Recently reviewed by me at CBR: Hulk #10, about which I write the following sentences: "What we get here is a spiritual sequel to 'Contest of Champions,' but with more gloriously bombastic art and more potential for explosive action. 'Hulk' will never be accused -- at least not in this incarnation -- of being a thinking man's comic, but it doesn't aim to be. It aims for pure comic book energy, for the giggling madness of four-color fantasy, for the epic splendor of titans tussling. I'm starting to sound like Stan Lee myself with all this hyperbole, but that's the kind of mood this comic puts you in. It's all about the visceral thrills of seeing the Defenders vs. the Offenders, the battle we've all been waiting for."Read the entire review HERE.
Part of me wishes we all wrote our reviews in the Hulk voice this week. Sure, it would have gotten VERY old VERY fast, but still...
ReplyDeleteI almost wrote one of mine as by "Chad Nevett & Hulk" in dialogue/mock column format, but thought better of it.
For the first half of this issue, I nearly found myself buying into the "harmless, dumb fun" theory that seems to be the consensus on this book. But then Namor said "we have an uneasy alliance", and I had to stop myself. No - Jeph Loeb is bad, and his scripts are harmfully bad. Or at least bloody insulting.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, were there multiple inkers on this one? Ed McGuinness appeared to go "off-model" a couple of times, which doesn't usually happen. I've always though his art was marked by an absurd level of consistency.
Yeah, some of the panels looked a bit different than others, but I think it still was a great-looking issue.
ReplyDeleteAnd the "we have an uneasy alliance" line really bothered you? Why? How does it make Jeph Loeb bad? I don't get it.
Oh, not in isolation, it just happened to be the moment that all my Loeb-animosity came flooding back. And then frothing out of my mouth.
ReplyDeleteI mean, that's a terrible line, isn't it? It probably irks me even more because of a straw-man defense I'm going to concoct here: that it's pastiche, and he's homaging simpler times when comic books were filled with such on-the-nose declarations. But to that I say: I have no reason to believe Jeph Loeb is capable of anything better.
And the script just gets worse from there, with everybody going on and on about how everyone's from different timelines - even though we've been told twice already in both dialogue and narrative captions - which definitely isn't pastiche, and is just insultingly bad exposition overload.
I think it was a great-looking issue too - I'm only here for McGuinness, clearly - just a couple of things looked odd to me. It's only got Dexter Vines' name on the cover, but I don't have the issue to hand to check the inside credits.
The worst line was "You choose the 'WHO' is on your team. I choose the 'WHEN.'"
ReplyDeletewhat a butchering. "The WHO is on your team." Jesus.
Otherwise, fun ish.
I bought this tonight and I agree that it is great fun.
ReplyDelete