. But now, we have the secret formula! We have… Friday Night Fights!

From “World War Hulk #5” by Greg Pak and John Romita, Jr., a series which was apparently designed with Friday Night Fights in mind: Hulk introduces the Sentry to his fist.

Umm, the Sentry really seems to be getting into the horrific and brutal Hulk-beating a bit too much. “Just once more”? Takes all kinds to make a world, but I just hope Hulk knows the safeword…

 

World War Hulk #5

It’s the last chapter of this series, as the mega-powerful Sentry shows up to try to take Hulk down. Completely spoiler-free review: There is a LOT of hitting.

Verdict: Thumbs up. There’s really no way they could’ve ended it with the big bang that ended every issue of this series, but I think it ended well. So many pure-action superhero epics end up devolving into plotless and characterization-less exercises in mindless brutality. This has been a high-quality and very exciting story all the way through.

 

Metal Men #4

Lots of stuff happens, both in the present and the past. The Proto-Metal Men defeat Chemo in the past, the current Metal Men have to deal with a new tendency to temporarily turn evil — or as they call it, turning into “radioactive werewolves.” On top of that, Lead has been transmuted into Gold and vice versa — so the old Gold is now a bit dumb and dull, while the old Lead is now a supergenius. The Missile Men make an appearance, though they’re now called the M-80s, Dr. Morrow is a robot imposter, and Dr. Magnus’ badass evil brother shows up.

Verdict: Well, I love the stuff with Lead, I mean Gold, I mean Lead… but the rest of it is confusing as heck. We’ve been told that this will start making sense soon, but if that’s the case, I wish they’d just published the full story all at once so I wouldn’t have to wait 30 days between chapters in the hopes that it’ll make sense. Thumbs down.

 

Titans East Special

Actually, I didn’t buy this one. The ending of this was telegraphed to just about everyone — they lined up a bunch of DC teenagers, including (ugh) Power Boy, Little Barda, the current Hawk and Dove, Lagoon Boy, Son of Vulcan, and Anima, and they just killed ’em all.

Why? I really don’t know. It’s not like the Titans haven’t had enough deaths in the past few years, what with losing Superboy, Kid Flash, Pantha, Wildebeest, Terra, and others. I think DC has a quota — “Must pointlessly kill X number of characters per week.”

One wonders if the people running DC right now are actually trying to destroy the company by killing off all their characters and simultaneously running off all their customers. Could someone please call Time-Warner Inc. and ask if they’ve checked in on their DC subsidiary lately? Maybe they’ll appoint a editor-in-chief who’s not crazy…

World War Hulk #4

In a desperate attempt to stop the Hulk’s rampage, Dr. Strange channels an extradimensional demon called Zom, and the additional power gives him more than enough oomph to beat the stuffing out of Hulk. But Strange gets knocked off his game when he accidentally endangers a bunch of civilians, and that gives Hulk the opportunity to batter Strange into unconsciousness. Rick Jones is still trying to talk some sense into Hulk, but he’s still getting ignored. So Hulk and his alien Warbound buddies outfit all the superheroes with “obedience disks” and force Iron Man, Black Bolt, Mr. Fantastic, and Dr. Strange into gladiatorial contests against each other.

Well, first, wowie, there sure has been a superhero drain in the Marvel Universe. Our spotlight characters are Hulk, Iron Man, Dr. Strange, Mr. Fantastic, and Black Bolt, and I’m not sure you could call any of them unblemished heroes anymore. There’s a great sequence in the middle of the book where a bunch of people list off the various crimes committed by Iron Man, Strange, Reed Richards, and Black Bolt, and it’s a really powerful indictment of their behavior over the last few years.

Not that it makes the Hulk any more lovable. Cheeze Louize, I’m really hating him these days. I halfway hope they kill the arrogant spitwad in the next issue. And that’s not a complaint — that’s an example of really outstanding writing. Greg Pak has been writing a series chock-full of action, action, action, and he’s still able to throw in enough characterization to get you to care about what happens to people and to get you to change your opinions of the characters.

And yes, John Romita Jr. is one holy heck of an artist. I love Pak’s writing, but I can’t imagine any other artist drawing this series. Awesome fight scenes, body language, facial expressions.

Verdict: Thumbs up. One more issue to go, and I can’t figure out how they’re gonna wrap this one up. Can’t wait, can’t wait.

Batman #668

This is part 2 of the “Batmen of All Nations” storyline, where Batman, Robin, and a group of international crimefighters who’ve been inspired by the Dark Knight find themselves stranded on an island and being stalked by an assassin. In this issue, everyone investigates a murder, argue amongst themselves, and slowly get separated from each other. For a bunch of detectives, they seem to have no clue how to deal with serial killers.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Some quality detective work is displayed, and the mystery is still intriguing. There’s some interesting retro artwork at the beginning, but some of the rest of the artwork is a bit too dark, making it a bit hard to keep track of what’s going on. Nevertheless, good fun.

