By: Jeff Parker (writer), Gabriel Hardman (art), Elizabeth Breitweiser (colors), Ed Dukeshire (letters), Jake Thomas (assistant editor), Mark Paniccia (editor)
The Story: Red Hulk continues to be on the run from Gen. Ross’ former second-in-command, while unbeknownst to him…. a new enemy is emerging.
What’s Good: Jeff Parker is really making this a fun series to read. Maybe it’s because Red Hulk is a relatively new character and we’re still learning about his capabilities and motivations, but everything about him seems new and fresh. This current plotline where Gen. Ross’ former #2 has infected Red Hulk’s brain with nano-robots that will explode and kill him if he sleeps or reverts to human form is really compelling. One of the neat things about Red Hulk under Parker is that he has this “old warrior” vibe to him: He’s old and achey (even as a Hulk), but he’ll still get up and go the jobs that need to be done. So, putting Red Hulk in a situation where he can’t go to sleep just accentuates the great “world weary” feel that Parker has cultivated.
Of course, it wouldn’t be a Red Hulk comic without some good Hulk-action and we get that as Red Hulk saves a small town from a tornado. I like that: Hulks taking on forces of nature!
Meanwhile, Parker is continuing to cultivate his B-story with the new villain, Zero/One who is a scientist melded with some smart alloy that has turned her into some kinda super-powered, emotionless automaton. For some reason (see below), she wants to kill Red Hulk and goes about enlisting a new army of bad guys to that end. There’s nothing necessarily remarkable about her (or her cohorts as villains), but I applaud Parker for bringing in some new bad guys. Just as Red Hulk is himself fresh because we don’t know everything about him, these new villains should be pretty cool and unpredictable. I honestly have no idea what a Red Hulk – Zero/One fight would look like and that’s a great thing.
I’m just going to rig up an autotext for the art from Gabriel Hardman and Elizabeth Breitweiser because it’s great again. Every month I think Hardman’s work is even better than the month before. His storytelling is impeccable and everything about the work just screams: Professional. The whole comic is very well done and it has a few of those “Wow!” panels (Hulk pressing a pickup truck over his head). I think he is also getting better at understanding how Breitweiser is going to color a panel because in some panels, he’s letting her do all the cool stuff with her colors instead of trying to draw those details in himself. This is really a beautiful comic and a large part of that are Breitweiser’s muted and unique colors.
What’s Not So Good: About the only “complaint” I have is that I’m a little foggy as to why Zero/One is out to kill Red Hulk. That could be my fault… I’ve got a full life and sometimes I’m sleepy when I read my comics and things like that fly right past me. It also doesn’t really matter because it’s superheroes and often the motivations for conflict aren’t much deeper than “this one is good and this one is bad, so they must fight”. But, I feel like Parker’s got a more legit reason for conflict here and I’m just missing it. Again, probably my fault, but this section looks kinda lame if I just say: “Nothing!”
And, although Parker avoids Act II boredom better than most, this issue isn’t entirely devoid of that problem where you’re reading it and can tell that the big fight won’t happen in this issue. Hey…it’s drama!
Conclusion: Good things happen when you smear together the work of three must-read/see creators. Hulk is just a fun romp of a story and has been one of the most consistently good Marvel titles over the last 6 months (when this creative team came aboard).
Grade: B+
-Dean Stell
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