THE FINAL WORD : WORLD WAR HULK

by ADA Jazzy D

     So, World War Hulk is over.  For months now, Marvel has been milking every red cent out of the iconic image of the Hulk toppling Manhattan.  The Mean Green came back from space all miffed about the Illuminati blowing up his planet.  WWH was to be an epic battle.  Now, that it’s finished let us ask whether this gladiator-themed main event gets the proverbial thumbs up or thumbs down. 

     Firstly, you got the main story.  Hulk comes to New York.  Hulk gives a deadline for the Illuminati to turn themselves in.  Hulk then smashes most of NYC.  The fights are fun.  The battles are on a city-wide scale, though hardly “World War.”  Reading that title one might have hoped for some real damage.  And, yeah, they seem to have toppled a goodly amount of buildings, but you tend to get your hopes up when writers start throwing about names like “world breaker.” 

     Hulk fights Iron Man, then the FF, and then the Army, and then Dr. Strange (we’ll get to the Sentry fight later).  And its good fun, but, and there’s always a “but,” the big foes go down easy and mostly they seem to try to stop the Hulk with pure force.  Even when Strange is channeling some big baddie called “Zom” he just beats on the Hulk.  Only Iron Man tried a nano-attack (which still is essentially stabbing him—shrink ray anyone?  Were the teleporters off-line?).  Frankly, the Hulk should be mad, but this whole guilt-ridden thing the heroes are going through is a bit much.  Plus, the Hulk is all mad, but so far he hasn’t killed anyone.  Iron Man at least got to give a cool speech.  Marvel managed to completely remove any suspense by making it sooo very obvious Hulk was going to win these fights.  But then some fun when readers learn Hulk plans to make them fight each other to the death.

     The side stories are the real disappointment.  Most of them wallow in Marvel's post-modern confusion.  Hulk is good, Hulk is bad, Hulk is bad but so are the Illuminati, Americans are bad, the military is bad, the evacuation is good, the evacuation is bad, the initiative is bad, the kid Avengers are good but stupid, and on and on.  A certain amount of the melodramatic whining is to be expected in comics.  But, really, Hulk invades and idiots stay inside the city, then everyone is suppose to feel sympathy for Hulk and these crazies?

     Ghost rider:  he’s one of the number of characters that probably could stop the Hulk but all can’t or won’t for whatever reason.  Fresh off a surprisingly successful movie, he gets dragged into the non-world-wide World War Hulk.  But, the Rider part of Johnny Blaze refuses to take Hulk out because he only protects the innocent.  Ergo, the Illuminati shot Jade Jaws into space and that was very, very naughty.  It comes off as a forced attempt to sell that getting rid of the Hulk was a bad idea.  The spidey-mobile was a bad idea.  Insurance adjusters all over the world were cheering the Hulk getting the boot.

     Punisher:  Hey, this side-bar was just fun.  Sure, Frank Castle is the only hero (oddly enough with no powers) to be able to even put a dent in the War Bound/hive's ranks (even if it is a bug)—that totally makes sense, right?  But regardless of plot, action is action, and action is good.

     Heroes for Hire:  More bugs.  Doubtful anyone reading this has any clue about the plot.  It’s sort of like Sex in the City with kung fu and alien attacks.  The artwork is a guilty pleasure, but the story doesn’t seem to have any real connection to the Hulk threat.  If action is action, then eye candy is eye candy, and eye candy is fun.

     Ant-Man:  At least, he tried something other than punching the Hulk.

     The Renegades:  Okay, here’s where barf meets bag.  Does anyone else hate this Amadeus Cho kid?  He’s super smart and he’s going to save the Hulk’s soul with a pep talk.  His theory is that the Hulk can see the math and knows no one will truly be killed.  This is sort of like telling the audience that you know that World War Hulk will never live up to the hype.  They tried to make it seem like he was going to kill Cho, but nobody bought it.  Cho’s a youthful genius that can see how things should be, unlike it establishment, and he just happens to be planning a “Gammaworld,” which sounds oddly like a spin-off.  No character that is so completely an unveiled voice of the writer/Marvel could ever be done in.  Unfortunately, Hulk didn’t kill this annoying jerk.