World War Hulk: Gamma Files

This is basically “The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe” for mostly Hulk-related characters. In other words, it’s a collection of character biographies. As with most of the “Official Handbook” titles, it’s pretty high-quality material. Thumbs up, but if you’re not a Hulk or Marvel completist, you may be able to live without it.

World War Hulk #3

Well, last issue, the superpeople had their chance to take down the Hulk, and they got stomped. This issue, the Hulk’s biggest enemy, General Thunderbolt Ross, wants to try it with the Army. The Army is armed with adamantium bullets. Hulk still stomps ’em, though the military did more damage to Hulk than the superpeople did. We get treated to several pages of Hulk destroying military hardware, and it’s big fun.

On top of that, Dr. Strange forces a magical confrontation inside Hulk’s mind and manages to briefly turn him back into Bruce Banner. This is still all inside Hulk’s mind, though, so it’s not like Banner’s getting cut to ribbons by the Army. Anyway, Strange thinks he’s got Hulk all talked down until Hulk grabs Strange’s hands — again, inside Hulk’s mind — and squeezes so hard he breaks Strange’s hands for real.

After that, we find out that Hulk and his alien allies, the Warbound, plan to get their revenge on Earth’s heroes by forcing them to fight each other in gladiatorial contests. And the Warbound are already closing in on a mostly helpless Dr. Strange. But Strange still has a trick or two up his sleeves.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Listen, I love intellectual comics, I love comics with lots of talking and dialogue and characterization, I even like nonviolent comics. But this series has been almost nonstop SMASHING, and it is awesome.

 

World War Hulk #2

I know a lot of people who would deride the “World War Hulk” storyline as nothing more than wall-to-wall face-punching, “HULK SMASH!” and brutality. If you’re not into nonstop violence in your comics, the entire concept of the Hulk — a geek who turns into an unstoppable musclebound monster — is going to run you off.

Of course, find me a fanboy who only reads pure action comics. They haven’t made those since the dark days of the mid-’90s. We geeks like some thinking with our face-punching nowadays.

This issue sees the Avengers and the Fantastic Four trying to stop Hulk and his crew, a bunch of gladiatorial aliens who call themselves the Warbound (with names like Hiroim the Shamed, Mied the Unhived, and No-Name of the Brood). Hulk fights She-Hulk, Hulk fights the Thing, Hulk beats Mr. Fantastic into a Fantasti-puddle. There are lots of “WHAKOOOM!” and “THOOOM!” and “THRAKOOOM!” sound effects, though the Hulk-Thing battle is interestingly silent.

We also get some good stuff with She-Hulk trying to talk Hulk down, Dr. Strange working on a spell that he hopes will solve things before Hulk beats him into Strange-puddle, and Hulk’s oldest friend Rick Jones almost talks Hulk down. I’ll be surprised if the last issue doesn’t end with a five-page-long discussion about philosophy (probably accompanied by the occasional “WHAKOOOOM!”).

Verdict: Thumbs up. A little of the old ultra-violence, and a little of the old ultra-talking. John Romita’s art is wonderful, and the writing and dialogue are first-rate.

 

Yow, lookit that hand! Hulk could use some lotion.

Thursdays are New Comics Days here in Lubbock, so let’s start digging through this week’s haul. First up tonight is the first issue of the new “World War Hulk” limited series from Marvel.

Yowza! It’s a good one!

Backstory first: About a year or so ago, some of the Marvel Universe’s bigwigs — Iron Man, Dr. Strange, Mr. Fantastic, and Black Bolt — decided that the Hulk was just too dangerous to the planet, so they sneaked him into a spaceship and zapped him into outer space. Hulk ended up on a distant planet where he was forced to serve as a gladiator, but later ended up being crowned king. He got a wife, had a kid on the way, and then the spaceship he traveled in blows up, kills his wife, and destroys most of his adopted planet.

Unsurprisingly, this angers Hulk, who grabs some of his drinkin’ buddies and sets off back for Earth to, more than likely, beat a large number of superheroes into fairly squishy goo. Hulk scares the golly-gee-whilikers out of everyone on the planet and takes on Black Bolt and Iron Man, emerging mostly unscathed and angrier than ever.

Anyway, like I said, it’s a good one. John Romita, Jr. handles the artwork while Greg Pak takes care of the story. With Romita working the pencils, the action is absolutely wonderful. We get treated to multiple scenes that are entirely jaw-dropping in intensity. Even with all that fighting, we get some good writing and dialogue work in, too. Hulk’s first words in his broadcast to the planet (“Puny humans. I’ve come to smash.”) are both familiar and chilling — this version of the Hulk is a great deal angrier, more intelligent, and a lot more dangerous than most of us are used to.

This one gets a big thumbs-up from me, and I expect I’ll be picking up the rest of the series, too.