Something Different: 10 Points - HULK #23

Big ol' note: heavy duty SPOILERS lurk below.

It's here, at last. The origin of the Red Hulk! What many of you have been waiting for since HULK #1. And rather than do a direct review, which I don't think would be nearly interesting enough, let's take ten key points about this issue: what I loved, what I hated, and what just didn't make any sense. How can this issue fail to disappoint? Or can it? Ready? Go!

1. What the #@*! happened? In perhaps the most radical disconnect in this series since INCREDIBLE HULK #600 had Banner suddenly captured by MODOK at AIM's very own Gamma Base, we join ol' Thunderbolt when he wakes up in a room with the Cosmic Hulk. What happened after last issue's climax, where we discovered his secret just as he discovered his daughter Betty's? Did he pass out right then, and she tossed him aside to the Intel to have them lock him up? The thought seems utterly ridiculous that just as Betty discovered her father was alive, that she would just abandon him. I mean, it may be in-character to have her do just that, why are we not privy to that information? It makes little sense other than to have the dual revelations last month be a "good conclusion" for that issue and Ross' waking be a "good opener" for this issue. At the least, some better scripting could have filled in the gaps.

2. Sale good, dialogue bad. The origin of Red Hulk jumps from the childhood trauma that made him distrustful of doctors (I suppose all doctors are the same to Ross, from physicians to college professors, to scientists. Sigh.), over everything shown in INCREDIBLE HULK #291 (see last blog post!), to the events depicted in HULK:GRAY. That's right--it's not the events of INCREDIBLE HULK #1 to which Loeb refers, but the ham-fisted regurgitation of those events which apparently retconned the gray Hulk into the same inarticulate brute that his green self would, years later, become. Sale's art is terrific, as always, looking like it comes right out of the aforementioned series, and I suppose thematically it has to connect with that series right down to the dialogue--but the bottom line is, this is wrong and I don't like it.

3. Covet not thy nerdy scientist's gamma'd-up power. So, Ross saw the early Hulk as a "weapon of mass destruction" whose power he coveted. What then explains his fascination with destroying the beast? Has he felt these many years it was his God-given duty to destroy the creature, to prove that the might of the United States military was greater than that of some post-modern Prometheus turned monster? "Might makes right" is a very slight characterization to make. True, it may seem that with the Hulk, strength is the only language that matters. I guess it's the best characterization that makes sense in the pages permitted.

4. Sal Buscema still rocks. Even with an artistic snafu of sorts (Hulk needed shorts in that flashback to INCREDIBLE HULK #289!), Sal Buscema is still the classic Hulk artist to beat. In three pages, he flashed back to the events surrounding Ross' first treasonous actions in INCREDIBLE HULK #287-291. Solid storytelling, this.

5. Finally, a point for Loeb. "The treason charges were never filed." Ah, what this does to explain that Ross could be reinstated to the military following his resurrection by the Troyjans. So, Ross resigned his commission a second time shortly after INCREDIBLE HULK #291, being disgraced privately. Samson, under AIM's influence, testified that everything he did was under MODOK's suggestion. It's a small thing, but it worked.

6. And a point for the Leader. So, the Leader resurrected Ross as the Redeemer, which we knew, but he wasn't as much a vegetable as we thought. Shouldn't this fact engender a hatred of the Leader above and beyond any hatred for Banner? Ross knew everything that was happening when he was Redeemer, but couldn't react to any of it. You know, it makes what Ross does to the Leader at the end of the issue all the sweeter a victory. But I'm getting ahead of myself, aren't I? Ah, and those Churchill pages were pretty decent. It's good to again see his traditional "cut and rendered" style here.

7. "So, three guys are in a bar..." The scene where the Leader and MODOK offer Ross his daughter's resurrection in return for his loyalty is delicious and well-timed (right after the death of Captain America). It was totally obvious that they'd dangle Betty before him, but the scene still plays well. Leinil Yu does a fair job on the art for these pages, as does John Romita Jr. on the pages that encompass WORLD WAR HULK. (Note that as in RED HULK #3, the event is referred to as the "Ground Zero Event.")

8. McGuinness triumphs in that metamorphosis shot. Ross into Rulk, and away go the eyebrows and mustache. A brilliant two-page spread. That is all.

9. And Mike Deodato is spectacularly wasted. And I don't mean he was drunk when he drew these pages. Most of what Mike drew on these pages amounts to homage after homage, redrawn page after redrawn page of events that occurred over the course of the proper "Red Hulk" saga. He redraws McGuinness' pages, he redraws Romita Jr.'s pages, and in between he helps Loeb fill in some gaps regarding who killed Clay Quartermain and why (well done), whose voice it was coming out of the Ross LMD at the end of issue #6, and the whys and wherefores of the Banner/Red Hulk alliance. Yet, for all the eager gap-filling, we still don't know what Banner said to Ross way back in issue #2! Sigh.

10. I never liked Talbot, anyway. So, there's the matter of that last page. Who remembers Greg Pak's INCREDIBLE HULK #608? Then look at the last page of this issue and tell me that's possible. Yeah, that's what I thought. Now, it's true that Amadeus Cho told a little story about Talbot doing some black ops work, so that may mean he's really still alive somewhere else, but wow. A double reverse. Can we have a decent explanation for this one, please? I'd hate to think that Bannertech really isn't worth a damn. At least I can say that's one powerful way to finish an issue, even if it makes no sense.

So, what do you think, sirs?

~G.