     Frontline:  Suicide pill, please.  Look, Frontline has an interesting, gritty feel, but the holier than thou monologues and the contrived story-lines.  How about the NASCAR/UFC buff that wants to watch the Hulk’s little death-match?  Or better yet the whole group of dingbats that want to follow the “Green King.”  Americans as bullies that love bloodshed and can’t understand the difference between good and evil, or care?  If you have to indict all of society to create a story-line you might be barking up the wrong tree.  Now, the detective bonus story was good, old fashion stuff, but very predictable.

IS THAT XAVIER THAT HULKS GOT BY THE NECK OR LEX LUTHOR...HARD TO TELL?

     X-men:  Fights were quick.  Poor explanation for Hulk letting Xavier go.  Generally, these issues just teased us that the Hulk might get really dark, but never pay off.

     The Initiative:  These kids are morons.  They can’t play by the rules.  They were basically just useless.  And boring.  Fastball or speedball or whatever he’s called is the only one that did anything interesting and that was to sabotage Iron Man.  And right in the middle of the fray Justice give us some big speech about how the New Warriors tagging campaign is about youth and revolution and other groovy stuff.  Dull.

     Gamma Corps:  Whatever.  Every member is brought together by hatred for the Hulk.  Surely these gamma-freaks will both bring a real sense of war to this conflict?  No, by the end they Gamma Corps figures out that they shouldn’t have ever hated the Hulk.  They were all wrong about the Hulk and had been manipulated by the shadowy military-industrial complex—doesn’t anyone have a legitimate grudge with the Hulk?  The artwork was kind of odd, and the plot twists so obvious they were really more like plot bends.  When Grey actually snapped Hulk’s neck, all that came to mind was “what lame excuse are they going to use to get out of this?”  FYI:  apparently the Hulk just got better.  They wind up with the Gamma Corps planning revenge on their former benefactors, which sounds like a total waste of story.  A bunch of heroes we aren’t interested are going after a bunch of regular humans we never heard of in the next exciting issue of Gamma Corps! 

< MASSIVE SPOILER WARNING >

     If you don't want to know how it ends go no further.

     So, in issue five, Sentry gets in the fight.  Iron Man got another cool speech when he told Sentry that sometimes you just have to "play god."  Sentry arrives just in time to save no one from death.  Apparently, all that talk about world breaking and killing was bluster because Hulk's real plan was to travel light years to humiliate the Illuminati and raze NYC.  Of course, to prevent this Sentry immediately starts fighting the Hulk in a fire tornado, razing most of NYC.  In the course to the battle, Sentry looses it and Hulk calms down due to the soothing power of being hit by a thousand exploding suns.  Hulk kind-of saves NYC from the Sentry.  Bruce Banner comes back and goes to plant a wet one on Rick Jones.  Miek, the bug guy, suddenly comes out of left field with a spear and a serious need for prosaic.  Rick Jones knocks Bruce out of the way of Mr. Stabby, which must be to prevent him from hulking out since that's what always happens just before Bruce gets killed, and Rick gets killed--immediately resulting in a hulking out, so, kind of poor planning. 

     Hulk starts pounding on Miek who then admits he saw the Red King's peeps set up the warp corp to blow.  So, now Hulk kills the bug, which according to that Cho kid is the first time Hulk ever killed without a some escape clause or explanation other than he was just mad.  Now, Hulk gets really mad!  He tells Stark to take him out before he "breaks the world."  So, Stark hits him with this space beam.  Apparently, Sentry couldn't beat him but this beam is the answer.  Anyway, Hulk goes down (but not out) and the War Bound get captured.  Plus, Hulk's son lives, full grown,with no explaination!

     WWH was like a big action flick.  Lots of fights, but the drama was forced.  In short, it should have been a war.  The two basic premises of WHH, that it is a world war and Illuminati blew up Hulk's Planet, are negated by the end of the story.  The various crossovers read like extremely minor footnotes.  Some of the fights were decent, but mostly it was a one sided blow out.  All in all, WWH was fun but stupid, with, it seems, a fairly easy return to the status quo.