Blog

Publisher: Marvel
Writer: Greg Pak
Artist: Ariel Olivetti
Cover: Ariel Olivetti

“Playdate”: For anyone not satisfied with the current Hulk title then you need to step on over to Incredible Hulk right now! In the 600th issue of Incredible Hulk the Red Hulk apparently drained Bruce Banner of his Green Hulk persona and made the statement that Banner will never turn into the Hulk again!  Bruce believes that it’s only a matter of time before the Hulk returns and so he seeks out his son… Skaar. Banner knows how much Skaar hates the Hulk and the reason that he has come to Earth is to kill the Hulk, plain and simple.  However Bruce knows Skaar, for all of his power, would die at the hands of the Green Scar or World War Hulk persona so he as volunteered to train his son for the fight to come. And the best way to do that is to get some fight time in, so Bruce blows up Juggernaut’s home burning his 3 million in stolen cash as well.

The issue opens up with Bruce and Skaar at a diner waiting for Juggernaut to arrive, and when he gets there he’s pretty ticked off! Problem is Skaar tells his dad that this is his fight and goes back to get another shake. Lucky for Bruce, he’s wearing defensive shields so he takes a few punches from Juggernaut before Skaar finally takes over the fight.  Greg Pak gives us a great battle between these two as we get to see a bit more of how Skaar’s Old Power works.  The father/son dynamic being played out here is just great.  There’s a point in the fight where Bruce actually has doubts that this was a good idea, but sees that he may have underestimated his son. You can tell he’s got that feeling like he just saw his son hit a pop fly homer out of the park!  Greg Pak has taken two characters that I’ve not really liked and made me enjoy an entire issue starring them.  Admittedly, I hated Skaar after a few issues of his own book but he’s grown on me as of late.

I’ve liked Ariel Olivetti’s art on whatever title he’s on, though I hope Marvel keeps him here for awhile.  The only issue that I have is that sometimes the smaller adults look like teenagers and at times the 3-D backgrounds don’t sync up so well with the characters.  Other than that it’s great work overall and definitely worth checking out!

There has been a running joke about Skaar as he has no idea why people have been calling him “Conan!”  So Bruce does what every dad should do with their kid at some point, and takes him to a local comic store and shows him an issue of the Barbarian! It was little moments like this that made this book a very fun read and I’m glad Marvel put Pak in as the writer of the series.  There is a quick cameo from Beast and Mr. Fantastic discussing Banner’s plan of action and that they are very concerned with what the outcome may be, which sets us up for the next issue and all i have to say is… SNIKT!!!

There is also a She-Hulk back up story  written by Fred Van Lente and drawn by Michael Ryan.  It stars Lyra who is Hulk’s daughter from the future who is going after the group of super powered women that killed her boyfriend.  This group is put together by Norman Osborn and he has given them the powers of Zzzax, Abomination, and The Glob! Lyra’s got something of interest to Norman and we know he’ll do anything to get what he wants.

Infinite Speech
infinitespeech@comicattack.net