By: Jeff Parker (writer), Gabriel Hardman (artist), Bettie Breitweiser & Jim Charalampidis (colorists), Ed Dukeshire (letterer), Jake Thomas (assistant editor) & Mark Paniccia (editor)
The Story: Red Hulk and Omegex fight and Rulk gets some unexpected allies.
What’s Good: Boy will I miss Gabriel Hardman when he leaves this title. This is such an attractive comic! You could just go down the list of things that I like in comic artists and they are all on display here: good storytelling, brushy & vibrant artwork, detailed objects & machines, powerful looking characters who never look like they’re just standing around, attractive women without resorting to D-cups and thong uniforms, attractive women period, cleverly laid out pages, etc. I especially love Hardman’s page layouts. I know there is something to be said for newer artists sticking with the “grid” but I’d love to hold up these Hardman pages and say, “This is your ultimate goal, boys and girls. Now work at perfecting your craft so you can do this without it being a jumbled mess where the reader doesn’t know what panel comes next.” Make sure to catch his upcoming Betrayal of the Planet of the Apes coming from Boom! in a few months.
Helping this issue look pretty are some beautiful colors from two of my current favorite colorists. I wish every comic could be colored by Breitweiser or Charalampidis! It’s so nice to see colors that don’t just look like someone was fiddling with Photoshop.
And, the “story” is pretty hot too. One of the wonderful things about Rulk is that he hasn’t been around for so long that he feels completely “safe”. By contrast, most of our favorite superheroes are totally safe, but something could happen to Rulk. Get killed? Forced back into permanent Thunderbolt Ross form? This freshness gives the battle between Rulk and Omegex higher stakes than the typical superhero battle.
This issue also represents the culmination of almost a year’s worth of storytelling by Jeff Parker as just about everything is coming full-circle here. Parker is such a gifted storyteller. I enjoyed the stories about Zero/One, Black Fog, Fortean, etc. all along the way, but now it is clear that he was also building to this moment. I won’t spoil who is fighting whom, but it’s pretty neat to see a story that is told in the fashion of the old X-Men rather than clearly delineated 6-issue story arcs (Ugh!). Because they’ve been so well developed, we care about every character in this issue.
What’s Not So Good: Nothing really. This is a really strong issue without any real flaws. Being the middle issue of the story, it can’t quite hit the “epic” level, but it won’t surprise me if that happens next issue.
Conclusion: It is so rare in today’s comic market to know that a comic is going to be good before you open it, but Jeff Parker has taken Hulk to that level. He’s been on this title since issue #25 and every issue has been between strong and outstanding and when Hardman is on the title too, it just goes to another level. Can’t wait until next issue to see what happens with this interesting cast of characters.
Grade: A-
-Dean Stell
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