By: Jeff Parker (writer), Ed McGuinness (pencils), Dexter Vines (inks), Morry Hollowell (colors), Ed Dukeshire (letters) & Mark Paniccia (editor)
A-Bomb back up by: Parker (writer), Tim Seeley (art), Matt Milla (colors), Dukeshire (letters) & Paniccia (editor)
The Story: Red Hulk and Green Hulk have to team-up (kinda) to defeat a villain who has come to Earth just to beat a Hulk. But, which one is he after?
What’s Good: Sometimes it is kinda nice to have a “between stories” issue. I doubt anything in this issue is going to have huge, lasting implications for anything Hulk-related. Heck….Impossible Man shows up, so you know it’s going to be silly in a Saturday-morning cartoon sort of way.
The basic upshot of the story is that Xemnu, the Living Titan, has come to Earth just to kill the Hulk. But of course, there is more than one Hulk now. Xemnu, of course, runs into the Red Hulk (which he finds perplexing) and before long, both Hulks and a whole shebang of big Hulk-sized villains are also involved in the fracas. If you like watching Hulks smash big things, this will be fun for you.
The real star of the issue is a special “team-up” between the two Hulks. I don’t want to spoil it, but it’s a lot of fun and requires two guys who loathe each other (Banner and Ross) to work together in a very intimate way. It’s kinda like watching two guys who don’t really like each other compete in a three-legged race.
McGuinness is on his game doing his brand of Hulk art. It’s not really my kinda thing personally, but I know it clicks for a lot of people and it is very good art in conveying that Hulks are big and strong and smash things (which is kinda the whole point).
What’s Not So Good: Well, any time the Impossible Man shows up to watch the action instead of The Watcher, that is a tip-off that the story isn’t meant to be epic. That shouldn’t be read as code for “bad”. It’s just a bit of a comedown to have a non-essential issue after a very strong story arc dealing with the Scorched Earth plan by MODOK.
And, if you’re a particular fan of regular artist Gabriel Hardman and colorist Bettie Breitweiser, this issue may not suit you because this art has a very different look than what you’ve gotten used to. For me (personally), I’m buying this because I like the Hardman/Breitweiser art, so it’s a bummer for me whenever Marvel pulls them away to work on a .1 issue.
Conclusion: Not a bad issue, but you could skip this one and not miss much. I’m very much looking forward to getting the regular art team back and returning to the main story.
Grade: C
-Dean Stell
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