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The Story:
In order to stay himself, Hulk must stay angry! Attempting to keep his rage levels high, Hulk challenges The Punisher to a battle that will prove to be the one of the deadliest fights Hulk will ever face!Review: Stay Angry
Man o Man . . . Two of my, all time, favorite characters together in the same book and I can’t get a handle on this. Greg Capullo once said (in jest) in an interview about the Batman title, that he has drawn for DC, that every time he gets a new script to draw from Scott Snyder that he is further convinced that Snyder HATES BATMAN! I feel this way about Jason Aaron’s treatment of the Hulk without Greg’s humorous inflection. I really want to like this title, I really want to support what’s being done here but I’m not enjoying it.
I have to admit that I have not been loving the Jason Arron run on this book thus far as a whole (Perhaps I’ll post about the rest of the series here as well in the future?). I don’t mean this as a slight to the man’s creative ability, his Hulk stuff is just not my cup of tea so to speak.
Aaron does a little role reversal at the open of the title by having the Hulk wake up in an unfamiliar place, bewildered and confused. Banner does some off panel narration as the Hulk has to fight his way though some Mexican thugs, asking questions and breaking skulls at the same time. Some of the elements of the fight scenes are odd as the Hulk isn’t fighting super powered opponents, they’re just thugs who might be obliterated by a punch from the Green Behemoth, but no, they’re sent through stone walls and take punches and a beating like it was man vs. man and not man vs. monster with god like crushing strength. For me it’s part of the Hulk that his strength is something that should be at the forefront of character and if anyone of average description is going to get hit by this guy that they would get DEAD.
Sure, the Hulk may have been taking it easy on los Muchachos because he wanted answers to what Banner was doing there but this was never mentioned or illustrated.
He runs into the Punisher, who barely says a word in the comic, totally unimpressed by the Hulk or the impending death around him and that was a awesome characterization by Aaron, and the characters band together to chase a band of Drug Dealers lead by an anthropomorphic Dog man named Pit Bull who wants to make Banner his Chem guy and rides around with poodles and collies in the back seat of his car.
At a certain point, Hulk starts to feel the transformation coming over him and realizes that he has to stay angry so that banner doesn’t get the better of him. He asks the Punisher to shoot him in the face and he does . . . . a lot. The whole scene here was dry and anticlimactic, even the guitar playing chick in the scene couldn’t even be bothered to be disturbed by the whole thing.
Satisfied that he’s sufficiently angry now, Hulk and the Punsher go after the the Dog faced boy and would you believe that the Dog man held his own in a fist fight against the Hulk!?! That’s really saying something for this new character, Pit Bull. Featured in one comic and he’s already one of the most powerful beings in the Marvel Universe . . . so what’s he doing dealing drugs for a living? Get where I’m going with this? You just went toe to toe with the Hulk which establishes you as on of the most Powerful beings in the universe and you don’t have loftier ambitions in life than to sell drugs? You could literally knock over every bank in the country and there are very few who could say boo about it.
This issue just has a boat load of uncool in it but I hold unbroken hope that next issue will have more to offer.
The Good:
Though the Punisher was completely useless in this comic it’s always great to see Castle shootin’ shit. Jason Aaron has some Punsher Max issues in his resumé and delivers a picture perfect rendition of the character that I love to love. I also like that Banner has the Hulk guessing at this stage and this plays to an interesting twist in the relationship of the characters that leads me to believe that they are going to physically confront one another again in the future. The colors in the book were perfect, Frank Martin adds highlights an midtones that really make panels and characters pop in every panel and on every page.
The Bad:
Deep breath . . . . and sigh . . . I hate to say anything bad about anyone’s art. If you’ve followed my infantile temper tantrums over the years you might know that I struggle, horrifically, with my art and getting the motivation to get the job done falls short every time on everything I do and I have burnt some bridges in my time that I will never live down so perhaps I don’t have the right to comment not having completes a whole comic book since 1993. That said, Steve Dillon’s style, much like Jason Aaron’s writing on this title, is just not my cup of tea. Dillon illustrates the smallest Hulk I have ever seen, just look at the contrast of Dillon’s art to that of the cover to illustrate my point. I know that he’s been in the industry for years and years but he’s lacking deeply in the in the aesthetics of comic book dynamics. Bar brawling humans of any stature should be dwarfed by this Beast yet are illustrated to be a near physical match for the Hulk in this issue and I can’t wrap my head around the idea. The main villain is called Pit Bull but doesn’t resemble it’s namesake at all and the fact that he can handle his own against the likes of the HULK is perplexing, to the points mentioned above, and a bit frustrating. I just find his art to be dry and it makes the story stale.
The Verdict:
I think you get the point. I’m looking forward to how Aaron develops the relationship between Banner and the Hulk because it seems like Banner hasn’t lost all of his nut-bag mentality and is planning on sabotaging he Hulk in some way. Though I don’t feel that this is a good title, I feel that Aaron has done a good job in getting me to want to see what happens next with the character. I will not, however, buy another Hulk book of this quality at $3.99. I will have to investigate weather or not digital download will be cheaper in the foreseeable future.
Attachments:
Commissions | Deviant Art | Twitter | Facebook | MySpacePlanet Hulk was awesome not so much for the art, though the art wasn’t bad, but for the shear weight of the trials and indomitable will of the Hulk!
The story has my interest too and I hate having to admit it. I stated that I wasn’t going to buy issue #9 and I did. More nonesense in that issue too with the Hulk taking the dark water to get himself out of the situation but in the end, the plot thickens. . . . what is banner up to?
I guess that I’ll have to plunk down another $4 to find out.
Commissions | Deviant Art | Twitter | Facebook | MySpaceNoy Chi-Tat!! Loved that cartoon! I might have to post about it! LOL I called it Dark Water, I can’t remember the name of it in the comic but I can’t remember the Hulk ever needing roids or performance enhancing substances to overcome the challenger. . .
Commissions | Deviant Art | Twitter | Facebook | MySpace
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