Skaar: Son of Hulk #1

Everyone’s kinda been waiting on this one with bated breath. It’s written by Greg Pak, who penned the thoroughly awesome “World War Hulk” last year. Its backstory is tied all the way back to the “Planet Hulk” storyline, where Mr. Green Genes was marooned on a distant planet and forced to fight in gladiatorial contests. He eventually became king and took a wife named Caiera, who had some major superpowers of her own. But a planetary disaster killed Caiera and sent Hulk on a vengeance-fueled trip back to Earth. But apparently, Hulk’s unborn son somehow survived his mother’s atomization to become a savage and fast-growing warrior. A year after his birth, Skaar’s homeworld is dominated by a barbarian horde led by a warlord with the extremely awesome name of Axeman Bone, who’s working to exterminate any rumored sons of the Hulk so they can’t interfere with his rule. Of course, Skaar and the Axeman (Wow, that’d be a great name for a ’70s cop show) come to blows.

Verdict: Ehh, first issue really doesn’t float my boat. We don’t know a durn thing about Skaar yet, other than him being the son of the Hulk. And as far as brutal barbarian action heroes go, Skaar ain’t no Conan. Maybe the second issue will be more appealing.

 

Trinity #2

Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman get introduced to some strange otherworlds — a miniature but very destructive solar system descends on Metropolis, Gotham City gets temporarily turned into a city of mystics and demons, and Wonder Woman is attacked by gigantic robots (which leads us indirectly into the title of this story — “A Personal Best at Giant Robot Smashing” — which is the coolest thing in nine parsecs. This is all the work of Morgaine Le Fay and Enigma, somehow… And in the second half of the story, John Stewart is attacked by a couple of space monsters called Konvikt and Graak.

Verdict: Once again, ehh, not thrilled. The title is tres cool, but I’m left completely unimpressed by the story so far.

 

Abe Sapien #5

Basically, even though it looks like Capital-E Evil is gonna triumph, Hellboys fishy pal Abe Sapien shoots a few ghosts, checks out a crazy church, and a magical moray eel eats the evil spirit.

Verdict: Okay, I absolutely adored the crazy church where all the icons had been redecorated in a marine motif (Saints with shark jaws and starfish wired all over them, plus a Virgin Mary statue with a dead squid tied to it. That’s bizarreness that I’d pay a good four dollars for, fer sher.), but the rest of the story was just a bit not-there. Abe did a little bit of shootin’, but he was mainly there to watch as other people did the heavy lifting.

 

House of Mystery #2

Our lost runaway who came to the House at the end of the first issue is named Fig, and she looks like she’s gonna be our main character. She meets the various residents of the House and learns that she’s one of the few people who’s actually stuck here forever — she can’t leave, ever. We also get a story told by an otherworldly process server, about how he got himself temporary gills so he could serve an undersea monarch named King Krakenheart. Unfortunately, the gills are a lot more temporary than they were expected to be.

Verdict: Looks like this is gonna be my day for “Ehh” reviews, ’cause this one just didn’t float my boat. The spotlight story about the process server just doesn’t measure up to last issue’s nightmarish insectoid horrorfest, and the story focusing on the denizens of the House of Mystery is even lighter than that. This book needs to step up to the storytelling plate and start knocking ’em out of the park, or it’s gonna get cancelled fast.